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Swizcorner: Glendale “AMA GOFUNDME a Stopwatch!”

Comments (3)
  1. Sorry, disagree wholeheartedly.
    The rule is in place, everyone has to live with it.
    They do it in virtually every motorsport the same way. It is not a rally. Look at Formula 1. They do this silly timing thing and it just adds to the boredom.
    This procedure also adds excitement! Is it artificial? Sure, but what about any sport isn’t? All these folks didn’t just happen to meet out in a field, make a few obstacles and take off.
    There are bigger issues than restarts, and after all, how often do they occur?
    This seems more like Roczen worship, and feeling bad about his misfortunes the last few seasons.
    As NASCAR star Davey Allison once told me, “let’s just race!”

    1. I totally get what you’re saying John, so much so that I have to admit if it were further into the series and Roczen (or whoever) had a comfortable points lead and was leading during the red flag, I’d likely be in full agreement with you. I’m not any bigger fan of Roczen than the other likable racers but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping for his comeback story to see some W’s this year. I do still think it’s a terrible implementation of the restart rule to punish those who rode their balls off to gap the guys behind them and reward those who were lacking prior to the race stoppage. In theory a “team orders” situation could occur and have championship implications… Such as, say Tomac is down 3 points in Vegas and he’s running a distant second in the race; Savatgy could “take a dive”, force a Red Flag and erase the gap between Tomac and the leader… Yes, that is a stretch but lest we forget, team orders do exist.. Let Broc Bye… Chiz interfering with Reed in SLC ’09…

  2. So your restart suggestion; I like the theory, but in practice it won’t work with a guy waving a flag. Look at the numbers; you’re going to be able to wave a flag 1.312sec after the first? Then the next gap is 0.753sec. Keep on going..look at the gaps towards the bottom? You’re going to be able to wave, in separate, distinct motions, and correctly timed, gaps that are 0.406sec apart (17th and 18th)? How about 0.436sec for 9th and 10th?

    Let’s say you are a super human, who can accurately time these small increments from one another in sequence, and get the flag motions to be distinct as well…but now you’re also talking about a guy that is standing, what, 20 yards away from the riders from mid-pack on? How are you going to keep track? If you’re sitting there in 16th place, are you going to start counting to yourself every time the flagger releases a rider? Are you going to just assume the guy in the front of you is going at the right time?

    If you really want to go this route, then we need a gate system whereby the gates can be separated and are portable, and can be placed in the staggered formation. They are then electronically tied into the timing system and controlled by it, and each gate will open indepedently after the correct interval, thus giving each rider the proper spacing and time that they should be at – i.e. the same gap they had on each other when the red flag came out.

    …but by waving a flag? No way. Look at how awkward that restart was with a SINGLE flag wave starting it off.

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