Creeping VS False Start define the difference

[Graham Smith]

Start position is Hands on marks gun loaded and holstered. Ro issues make ready competitor makes ready and is in proper position, "stand by" and before the beep the competitor removes hands from the marks and goes to the gun.

At first glance, that would seem to be a fairly clear false start, but the discussion that follows makes me question that assumption. If the shooter had drawn the gun, then that would indeed have been a false start. But since they didn't then it's rather ambiguous.

It sounds as if things happened so close to the beep that the RO didn't even notice. The shooter is on "gun time" which tends to seem longer than it is so while the time between moving and the beep may have been a half-second, the shooter may be thinking 1-2 seconds.

[bradsteimel]

This just happened at my club yesterday while i was RO'ing a competitor who routinely starts prematurely. He's selective about when he jumps, but always during a classifier. On this occasion, it caught me off-guard and i let it slide, thus giving him a big advantage on a difficult PAR time stage. On the second string of that same classifier, he jumped again, and i stopped him... and gave him a warning.

I differentiate creeping vs. false start as... when a competitor false-starts accidentally and stops himself, i consider that a false start and will give them another go. But if he doesn't stop himself, i feel it was intentional and they should be stopped/procedural'ed.

[Gary Stevens]

To each his own, but if I had a shooter who routinely started early, I would give him a rule book call rather than a warning.

[Sarge]

To each his own, but if I had a shooter who routinely started early, I would give him a rule book call rather than a warning.

Amen. And it's as easy as adding a procedural as soon as you issue"range is clear". I know a few shooters who like to jump the beep. I try to give them the beep closer to one second. It irritates them but I actually did them a favor as compared to issuing procedural.

And to answer the original question, false start is more like thinking he hears the beep and draws the gun, not starting to move towards the gun. On a true false start you have to stop him

Edited July 3, 2016 by Sarge