Circus Clowns made a good call...

[Lizzerd]

...but the penalty wasn't served. After I heard the rule explained on the broadcast, seems that Kneifel, et al, were right to zing PT for his pit move. When he served the penalty during his next stop though, I'd like to know who the heck was counting to five. I only got to three after the hose was pulled and the CART official waved him on. That wasn't a penalty, it was just a slow stop.

Fodder for consipacy theorists: Did Gerry slip the guy a couple Franklins to encourage him to quicken his ticker?

[nrc]

Fortunately Fernandez made it a moot point.

[Lizzerd]

Originally posted by nrc
Fortunately Fernandez made it a moot point.

I was gonna say something about that, but I would have gotten off topic in my own post. :)

[Hink]

Tracy had about a four second lead before the pit stop and came out about one second ahead so it's plausible. I didn't see the pit stop though (from the end of the backstrech you can't).

[RaceGrrl]

Didn't PT make the point moot? He said himself that he screwed up by getting wide and into the marbles, which set up Adrian's pass. Fortunately, Fernandez took the risk and made the attempt.

As far as the penalty is concerned, if you time from the moment when the fuel nozzle is removed to the pit clown's hand gesture, it's 4 seconds.

[RaceChic]

Lizzerd, can you please relay how they explained it on TV? I had to completely redo my hard dive yesterday. It was running like a dinosaur. I missed the finer details of the race cause of it. :)

[JoeBob]

The officials probably don't carry stop watches for assessing penalties, so it is up to them to "count to five" then wave the driver out. He probably counted "One Mississippi Two Mississippi Three Mississippi Four Mississippi Five" and waved. That would take about four seconds (since he forgot the Mississippi after the five)

That, or the adrenaline is pumping and he was just counting fast. I wonder if they'll issue stop watches to the officials.

In any case, the penalty seemed fair. I did find it interesting that in the post-race interview, PT thought he was penalized for his run in with Jourdain in the Festival Curves, and still didn't seem upset about it. (I watched that run-in frame by frame, and it seemed to me that Jourdain was in the wrong. PT had his front wheels locked, which seems to disprove Jourdain's explanation that PT drove into him until PT spun him out.)

[Lizzerd]

Originally posted by RaceChic
Lizzerd, can you please relay how they explained it on TV? I had to completely redo my hard dive yesterday. It was running like a dinosaur. I missed the finer details of the race cause of it. :)

Paraphrasing, PT pulled directly into the left lane of the pits right in front of MJ rather than into the right lane and accelerating up to the pit speed limit first before he merged. This caused MJ to brake hard to avoid ramming PT's gearbox.