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Race incident - race rule / etiquette query
Had a protest lodged in one of our league races recently. It's all done and dusted, some fairly spirited debate went on, I'm interested in a few other perspectives on the situation. I find myself in the minority corner and unimpressed by this Obviously you won't know the specific league rules, but there's nothing too unusual there. Incident between Oldddog and Shaun in the dipper on lap 3. Will post my thoughts later.

http://www.ozbee-r.com/replays/mb62.mpr
when i run replay it stops after first few bends
Well, Shaun was off track, he re-entered the track and caused the other guy to spin as Shaun was offline and slow, IMO the guy Shaun was at fault, he should have yeilded before the corner.

hehehehe, just watched it to the end, and the guy Shaun said he was locking his brakes and slid into the red guy, hmmmm.........no locked brakes are seen in the replay

Dan,
I'd say it was a race incident. Shawn was trying to rejoin the track and continue racing as quick as possible (maybe a bit too quick), but the other driver went way to optimistic into the dip corner. He steers into the corner as if there is no other car. I'd say both are at fault and thus a race incident.
#5 - col
i'm writing this before reading any of the other responses - to keep objectivity

IMO Shaun is clearly at fault. He made an error, and went off track. He should have waited until the track was clear before re-joining. In re-joining before the track was clear, he forced Olddog to make an evasive manouver, then tapped his rear end taking him out, double whammy of guilt !

col
#6 - col
Quote from danowat :...hehehehe, just watched it to the end, and the guy Shaun said he was locking his brakes and slid into the red guy, hmmmm.........no locked brakes are seen in the replay

Dan,

yep hehe - Shaun obviously knows he was in the wrong - says sorry at the incident, then later starts getting right into defensive mode and lying - like by the end of the race he's already begun to convince himself it wasn't his fault illepall
hmmm... not really sure.

mistake was definately made by shaun, but seemed to regain control. other driver was maybe chancing it a bit, but clearly got far enough in front to have 'made' the move.

it all happened very very quickly.

if I was the driver left in the gravel trap, I would obviously not be happy, but I would have just thought myself unlucky, wrong place wrong time kind of thing.

same thing when someone looses it on the brakes coming into a corner, spins and takes out the guy 3 places ahead, its one of those 'what can you do' situations
I think it's a shared responsibility thing. The incident could have been prevented by both drivers. Shaun did rejoin the track fairly quickly, but in that corner there really isn't anywhere to go if you're offline. Had he chosen to rejoin the track later, that would have put him either at the apex of the lefthander or in the dip part between the two corners.

Olddog could have either slowed down and fallen in behind him, rather than attempting a pass on the dip, or given him more room.

It's a difficult situation, as in a league race you want to lose as little time as possible, Shaun really could have stopped and let the field past, but he'd just gone from last to third, and I'm guessing the thought didn't even cross his mind.

I'm sure Olddog wanted to take advantage of Shaun's mistake as quickly as possible and make the pass, leading to a rather optimistic pass.

I think it's a racing incident, simply two drivers trying to be in the same place at the same time.
Quote from col :yep hehe - Shaun obviously knows he was in the wrong - says sorry at the incident, then later starts getting right into defensive mode and lying - like by the end of the race he's already begun to convince himself it wasn't his fault illepall

I say sorry whenever I touch someone, whether it's my fault or not.
I aso think it was Shaun's fault. But not mainly because he rejoined before track was clear, but because he didn't back off right before the turn. Before turning in, the other guy overlapped Shaun by more than half a car length and therefore imho was entitled to use the racing line. Especially since Shaun was not quite up to normal racing speed at that time due to his incident.

When rejoining the track, I think Shaun might have moved over to the racing line a bit too quickly, but there was still just enough room for the other guy to pass him on the right. I therefore think it was a borderline move, but not quite penalty-worthy, as the other guy obviously still had time to see it coming and to react.

I'm interested to see how this was judged by the "officials"
#11 - col
Quote from 96 GTS :I think it's a shared responsibility thing. The incident could have been prevented by both drivers. Shaun did rejoin the track fairly quickly, but in that corner there really isn't anywhere to go if you're offline. Had he chosen to rejoin the track later, that would have put him either at the apex of the lefthander or in the dip part between the two corners.

Its possible that Olddog could have prevented the incident. However, that has no bearing whatsoever on this discussion - the issue here is who caused the incident.
Quote from 96 GTS :
Olddog could have either slowed down and fallen in behind him, rather than attempting a pass on the dip, or given him more room.

But this is a league race, and Olddog has to assume that someone who has just gone way off track will wait until it is safe to rejoin - they must yeild (unless they has lost control of his car which Shaun obviously has not !)
Quote from 96 GTS :
It's a difficult situation, as in a league race you want to lose as little time as possible, Shaun really could have stopped and let the field past, but he'd just gone from last to third, and I'm guessing the thought didn't even cross his mind.

hes gone from last to third, then made a huge error - then in a reckless attempt to salvage his own race he's ruined someone elses.
Quote from 96 GTS :
I'm sure Olddog wanted to take advantage of Shaun's mistake as quickly as possible and make the pass, leading to a rather optimistic pass.

It was not an optimistic pass - is was a normal move, possibly Olddog should have been more agressive, held his line and taken Shaun out, rather than trying to avoid the collision, getting his own car light, and paying the price for Shauns bad driving. In any case most drivers in Olddog position would have been very surprised when Shaun just keeps heading flat out towards them .
If you watch from shauns view, with pedals on, you can see that shaun just straight lines it through the grass - keeping on the throttle as much as possible - when he rejoins the track, instead of keeping to the inside, he mashes the gas and heads straight for the racing line which at that point is not available to him as the guy rejoining the track. First sign of him hitting the brake is after he's taken old dog out, in an attempt to regain control of his own car.
Quote from 96 GTS :
I think it's a racing incident, simply two drivers trying to be in the same place at the same time.

I am very surprised !
did you look from multiple angles, both cars blimp, chase etc ?
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(thisnameistaken) DELETED by thisnameistaken
Quote from 96 GTS :I think it's a racing incident, simply two drivers trying to be in the same place at the same time.

Hehe. How many fence sitters have put their opinion forth?
Personally, I think it was a racing incident.
I've been looking at it from Shauns cockpit view with pedal input on. So it's easy to see that he is lying about braking - he brakes after he hit olddog, not before. And if he had made use of his mirrors he would have seen olddog coming up from behind very quickly. And being the one rejoining the track I think he has to check the mirrors at least. So I believe he just thought he could make use of his inside line to keep olddog behind him which was ridiculous considering the speed-difference between the two and the dirty tyres Shaun had after going off. So he rather punted another driver off after completely misjudging the whole situation.

On the other hand the situation was close and Shaun seems to be rather aggressive all the time. So if I was in olddogs position I might have given Shaun more room. He was on dirty tyres anyway and olddog could have easily passed him through the chicane due to better grip.

I still think that the fault is at Shaun. IMHO he drives way to aggressive all the time - just look at the rest of the race. He doesn't seem to have heard about patience anytime in his life and this incident wasn't the only time he went off track due to too aggressive driving.

But I also think that olddog knew that Shaun used to drive like nuts. And claiming your good rights against such bad behaving drivers often leaves you stranded in the gravel and the other one getting away with it as he knows better how to recover from collisions, having to do so all the time.
imo shawn is at fault there was more than enought room to let olddog by without hitting him i looked at it from olddogs cockpit view and he had every right to take the lline he did and he could'nt have moved over any more all shawn had to do was ease of the gas and both drivers would have been ok and shawn could have taken the place back later on but instead took the chickens way and took olddog off
althoug its what i'd call a racing incident, it was caused by shaun, when olddog is already slowing for bend, shaun is still on full throttle, he had plenty of space to his left and could have given room, in fact if hed given room he may well have been placed to take olddog after bend. i started off, after watching the first few bends, expecting it to be olddog's fault but, apart from a lack of caution, he was blameless, even after olddog was turning in shaun could and should have been trying to avoid by moving left and slowing but he stuck to his line
My feeling is if it had been an MSA licensed event Shaun would have been pulled up on dangerous driving. Taken into account would have been the other contacts he had had with drivers earlier in the race, and specifically his contact with the driver in question.

Had Shaun been a rookie driver his license would not have been stamped. He would probably have incurred a license or championship penalty of some form.

It would not have been considered a racing accident, because it was a dangerous act which arose from a driver who had consistently overdriven his ability and during the accident in question had endeavoured to race another car whilst rejoining the circuit and left no margin for error in a dangerous situation which he himself had caused after failing to safely pass another car.

In short, it would have been a high velocity rule book.

Any exchange between the drivers would then be dealt with as a seperate incident.

Under MSA regulations Shaun would be allowed to appeal to the court, which would have then cost him money and probably resulted in further costs.

If it had been an FIA event the red car would have been cleared, Shaun was driving a blue car and therefor clearly at fault ... Unless the venue was in Spain in which case a safety car would not have been thrown if it might have impaired his race...

In LFS terms this is a classic example of a driver who is fast but lacks race craft in that he's a typical computer game player, and would not drive the same way if he ever ended up doing the real thing. He probably thinks he's safe driving 70mph in a 30 zone because he's practiced car control on LFS.

Having flamed him it is also fair to say that I have done far worse, on ocassion...
thanks folks, interesting reading! Sounds like we got it 'right' even with me stuffing things up
The ruling did go in favour of Olddog, I felt Shaun had successfully recovered before Olddog saw the opportunity for the overtake, and wanted to call it a race incident.
yeah... i've noticed many drivers some well known names and many noobs just drive right back onto the road and into oncoming cars after they go off.illepall


i didnt watch the vid of the particular incident discussed here but something similar just happened in a race.
#19 - Vain
Quote from Gabkicks :i didnt watch the vid of the particular incident discussed here but somethi-ng similar just happened in a race.

That happens to me about every day.
(That is so because I like to start at the end of the grid to practice overtaking, so there're a lot of "obstacles" on the track this way )
The only hope is to have luck that LFS actually shows a yellow flag and then enter the corner while recalling Murphy.

Vain
If you leave the track you have to rejoin when its safe, I have gone "walkabout" many times and the first thing I do is look at the map before returning to the track.

BTW hope the guys involved in this were asked if its ok before posting replay?.

John
#21 - Goop
Quote from JohnPenn :BTW hope the guys involved in this were asked if its ok before posting replay?.

John

exactly :yikes: Did they know that a split second decision was going to be posted and scrutinized in the main LFS forum? I've cocked up in a league race before (hi Latch :wave2: ), but I'd have been mortified if it had been posted here tho. If so, fair enough. If not... maybe a series of anonymous diagrams to get feedback might have been better.

On topic, interesting prang. I'd say yep, Shaun was at fault most, but Olddog could have been more careful.
I chair the OzBee-R MNR Review Panel.

This thread has been drawn to my attention.

To my knowledge, the drivers involved have not consented to this disclosure.

I request this thread be deleted and in the meantime make the following comment:
  • The Review Panel of the MNR Competition did not sanction the release of this material nor the posting in this forum.
  • The Review Panel undertook some considerable deliberation over this matter, formed its views and has handed down its decision to the parties.
  • It is not the policy of the Review Panel to disclose the details of protests and decisions other than to the parties.
  • The Review Panel unreservedly apologises to the parties involved for this disclosure.
LOL, are you guys serious? Permssion to post that? Come on it's not that serious, no laws are being broken dsicussing this incident.

...bye the way I also believe its Shawns fault, but nothing at all malicious, he just want to have his 3rd place badly

HAHAA!!! ohh man.... this is my first post???? I've ben here since the very begining that's funny...
drivers make the same bad decision in real life. you dont have much time do decide. at least both drivers are alive and well which cant be said for many
Quote from Becky Rose :
It would not have been considered a racing accident, because it was a dangerous act which arose from a driver who had consistently overdriven his ability and during the accident in question had endeavoured to race another car whilst rejoining the circuit and left no margin for error in a dangerous situation which he himself had caused after failing to safely pass another car.

I think not only Shawn did not left any margin for error, but I also think that olddog left little room for shawn. As you can see in the attachment, olddog turned into the corner a lot earlier then he did the two laps before. At the moment he started to turn in, the car was still equal to him. Of course he had the right to overtake, since shawn was rejoining etc. but even if you have the right, you should not risk another incident. I am not saying olddog is at fault, but I think this is a race incident.
Attached images
incident.jpg

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