At New England Dragway, I can't even see the cars until the pull up to stage, so there could be a mob around the water box and I wouldn't see them. I did hear race officials talk about having to have security clean out that area, didn't really notice which cars were running at the time.
I'm sure the reason for the notice is that people with crew passes have been using them to stand around the water box for an entire session instead of just when their car is preparing to run or making a pass. There is a designated viewing area for that, well away from the burnout boxes. At all tracks there is a line at the head of staging and if you want to stand past that line, you are supposed to either be in the designated viewing area or on one of the teams that are either in the water or on the track.
Both sanctioning bodies have similar rules, NHRA usually has a couple of track security people stationed there to enforce them and IHRA generally has one of their own people in that area checking credentials. Could be that somebody gave the security folks a little tongue action when they were told to move on in New England or Martin. So IHRA felt it necessary to remind the teams that there are rules and they should know what to do without being reminded at the track. In other words, a team is responsible for the behavior of those wearing that team's credentials and should know the rules that their people should follow.
