Stupid Rule Costs Castroneves IRL Race

One of the dumbest rules in sports played a huge factor in the outcome of Sunday’s IndyRacing League race in Edmonton, Canada. It cost three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves a win and gave one to Scott Dixon, a driver who never led a lap the entire race.

With just a few laps remaining in the race rookie driver Simona De Silvestro went off course and stalled bringing out a caution. This caution set up a restart with four laps remaining with Castroneves in first place, his Roger Penske Racing teammate Will Power, who had led the majority of the race, in second place and Chip Ganassi Racing driver Scott Dixon in third place.

On the restart Castroneves was penalized for blocking Power. Following the perceived block, Power tried to make a move around Castroneves going into the first turn and was passed by Dixon for second place. The IRL reviewed the play and called for Castroneves to be black flagged, which results in a drive through penalty down pit lane.

Castroneves didn’t heed the IRL’s black flag and remained on the track and in front of Dixon until the checkered flag flew. Castroneves was the first driver to the finish, but the IRL race competition boss Brian Barnhart immediately gave the win to Dixon. Thus, Dixon became the first driver that I’ve personally seen in any form of motorsports to win a race without actually leading a lap.

Following the race Castroneves jumped out of his car noticeably outraged and stomped over to the IRL scoring tower pointing up toward the tower and screaming. Castroneves also pushed multiple race officials and grab one by the shirt collar. Some would think these actions as an overreaction, but certainly they were justifiable based on the outcome of the race.

The no blocking rule in the IRL is implemented as a safety issue. Blocking could result in contact between two cars, which could lead to an accident. Blocking is against the rules in certain motorsports leagues like the IRL, but not in others like NASCAR. Stock cars are much safer than the cart style cars used in the IRL.
In my opinion, taking blocking out of a motorsports league takes much of the defensive strategy out of the racing. If you can’t block the car behind you then there is absolutely nothing to stop faster cars from passing you for position or the win.

That is just one of the reasons that the IRL’s no blocking rules is one of the worst rules in all of sports. The other reason is that sometimes blocking isn’t as obvious as switching positions on the track by swerving back and forth, as was the case at Edmonton on Sunday. Despite the fact that Power, Dixon and Barnhart said that Castroneves did indeed block on the restart, it wasn’t visibly noticed on the television broadcast and the entire three-man broadcast team on the Versus network admitted that they thought the call by the IRL was a bad one.

The blocking rule in the IRL is right up there with sudden-death overtime in NFL regular season games as one of the worst rules in sports and should be looked into by the IRL.