I was testing at the local track here.
I was put up against a door car (test and tune).
I did my normal burn out and backed up, the door car did a burn out and pulled up to the line.
He lit the prestage light, and then I lit my prestage light.
I waited for him to stage, once he did I moved forward to light my stage light, as I moved forward my red light came on.
The starter came out held me, ran the other car and then had me back up and restage and I ran my time trial.
After I returned to the pits, while the track was being prepared for racing, I went over to talk with the starter.
He told me what he suspected happened was the door car prestaged, then turned the stage light on, then backed up to turn it back off.
By doing this he started the timer for staging.
This was done while I was working on turning my pre stage light on.
He says the door car driver then counts off six seconds and then stages (stage clock set to 7 to 10 seconds).
This cuts the time I have to stage to 1 to 3 seconds.
The starter says he has seen this trickery at this track before (understand that as soon as I saw his stage light come on I moved to turn my stage light on, but my red light came on right away).
I asked if this had been a race if that would have been a loss for me and he said yes.
Over dinner I was talking this over with my wife.
She says the crew person for the door car was out in front of the door car helping him stage. The thought has crossed my mind that the crew person might have tripped the stage light (by accident or on purpose as a way to win the race).
Up till now I have always curtsey staged (prestage, allow the other racer to prestage then stage and allow the other racer to stage).
This starter suggested I not do that, double bulb and not worry about what the other racer is doing, feels wrong to me.
This is the first time this has happened to me, has this happened to any of you?
Is this tripping of the stage light legal?
Your thoughts?
Glenn