Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

What even happened? Dirtvision missed it and gibson was tight lipped about it.

He spun into the infield way before 3 laps to go and they never thru yellow.  Someone sais with 15 laps to go.  WOO should have thrown yellow and restarted him.

Rewatched it this morning and they did explain the situation, I just wasn't paying attention. Pretty crappy that they didn't throw a caution right when it happened. Heck gibson never even mentioned it when he spun off track, you just see haud drop down the running order. If that would have been the 49 you bet the yellow flies.

Right or wrong, the officials and/or flagman determined that he was well off the racing surface and in no danger of being hit when he spun into the infield, therefore no yellow.  However he and his pitman were wrong with the helmit toss, requireing the yellow flag and the pitmans attack on the official and gester made to the flagman and the grandstands.  There should be some sort of penality.

With Little Haud not requiring safety assistance and not in the way of the race going on, should they really have yellow flagged the race?  Some will say the right call was made, but that call needs to be consistent and I hope that it would be.  
 

I have had a lot of respect and admired little Haud' s progress over the years, but throwing your helmet onto the track deserves a disciplinary action.  Wrong on a number of fronts, but first and foremost safety and then followed up with representing not only the car sponsor, but more importantly the series sponsor!   What happened to the mild mannered, laid back driver that is portrayed in the interviews?  Yeah, I know the heat of the moment as some will say, but we see too many melt downs in the world and we give it a pass as the heat of the moment.  I believe this escalated last night because it was the track that first frustrated Haud.  He is a gasser and this was not a track for that type of driving.  Banging it off the wall several times and not making progress could have contributed to his reaction.....still not an excuse if that is the case.
 

Let's also consider the guy on the atv who aggressively confronted a safety worker and then made the class move down the front stretch.  I'm sure the sponsor loved that move!  Who was he flipping off? ......the fans.....the flag man.....the outlaws......the safety worker??  

Yellow should of been thrown.  If Sheldon can make it there, so could someone else from the racing surface.  No wall, no fence, nothing between him and racing surface. Just a guess, but when he did get out of the car after several laps, it looks like a track or outlaw official tells him to get behind the wall...which means where he and the car was was not safe.  

It is a really tight point battle right now, and emotions might have gotten the best of him.  Sheldon is by far one of the nicest, and laid back people out there, so I can only imagine there might be some other factors involved. NOS was on Sheldons car way before they got involved with the WoO...I can't imagine it would change except the WoO would be on the losing end.  I can't help but think of Jack Hewitt saying "they have a dumbass flagman that can't see".

Well, the WoO should at least be consistent in their discipline. They should give Haudenschild the same punishment they gave Dietrich for crashing out another car and the same punishment they gave the WoO official who attacked a crewman in the pits.

Did those other two clowns you mentioned get punished or did I miss your sarcasm? Its foolish to throw and toss hemets around, they are quite expensive and should be handled carefully. Sheldon should auction that hemet off, probably fetch a good price. I have to think that if Sweet would have been in that position the caution flag would've been flying.

Out of harms way is pretty subjective.

Not yet. So why would we expect the WoO to be consistent?

100percent guarantee sweet or Larson gets spun out by another car in the same spot yellow flies.  He didn't drive off the track on his own or spin on his own.  Horrible call no matter who it is.  Sheldon shouldn't have tossed the helmet on the track though. He was already screwed to 24th once he went lap down on that junk track.   The idiots on the wrecker were being jackasses the atv guy was there to push him to the pits 

Maybe the WoO will announce the penalty for Sheldon at the same time they give out the harsh penalty for the official who attacked a crew member and put it in the same press release. Sort of like the monthly police blotter in the newspaper. 

Some these guys are the size of horse jockeys.  That works if you're Spencer Lee or Paddy Pimblett but one of these days it's going to be disastrous.  It's easy to get away with the helmet toss and stuff like that when there is no fear of penalty or retribution.  Can't wait to see how some of these incidents turn out when it's another person who decides to fight back.

two big problems we have right now not just in sprint car racing...

1.  people go straight to conspiracy theories.  is there any evidence that things would have been handled different if it was sweet or larson?  didn't the world of outlaws penalize larson in his late model at bristol when he was late to staging?  

we make up truth as we go along.  it has to stop.  

2.  nobody knows how to act the right way any more.  i watched the youtube replay of this race as the last of about 5 or 6 races i watched.  i was saying to myself "finally...i got through a night of racing without any bs".  that was right about when they snuck in the line from gibson that sheldon threw his helmet.  it didn't take much work to find the video on twitter.

there is blame to go around here between sanctions and drivers at all levels.  everybody has bought into this "boys have it" philosophy.  that's great and we're being dishonest if we say we don't want to watch it and enjoy it.  the outlaws let their official jump a crew guy without punishment and the rahmers jump dd without punishment.  that costs you credibility and authority. 

sheldon has always come across as a class act and super chill.  you wonder if there is already underlying frustration with the woo and it boiled over as he saw his championship chances going away.  he probably thinks he can do what he wants including something dangerous like throw his helmet.  that's the example the woo and so many sanctioning bodies seem to be setting right now.  eventually they're going to get somebody hurt.  it's a miracle it hasn't happened yet.

by the way...i'm curious about what the rules say...but there should have been a caution.  the woo has set the precendent that if you spin into the infield...fire it back up and tear ass out of there even if people are around or you're driving into traffic.  

A question regarding track conditions - was Gravel running studded tires to keep his car handling on the ice skating rink?

There is a simple and obvious question to be asked.

Can anyone think of or know of an instance where a car has spun and stopped that a caution flag has not been thrown?

If not then the Outlaws screwed up plain and simple.

Obviously a caution will be thrown on a track with inside and outside fences, but how about Attica and Waynesfield and others tracks with that type of configuration? 

Sheldon can look in the mirror if he is looking to put blame on anyone. The situation wouldn't have happened if he didn't spin out in the first place. Don't put yourself in a position where you rely on someone to make a call no matter how easy you think it is because you may not get it. He doesn't spin like he was basically trying to do 2-3 times before then we aren't talking about any of this. Before anyone goes yeah but.....but nothing. I don't care if you think favoritism exists towards two drivers vs everyone else, it doesn't. Also the 49 & 57 don't spin by themselves or wreck themselves that often so at this point I'm just going to call it jealousy 

He was spun out by the 99 of Wight. He didn't spin out by himself. 

I've been around Sprint car racing for a hell of a long time. Midgets to and things of sure changed midgets have turned into practically a demolition derby sprint cars aren't too far behind. More and more tracks are going with just one person on the flag stand always used to be a flag man and an assistant flag man. Flag man has forgotten what a Black flag is don't know what the situation was in this case if the car was off the track and the driver was okay no yellow flag was needed that's how it used to be if you had a case where a track official. Got into something with a pit crew they were immediately fired if a pit crew got into it with a track official they were immediately banned from the track same with the driver the driver was always responsible for the pit crew. If a driver threw his helmet out on the track he wouldn't be back track for a few weeks like I say things are really changing starting to look like a real clown show kind of like NASCAR really disappointing almost to the point where you really don't enjoy it anymore. I think tracks track officials and the world of outlaws ASCS USAC powi and everyone else should take a hard look at how they're running things. Because they're definitely not going in the right direction but that's just my opinion I guess I could be wrong but I know I sure don't enjoy it as much as I used to   Glen Murra 

How should Haudenschild have acted when he felt he had been wronged?