ROSSBURG, Ohio — Crews heading to Eldora Speedway knew that communicating with drivers during competition was going to be a bit more difficult after track officials last month announced a ban on signal sticks for the Dream XXIX weekend.

During the drivers’ meeting Thursday afternoon, crews discovered it was going to be even more difficult than initially thought when officials significantly restricted where crews could position themselves in the Eldora infield, forcing signaling crew members into an area 70 feet inside the racetrack near the infield media center.

Eldora’s rule was met with mixed reactions, confusion and at least one case of illegal signaling that went unreported to officials during the opening night of Dirt Late Model racing’s richest event of the season.

The banning of signal sticks — often long, neon-colored rods that crew members manipulated so drivers know anything from the margin of their lead to which groove an approaching competitor is running — matched the nearly 2-year-old rule of the World of Outlaws Case Late Model Series, whose sister organization DIRTcar Racing governs Eldora’s Late Model events.

That expected change didn’t surprise teams, but race director Erik Grigsby’s announcement that crews would no longer be allowed to stand along the frontstretch fence, the traditional spot for signaling drivers, stirred concern.

“To me, it’s not so much the signaling, it’s now we can’t even stand at the fence and watch,” said Danny White, crew chief for the Rocket Chassis house car.

“We can’t even barely watch the race,” said longtime Dennis Erb Jr. crew chief Heather Lyne, whose gesticulations with colorful gloves, pink hat and pink vest to improve her visibility was mostly futile in the official signaling area that was so far from the track. “I don’t mind the no sticks. I just think that they need to let us go back up on the fence.”

Driver Mike Marlar of Winfield, Tenn., the third-place finisher in the night’s opening semifeature, has never been a fan of signal sticks or the ability of crew members to position their drivers to block rallying competitors.

“I’m glad to see them things go. I don’t know if they made much of a difference (in Thursday’s racing), but I think there’ll be a lot of guys lost without them,” Marlar said. “I’m been screaming about it for a long time. I’m glad they finally did that.”

Eldora facilities manager Rob Platfoot, who supervises the infield crew at the Jerry Gappens-promoted track, said the decision to ban the signal sticks and force crews away from the frontstretch fencing came about because of safety concerns.

“We were tired of ‘em putting the sticks through the fence,” Platfoot said, calling the changes “a work in progress.”

After Grigsby’s afternoon announcement, he was peppered with questions about the changes and about where crews could stand by White, members of other teams and reporters. Concerns brought up included about how the track would restrict crew members (or others) from signaling outside the track, about how officials would determine whether a signaler was part of a particular team, and if such changes would increase the likelihood of illegal radio or cell phone communications between crews and drivers.

White and many other crews weren’t upset that signaling was restricted, but he felt like the track was making “more rules that aren’t easy to govern” in asking series and track officials to ring the infield to spot violators.

“Now we’re just opening a can of worms,” he added. “They can’t (govern) all the rules they’ve got, so now we’re going to add more stuff we’ve gotta watch out for.”

In an interview after the drivers’ meeting, Grigsby reiterated that signaling team members would be herded into a rectangle section near the infield media center next to the post-race technical inspection area. Crews would not be allowed to stand near the frontstretch or backstretch walls.

“You can’t be against the wall,” he said. “If there’s somebody signaling back there, we’re going to tell them to move. If they don’t move, the car will be disqualified.”

Track officials had been told to take photographs of any crew members signaling illegally so officials could determine the offending team. Grigsby clarified that the disqualification would be only for the current race, not for the entire program or Dream weekend.

As it turned out, dozens of crew members stood alongside the frontstretch fence over the course of the night’s heat races. None appeared to be signaling, but crew members for drivers Josh Putnam, Devin Moran, Brent Vosbergen, Spencer Hughes, Devin Moran, Brian Shirley, Kaede Loudy, Kyle Bronson and others positioned themselves in traditional frontstretch spots, some of them standing on four-wheelers for a better view.

It appeared that no crew members used the designated signaling area during the heat races, but D.J. Stikeleather, a crewman for driver Adam Stricker of Batavia, Ohio, was told he could signal inside the backstretch wall provided he stayed inside the concrete path. His position was OK’d by a nearby track official. Teams did use the designated signaling area during the semi-features, but with little effectiveness, it appeared.

The lone episode of unapproved signaling spotted by a reporter was when Nick Dohm, crew chief for his brother Zack Dohm, stood alongside the backstretch fence and raised his arms to signal on the first lap of a heat race. Nearby track workers took at least one cell phone photo and told Nick Dohm to quit signaling. The workers said the photo was sent to Platfoot to report the incident, but Platfoot later said he never received the photo. After the night’s action, Grigsby also hadn’t heard about the incident.

Zack Dohm, who said he arrived late at the drivers’ meeting and missed the admonition regarding signals, ended up transferring to his semi-feature with a fifth-place finish. He was a little perplexed why his brother had quit signaling him.

“I was watching him chit-chatting with (former driver) Jerry Rice, and I’m like, ‘Give me a signal,’ ” Dohm said. He was later told by Nick: “I was trying to keep you from getting thrown out.”

Despite the potential violation, Dohm said the new rule was “probably going to be a good thing” to have racing unencumbered by groove-switching drivers tipped off by infield crew members.

With the designated signaling location virtually impossible to see by drivers, some crew members — including White — received a blessing to stand on the liftgates of haulers on the frontstretch to signal drivers. Besides White signaling driver Hudson O’Neal, drivers Brandon Overton, Ricky Thornton Jr., Jonathan Davenport and Devin Moran also had crew members perched on frontstretch liftgates.

O’Neal, who led most of his semifeature before Tim McCreadie overtook him on a late restart, said he didn’t really benefit from White’s positioning. He could receive signals from White during caution periods but not during green-flag action.

“That’s a long way to look, you know what I mean? If you turn your head, you probably could see if you really got to looking,” O’Neal said. “But more so just there for under caution to kind of tell you what they think or, you know, if you’re doing all right or whatever.”

O’Neal didn’t taking a position on the efficacy of the new rules, but he agreed that the track “got what they wanted a little bit. They got the no signals.”

Lyne wasn’t pleased with her inability to be in a position to assist Erb.

“Having us be off the fence and so far away from the racetrack, it’s hard to do our jobs that way,” she said. “I don’t understand; NASCAR has spotters. Why are they taking this away from us? I don’t understand it.”

But Marlar was glad to race under the new rules he believes will lessen the chances that driver rallies will be stymied but crew members directing drivers to block such challenges.

“I don’t know what it did tonight, but it’s gonna make a lot of races better, because there’s so many races that are about to get good,” he said. “They get screwed up by a guy in the infield with sticks. There are so many times that I was on the verge of passing for the lead and that would happen. … Hopefully everybody gets away from it and we quit robbing the fans of these good finishes.”