Quote: When I worked in the tower at a local track, our tech guy would occaisionally tell the computer operator to change a racer's dial-in to 6.40. I would say why, he would say the racer isn't wearing his gloves, or neck collar, or pants.
Half the time the racer would stage without looking at the dial-in board, the other half would not stage thinking the tower put it in wrong. Then the starter would point out the violation.
I always got a kick out of that, it seemed like a better way to get the message across than DQing them.
when i worked as the starter at Milan for a long time, I would see things like this all the time, but if you dont catch it in time trials and fix it then... it wont come up during eliminations... you tell them once, twice to get on a collar or whatever, then the tech guy should be walking up to the guy in the lanes to tell him whats going on rather then screw with him behind the scenes, a cheap power play change his dial.
seems like your tech guy had a big man complex, couldnt confront someone but was happy to screw with them later in the day...
id see a violation, I'd motion to them before they stage what they needed to continue to run that fast, (make the choking motion for a collar, lift a leg and pat your thigh for pants,pretend to put on gloves for gloves, etc), if they aknowledged it then I considered it taken care of, I'd pull a crew member over and tell them, if they came back up without it, I would call tech and have them pulled over to be reminded, head of staging would look, anything after that then I'd back them off the line til they got what they needed, it wouldnt even get that far, the head of staging would step in before they were pulled out to race, no behind the scenes screwing with thier dial ins becuase we couldnt do our job.
I've backed my own father off the line for infractions before,
guess it all depends on the people and the track and the way they treat the racers.
