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IndyCar
INDYCAR: Competition Rules Reflect New Administration
Last year's rulebook used the term ‘discretion’ 87 times. After INDYCAR's new Race Director took a knife to it, it’s down to just six…
Beaux Barfield's imprint on INDYCAR's 2012 rules can be felt throughout the document, while some legacy items are primed for revision or deletion at the end of the season. (Photo: LAT)
The changes are subtle—more about taking baby steps than using a blowtorch.
It’s 29 pages shorter than its predecessor, contains 11,512 fewer words and has just six uses of the power-enabling noun ‘discretion’—down from 87 instances of the term found in the 2011 INDYCAR rulebook.
It’s not perfect, and will surely have some deficiencies exposed, but compared to what it replaces, Beaux Barfield’s first attempt to remodel INDYCAR’s rulebook is a step in the right direction.
With IZOD IndyCar Series teams clamoring for the new-for-2012 rules to govern the series and the Dallara DW12 chassis long before he was hired to replace Brian Barnhart as Race Director, Barfield took a rather pragmatic approach to the 2011 rulebook by modifying and modernizing what Barnhart had established, and has circulated a draft copy of the rules to the paddock for feedback.
While some expected an entirely new rulebook to be crafted, Barfield told SPEED.com he did what made the most sense in the short- and long-term.
“Teams needed to see the rulebook as soon as possible, and we also have to live with this rulebook all year long,” he said. “For the sake of continuity, I thought it was best to make the changes I felt needed to be made and get the rules out to teams ASAP, but it was also important to first work with many of the rules I agree with philosophically this year before deciding on a major re-write. Starting from scratch right from the outset would have made that impossible, but after I’ve had a year of experience with them, it’s possible the 2013 rulebook could have more significant changes.”
Barfield, who joined INDYCAR after a four-year stint as Race Director at the American Le Mans Series (and previously worked as a Race Steward at Champ Car), applied many of the rules and governance policies he’d found to be successful prior to joining INDYCAR—many of which are detailed below.
GENERAL OVERVIEW
The biggest change to INDYCAR’s rulebook comes in the general approach to decision-making power and rules clarification.
Looking back, Barnhart established a style of rulebook that offered a rather general framework for the rules that are used to administer a race. Within that framework, the Race Director had immense discretionary authority—the ability to use personal judgment—for situations that varied from mundane to highly complex.
Enforcing rules and assigning penalties were often highly subjective matters, rather than cut and dry circumstances. He also implemented a multi-person ‘court’ to help form those decisions—a jury of peers, essentially.
While final decision-making authority will always fall to the Race Director, Barnhart’s approach on how Race Control was run relied heavily on interpretation and opinion, with the rulebook serving as a loose (but not binding) reference guide to follow.
By contrast, and using an NFL scenario to depict a common rules- and penalty-based situation, football fans have seen a referee throw the yellow flag and call offside on many occasions. If there’s a question as to how the offside occurred, the head referee will gather facts from other judges who saw the offending player commit the penalty, and in a short amount of time, the head ref will announce the infraction, explain which player committed the infraction and detail the penalty that is attached to the infraction.
“Offside, defense, No. 75, five yards.”
Apply what often took place in INDYCAR’s Race Control to handle the same offside situation, and the outcome would have football fans rioting in the streets.
“Offside, defense, No. 75, but he’s a former champion and I know the guy and he wouldn’t do it on purpose, plus, the offense played a part in drawing him offside, so you can’t blame him entirely…I told him if he does it again he’ll probably get called for it, but, for now, we’ll just keep playing.”
Right.
NFL refs, as they should, use their rulebook to make decisions, rather than forming an on-field committee to judge the person committing the foul and whether the rulebook should be used and...if it is used...then concoct an on-the-spot decision as to what kind of penalty feels appropriate.
Barfield’s approach, like the NFL’s, strips the gab-fest and personal opinion part out entirely, and relies on a rules-first mandate.
Barfield has also changed the power and reporting structure within Race Control, eliminating the govern-by-panel voting system that seemed to create more problems than solutions.
Just as Barnhart had at his disposal, the new Race Director will have his own team of stewards to support him in Race Control (those stewards will be announced next week at IndyCar’s State of the Series), but their roles will be limited to exactly what it implies: support.
“My concept, which I was very comfortable working in at the ALMS, is to establish a step back that the stewards take in terms of their interaction with the Race Director during sessions and the race itself. The interactions will still exist; it’s there, it’s still productive, but it’s not a contribution to every decision the Race Director makes. I think it leaves them in a better position to act as overseers of the event. The stewards understand what I want to do and what I’m there to achieve from an officiating standpoint.
“They also know what the competitors are there to do, and to understand the history and precedents that have been set. That way, they serve as more of a safety net to keep me bound to the rulebook to keep my decisions rooted in what the rulebook allows me to make.”
Having a team to keep the Race Director honest, as Barfield explains, might be new to the IndyCar Series, but is a common practice in other series.
“This system is used in a lot of places, and it’s what I just came from using,” he said. “It empowers my stewards because they aren’t being asked to be a party to the decisions. They’re being asked to keep me on my toes and to act as a set of checks and balances to make sure I’m making the right call. If they say, ‘The rulebook says you don’t have the power to make that decision,’ it balances me and creates a much better safety net. Ultimately, our job is to make the right call. It’s as simple as that.”
Barfield also explained how he expects the new power structure to play out with the drivers during a race.
“When I step into a driver’s meeting, I’ll establish my expectations,” he said. “For example, I’ll say, ‘Guys, this is what I consider to be blocking. Here’s what I will call, and here’s what I won’t call,’ and I’ll drill down into the topic. Inevitably, drivers will then have questions, which I think is a really good thing. It’s not a one-way street. Their questions will add even more clarity to the situation, and we’ll take that range of what I’ll tolerate, and we’ll tighten up that definition based on their questions. Now they’ll know the types of blocking actions or situations I will or won’t call. It might not be 100 percent black and white, but they’ll understand where I’m coming from.
“I don’t want there to be any misunderstanding between what I’ve come up with from our meetings, and we can walk out of there and go racing with no questions as to what will or won’t be acceptable. So if a driver does something that I’ve outlined as move will result in a penalty, I’ll review the instant replay to confirm the action and then make the call. If I have to involve other stewards in the decision-making process and let personal beliefs or opinions influence that call, it’s counter-productive to the authority of Race Control. And it undermines our relationship with the drivers and teams.
“If we all agree in the driver’s meeting how things will go down, you can’t put that at risk with an officiating system that could cause you to go back on your word. You don’t want anyone questioning who’s in charge or where a decision came from. Having that direct relationship, for me, is incredibly important. It’s a one-on-one relationship, which removes a lot of complications.”
The appeals process will also look different in 2012, with Barfield creating the proverbial ‘separation of Church and State’ to keep the Race Director from becoming all-powerful when a protest is filed or an appeal is heard.
“That leaves [the stewards] in a better position to be more active in any actions that result in protests or appeals,” he continued. “As much as I’m there as the first step in the protest process, because we have that separation, I’m in a better position to hand it off to my stewards who won’t have any conflicts because they weren’t also involved in making whatever call I’ve made.
The protest and appeals process is far more formal in the new rulebook, and with Barfield now isolated from his stewards if a protest or appeal is filed, his predecessor could be brought in to add an additional layer of oversight and adjudication.
The thought of Barnhart being involved in the protest or appeal process might not strike the right chord with everyone, but as the person with the most Race Control experience on INDYCAR’s payroll, it’s not a total surprise that he could be used in such a scenario.
Barring a protest/appeal, he will not, as has been documented many times, be involved in Race Control in any capacity.
NO LONGER A HEADACHE TO READ
Taking a first pass through the 2012 rulebook, it has been streamlined in a few different ways.
Through 2011, the INDYCAR rulebook used a combination of numbers, letters and Roman numerals to call out individual rules which, as its readers often found, was nearly impossible to keep track of. That has been fundamentally changed for 2012.
It’s 29 pages shorter than its predecessor, contains 11,512 fewer words and has just six uses of the power-enabling noun ‘discretion’—down from 87 instances of the term found in the 2011 INDYCAR rulebook.
It’s not perfect, and will surely have some deficiencies exposed, but compared to what it replaces, Beaux Barfield’s first attempt to remodel INDYCAR’s rulebook is a step in the right direction.
With IZOD IndyCar Series teams clamoring for the new-for-2012 rules to govern the series and the Dallara DW12 chassis long before he was hired to replace Brian Barnhart as Race Director, Barfield took a rather pragmatic approach to the 2011 rulebook by modifying and modernizing what Barnhart had established, and has circulated a draft copy of the rules to the paddock for feedback.
While some expected an entirely new rulebook to be crafted, Barfield told SPEED.com he did what made the most sense in the short- and long-term.
“Teams needed to see the rulebook as soon as possible, and we also have to live with this rulebook all year long,” he said. “For the sake of continuity, I thought it was best to make the changes I felt needed to be made and get the rules out to teams ASAP, but it was also important to first work with many of the rules I agree with philosophically this year before deciding on a major re-write. Starting from scratch right from the outset would have made that impossible, but after I’ve had a year of experience with them, it’s possible the 2013 rulebook could have more significant changes.”
Barfield, who joined INDYCAR after a four-year stint as Race Director at the American Le Mans Series (and previously worked as a Race Steward at Champ Car), applied many of the rules and governance policies he’d found to be successful prior to joining INDYCAR—many of which are detailed below.
GENERAL OVERVIEW
The biggest change to INDYCAR’s rulebook comes in the general approach to decision-making power and rules clarification.
Looking back, Barnhart established a style of rulebook that offered a rather general framework for the rules that are used to administer a race. Within that framework, the Race Director had immense discretionary authority—the ability to use personal judgment—for situations that varied from mundane to highly complex.
Enforcing rules and assigning penalties were often highly subjective matters, rather than cut and dry circumstances. He also implemented a multi-person ‘court’ to help form those decisions—a jury of peers, essentially.
While final decision-making authority will always fall to the Race Director, Barnhart’s approach on how Race Control was run relied heavily on interpretation and opinion, with the rulebook serving as a loose (but not binding) reference guide to follow.
By contrast, and using an NFL scenario to depict a common rules- and penalty-based situation, football fans have seen a referee throw the yellow flag and call offside on many occasions. If there’s a question as to how the offside occurred, the head referee will gather facts from other judges who saw the offending player commit the penalty, and in a short amount of time, the head ref will announce the infraction, explain which player committed the infraction and detail the penalty that is attached to the infraction.
“Offside, defense, No. 75, five yards.”
Apply what often took place in INDYCAR’s Race Control to handle the same offside situation, and the outcome would have football fans rioting in the streets.
“Offside, defense, No. 75, but he’s a former champion and I know the guy and he wouldn’t do it on purpose, plus, the offense played a part in drawing him offside, so you can’t blame him entirely…I told him if he does it again he’ll probably get called for it, but, for now, we’ll just keep playing.”
Right.
NFL refs, as they should, use their rulebook to make decisions, rather than forming an on-field committee to judge the person committing the foul and whether the rulebook should be used and...if it is used...then concoct an on-the-spot decision as to what kind of penalty feels appropriate.
Barfield’s approach, like the NFL’s, strips the gab-fest and personal opinion part out entirely, and relies on a rules-first mandate.
Barfield has also changed the power and reporting structure within Race Control, eliminating the govern-by-panel voting system that seemed to create more problems than solutions.
Just as Barnhart had at his disposal, the new Race Director will have his own team of stewards to support him in Race Control (those stewards will be announced next week at IndyCar’s State of the Series), but their roles will be limited to exactly what it implies: support.
“My concept, which I was very comfortable working in at the ALMS, is to establish a step back that the stewards take in terms of their interaction with the Race Director during sessions and the race itself. The interactions will still exist; it’s there, it’s still productive, but it’s not a contribution to every decision the Race Director makes. I think it leaves them in a better position to act as overseers of the event. The stewards understand what I want to do and what I’m there to achieve from an officiating standpoint.
“They also know what the competitors are there to do, and to understand the history and precedents that have been set. That way, they serve as more of a safety net to keep me bound to the rulebook to keep my decisions rooted in what the rulebook allows me to make.”
Having a team to keep the Race Director honest, as Barfield explains, might be new to the IndyCar Series, but is a common practice in other series.
“This system is used in a lot of places, and it’s what I just came from using,” he said. “It empowers my stewards because they aren’t being asked to be a party to the decisions. They’re being asked to keep me on my toes and to act as a set of checks and balances to make sure I’m making the right call. If they say, ‘The rulebook says you don’t have the power to make that decision,’ it balances me and creates a much better safety net. Ultimately, our job is to make the right call. It’s as simple as that.”
Barfield also explained how he expects the new power structure to play out with the drivers during a race.
“When I step into a driver’s meeting, I’ll establish my expectations,” he said. “For example, I’ll say, ‘Guys, this is what I consider to be blocking. Here’s what I will call, and here’s what I won’t call,’ and I’ll drill down into the topic. Inevitably, drivers will then have questions, which I think is a really good thing. It’s not a one-way street. Their questions will add even more clarity to the situation, and we’ll take that range of what I’ll tolerate, and we’ll tighten up that definition based on their questions. Now they’ll know the types of blocking actions or situations I will or won’t call. It might not be 100 percent black and white, but they’ll understand where I’m coming from.
“I don’t want there to be any misunderstanding between what I’ve come up with from our meetings, and we can walk out of there and go racing with no questions as to what will or won’t be acceptable. So if a driver does something that I’ve outlined as move will result in a penalty, I’ll review the instant replay to confirm the action and then make the call. If I have to involve other stewards in the decision-making process and let personal beliefs or opinions influence that call, it’s counter-productive to the authority of Race Control. And it undermines our relationship with the drivers and teams.
“If we all agree in the driver’s meeting how things will go down, you can’t put that at risk with an officiating system that could cause you to go back on your word. You don’t want anyone questioning who’s in charge or where a decision came from. Having that direct relationship, for me, is incredibly important. It’s a one-on-one relationship, which removes a lot of complications.”
The appeals process will also look different in 2012, with Barfield creating the proverbial ‘separation of Church and State’ to keep the Race Director from becoming all-powerful when a protest is filed or an appeal is heard.
“That leaves [the stewards] in a better position to be more active in any actions that result in protests or appeals,” he continued. “As much as I’m there as the first step in the protest process, because we have that separation, I’m in a better position to hand it off to my stewards who won’t have any conflicts because they weren’t also involved in making whatever call I’ve made.
The protest and appeals process is far more formal in the new rulebook, and with Barfield now isolated from his stewards if a protest or appeal is filed, his predecessor could be brought in to add an additional layer of oversight and adjudication.
The thought of Barnhart being involved in the protest or appeal process might not strike the right chord with everyone, but as the person with the most Race Control experience on INDYCAR’s payroll, it’s not a total surprise that he could be used in such a scenario.
Barring a protest/appeal, he will not, as has been documented many times, be involved in Race Control in any capacity.
NO LONGER A HEADACHE TO READ
Taking a first pass through the 2012 rulebook, it has been streamlined in a few different ways.
Through 2011, the INDYCAR rulebook used a combination of numbers, letters and Roman numerals to call out individual rules which, as its readers often found, was nearly impossible to keep track of. That has been fundamentally changed for 2012.
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