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Description of problem:
Starting the service, and immediately checking its status results in an error.  It appears the lockfile gets created, and there's a tiny window where the pid file isn't there yet.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
httpd-2.2.15-39.el6.x86_64

How reproducible:
Usually - >90%

Steps to Reproduce:

1. service httpd stop
2. service httpd start; service httpd status

Do note in #2 the commands must happen in rapid succession.

Actual results:

[root@satellite ~]# service httpd stop; service httpd start; service httpd status
Stopping httpd:                                            [  OK  ]
Starting httpd:                                            [  OK  ]
httpd dead but subsys locked


Expected results:
service httpd status returns true

Additional info:
A very short sleep resolves the problem


[root@satellite ~]# service httpd stop; service httpd start; sleep 1; service httpd status
Stopping httpd:                                            [  OK  ]
Starting httpd:                                            [  OK  ]
httpd (pid  9352) is running...

I'm afraid that is not designed, documented or implemented to be an atomic operation, so yes there are subtle races.  Upgrade to RHEL7, with systemd you get exactly that guarantee.