Leading Laps on Pit Road

[lepage71]

It has been brought to our attention by a few drivers that some of the laps led under caution have been due to what I would call track idiosyncrasies.

For example, at Las Vegas, pit road was a short enough distance, compared to the front straight and the position of the pace line, where drivers who just happened to be pitting were crossing the start/finish line before the leader on the track and thus, leading laps. We had a similar issue at Sonoma 2012.

I suspect this will also occur at other tracks.

What does everyone think should be done about this oddity? My administrative opinion is that we should not count these as laps led because they are not real laps led. No one's fault, of course, but it's an issue. We may need help in the future, e.g. in keeping on the lookout for it, reviewing the replay, etc.

As a result, we might be adjusting the initial, unofficial results for Las Vegas to account for the "pit road laps" led.

[DusterLag]

Unfortunately the only good way to fix this is to manually adjust it during replay reviews or notes by the race admin. Keeping in mind that notes by a race admin have a higher chance for mistakes.

[Jes Rathbun]

Speed up the pace laps for those certain tracks and add an extra lap of caution if need be.

[SpeedyExiter]

A simple solution would be when the pits are given the "open"signal .all cars pitting must wait for the pace car to cross the S/f line before 1)entering the actual pit lane. or 2)b4 crossing the equivalent s/f line that exists in the pits.

[lepage71]

All interesting ideas. Let's keep our options open on this issue.

I can say, after reviewing Las Vegas, and adjusting the laps led, I'd advise us to not do anything different...for now. It wasn't too difficult to track the laps led and adjust them when the pit road situation occurred. In the future, our perspective might change, but that was the case for Las Vegas.