Background
For a few races now I've been concerned about the standards of driving from some drivers in OLFSL. I've put together a video with a small sample of incidents from the latest pool 2 race to illustrate my concern. The drivers are not relevant, it's the interpretation of the rules which I wish to illustrate. Mostly these relate to the rule "Take care to race clean/fair, i.e. do not hit other cars", but also "For further quideline to clean and fair racing, check Clean Racers Club rules in LFS Manual (you are expected to be able to race fair and clean)."

http://www.mydeo.com/videorequ ... p?XID=5591&CID=202017

Case 1
The guilty driver hits the innocent driver on the last corner of lap 1. With a long straight after the corner, there's no need to be getting tangled up. But having taken the innocent driver out, the guilty driver should let the innocent driver regain his position. This could not be clearer in the CRC rules, "CC-1: If there’s contact between drivers that doesn’t put either out of the race, but results in the guilty driver making up places on the innocent driver, the guilty driver should make the contact concession of allowing the innocent party to pass freely to re-establish their respective positions as they were before the contact."

Case 2
The guilty driver has had an incident and ended up facing the traffic. It is his responsibility to get out of the way and not interfere with other innocent drivers, but twice he moves into the path of oncoming cars. CRC rules state "RI-1: The onus is entirely on the driver recovering from any incident that leaves them in any way an obstacle or a hazard to other drivers, to take all necessary care, hazard minimization, and responsibility not to interfere with any cars still on the track and not part of the incident."

Case 3
Similar to case 1. The guilty driver hits the innocent driver under braking, pushing him wide. He then takes the position and drives off up the road.

Case 4
Another example of not being able to drive without hitting the car in front, adversely affecting the races of 2 other drivers in this incident.

Summary
OLFSL is a fun league, but in my opinion it is being spoilt by incidents such as these. I'd like to hear what others think about the interpretation of the rules, and whether drivers would like to see stricter adherence to the rules.

Hi Bozo,

I do agree with pretty much everything you said in text and video in spirit, though I do think a lot of the CRC rules are there as a guidelines rather that dead cut absolutes. Usually in real life racing the teams can complain to race control to uphold rules mid race, we can't really provide this as a host doesn't have the ability to investigate race footage or other telemetry mid race.

We rely on racers generally knowing how to race fairly which I think makes up 95% of the racing per event, and the other 5% we hope the host can spot or that drivers bring to our appeals arbiter's notice.

Whilst you say that names are irrelevant, it looked as if two of the videos featured clips from your race perspective, which I think is fair enough. If you had serious problems with other drivers that race it would be good to point it out to Solar (which you may have already done, I'm not sure). We do take a serious stance on bad driving as well as silly driver errors but I like to think people learn from them, it wouldn't be fair just to kick them out of the league for example.

I do not think that racers should avoid touching eachother (if you forgive the expression) I don't mind a bit of bumping and scraping, I love turn one battles and slipping through gaps, If I get a few scrathes on the paintwork, all the better. As you may have read, LFS does have some physics glitches, you can have small bumps with people and their car (or yours) can wildy be thrown off track for no reason, in this cicrumstance for example, I wouldn't slow to let the player past as I see that as a fault of the game. And I think fair squeezing and shoving yourself into a postition is ok, it is when people wildly smash themselves into a position that we should look at taking action, but as said, we really do rely on people reporting it to us.

I do like to think in general we have very clean races, I would really expect it hard for anyone to find another mixed talent league that manages to work with this amount of success.

Don't forget folks, you're all human (I'm not though) and you all make mistakes, accidents happen.

For reference, an ex-officio Appeals Arbiter decision addressing a case of a driver rejoining the track in an unacceptable manner, and causing accidents in doing so, has been ready for several weeks (it concerns an earlier race this season). I still need to determine the exact penalty.

Bozo's movie suggests potential extension of this decision to cover further cases.

Text of the decision is attached (in OpenOffice .odt format) - (now spotted one typo in the decision after Sami published the PDF, typo will be fixed when finally issued)

Solar Hydro, OLFSL Appeals Arbiter

I was going to say that a lot of spins through contact are caused by the game and/or lag. I watched your vids Bozo and I agree some moves were a little optimistic - nothing more annoying that someone barging through or barelling up the inside, especially on the first turn of a race. But as Russraine says it can be exciting when you have some (harmless) paint swapping.

Solar - just a thought, what about an RTF or TXT format doc? Only I don't think many people want the 82Mb Open Office download...

I took the liberty to convert it to pdf-format. It still is not as light as txt/rtf, but I didn't want to mess up with the formatting.

Thanks for the comments.

I would add that close racing is generally helped when drivers dont just barge through at the first opportunity.

With only 1 comment from non-staff at the moment I would take it that most drivers are either away from the scene, or not too concerned. What I'm trying to highlight is the number of inconsiderate manoeuvres, obviously easier from my own race but probably just as prevalent in other pool races. Personally I would like to see an increased awareness about the rules, and I would like to see a stricter interpretation of the rules on contact. I appreciate that sometimes contact does happen, but if the contact results in the guilty driver gaining a position then the position should be freely given back. That would provide a much greater incentive for drivers to take more care when attempting a pass, and I'm sure that would result in much more enjoyable racing.

Yeah I agree with your sentiment - sadly though, it takes everyone to feel the same for it to work - one wrecker is all it takes to ruin a race.

Thankfully it seems an exception to the OLFSL racing I've seen. We generally all know to take it easy in T1 and not go steaming up the inside. I've done a lot on the CTRA servers recently and one night every race I started I got bumped off the track in T1.

I to agree with bozo
my incident in round 4 was totally ruined by both bad drivers and Admins.
the guy was told by admins he lagged and was to start at the back of grid (why do we bother if these ppl get preferance), whilst he knew he lagged he still carried on his overtakings on the 1st few corners. untill bang.

overall admins desicision was : racing incident erm yeah whatever

he lagged and he knew it (so did admins) so why was he even allowed to race? nevermind that if he and admins knew he lagged why was he allowed to smash into me and get away scott free?

I suggest you email more details about that to Solar Mr Psymonhilly.

has been put throught the appeals section and has already been judged on OLFSL site

Copy from OLFSL website:

Ex-Officio Appeals Arbiter decision (entire season) - rejoining the track inappropriately

Three cases this season have come to the attention of the Appeals Arbiter (the two first were NOT filed as formal appeals) concerning rejoining the track inappropriately after an Off.

The drivers concerned were off (or nearly off) the track, and moved forward or backward onto the track, in the path of incoming cars, causing serious accidents. These are manifest cases of severely irresponsible behaviour, and constitute unsportsmanlike behaviour as defined by the OLFSL rules. In addition, such behaviour is clearly at odds with explicit Clean Racer Club rules (referred to in OLFSL rules) which explicitly address driver behaviour when rejoining the track after an Off.

In order to give a clear signal to OLFSL racers that these were cases of unacceptable irresponsibility and to ensure that such incidents do not occur in future OLFSL seasons, 40 points will be deducted from the overall season score of:

[SR] Turkey.
[SR] Tongey.
PeterVSP.

The overall season score of these racers will be adjusted accordingly, prior to finalisation of the season standings.

A detailed Appeals Arbiter decision covering all three cases, as well as MPR cutouts showing each of the incidents are accessible via this link. Please all review the Appeals Arbiter decision and the MPRs. We do not want to see such behaviour in future OLFSL seasons!

In addition, it has come to my attention that, in Event 12, several drivers quasi-systematically cut the chicane, some even quasi-systematically ploughing through the tyres. This is in contravention of OLFSL rules. No penalties are given on this occasion, but please do not repeat this behaviour. The staff will consider adding more obstacles to prevent such behaviour going forward.

Sincerely,

Solar Hydro, OLFSL Appeals Arbiter