Hey Guys,
Below is a video of the restart from Sundays race at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. The car in the video is about 8-9 cars back in the field. The SM group is the second group on track with PTE. The double yellow came out after lap one when two PTE cars beached in T6. After about 6 safety car laps the track is about ready to go green. At the start of the video the cars are on the back half of the track. You will see that there are still safety crews still on track with double yellows flying, however lights are out on the safety car. The driver in the vid cannot pass yet when the PTE cars get the green flag. There are still double yellows at this section of the track. But all the cars that have passed this section of track are green. The problem is that the race is over at this point for anyone further back than 4th or so in the SM group. Typically I don't care about this sort of thing because I feel that the leader is the driver that most often gets screwed in restarts. But this does seem a bit extreme as it put much more distance between mid pack racers than existed before the safety car.
Is this right? Did I just mess up and not call to the driver that the track was green as soon as the PTE guys took the flag? Could I have had the driver pass as soon as the green dropped regardless of the double yellows being shown locally? Should it have even been restarted with safety crews still on track and in between competitors?
Thanks for the help in understanding the situation.