Iowa Drivers Meeting

Here is a Transcript from the Iowa Speedway Nationwide series drivings meeting.  Lots of discussion about restarts due to the situation at Indianapolis last week. 



Series director Joe Balash starts off thanking sponsors and then goes through the normal script explaning the rules, including a mention of the competition caution on lap 50, 40 mph speed limit on pit lane and then he says, "The number two starter must not beat the number one starter to the line."  He also said "no brake checks, no weaving, stay close to the car ahead of you on the restarts."

Then he said he was going "off script" and talked directly to the drivers.

Joe Balash quoted..

"To make sure that they understand and take hold of these rolls, and not try to take advantage of other competitors that are out there and that each row throughout the field, not only the leaders but the second row and third row and so on throughout the entire field does what's necessary to do the right thing on restarts."

"You know the right thing to do, we are not going to go through all the bad things that can happen on the restarts.  Its up to each and every one of you to make sure that you are not affecting the car in front of you or cars behind you or the cars next to you on the restart procedures."

"You've done a great job.... most of the season.  There have been some cases in which we will have to react to it, and we will, if we need to.   But you know the right thing to do."

Elliott Sadler then asks a question "If the leader initiating the start and misses a sift, what is the protocol for 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th?""

"When there are any abnormal conditions that happen, if the leader or something happens with him, we don't know if its a big thing or a little thing Elliott we will take every incident under consideration and if its a bobble and he can recover, the right thing to do is if he can recover that we can do everything we can and make sure the leader gets to the start/finish line.  We are not going to manage inches and feet initially with that but, we are not going to make decisions, we are going to go racing with that."

Sadler: "What is the protocol if he misses a shift and slows down 30mph?"

"On a situation where you have something clear and blatant, we will make a call on that.  We want the whole field to try and do it right the first time OK.  There is a thousand different situations that can happen, we want everyone to do everything they can to make sure they don't do the wrong things on that to put people in a box where they don't want to be into.  We are asking for, if the leader has a bobble, if you can slow down with him a little bit and try and make sure the start is correct, that is what we would like to have happen."

Mike Bliss then says,  "If he slows down everyone in back has a wreck."

"I understand that," said Balash "and that's why we are asking everybody to do it right and not screw it up.. OK  (drivers laugh) guys, you know how it do it, we do it right a lot of times."