Hello drivers,

In assessing the results of the 12 Hours of Kyoto GP, we had a large amount of data to consider, and several courses of action to choose from. We are happy to report that the series admins (myself, Appie, Three_Jump) have reached a unanimous choice among these courses, and we can now present you with race results and a clear policy for how we will deal with future incidents of this nature, should they occur.

The course we have chosen is to treat the interruption in the race as a "red flag" condition. The result of this policy is as follows:

• A red flag lap is determined for the entire field, based on prevailing server conditions (i.e., the last complete lap prior to the point at which the server begins to seriously malfunction). In this case, it was lap 88 for the overall leaders at the time, Mercury Racing GT1.
  
• All teams completing this lap behind the leader are credited with the lap count they hold at the time they cross the line. This count is determined using the tracker and the server-side replay.
  
• Gaps in minutes and seconds are erased as they would be in a corresponding real life red flag situation.
  
• The field is reset using the data gathered from the red flag lap results.
  
• The race continues, and the race time remaining is based on the planned race-end time, not on the time of the server crash.
  
• At the end of the second part of the race, the lap totals for parts 1 and 2 are combined, and teams with the same amount of total laps are ranked based on their on-track position at the end of part 2.
  

In considering the possible courses of action, it became clear to us that this method has several beneficial aspects that make it the best choice for MoE:

1. It is a more logical solution to a race stoppage and a better simulation of real life endurance racing (in this case, the IMSA/ACO rule set), which is our ultimate aim.
   
2. Using lap-based gaps is less likely to cause major damage to the standing of a team who has just made a pitstop, or spun, at the selected "red flag" lap than would minute/second gaps. In short, it takes a less precise but more broadly accurate snapshot of the standings at a given point in the race.
   
3. It provides a much better potential for us to offer clear and timely in-race standings via the tracker during the second part of an interrupted race. Obviously this was not the case during the 12 Hours of Kyoto, but that was due to unrelated factors and we are making it our business to have a plan in place for future occurrences.
   
4. As an extension of #3, disregarding second/minute gaps from the first part means that the race in the second half produces a clear winner--one that will not have to be produced via statistical analysis post-race. We feel that this will be far more satisfying for all involved.
   

We are open to questions regarding our decision and its implications, but drivers and teams should consider this decision final.

A rules amendment will be made shortly in order to fully delineate handling of race stoppages.



*Results after processing penalty related to Scipy's cheat: http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=50271

Part 1 Replay
Part 2 Replay

Grats to the winners.

Quote from nesrulz :

Grats to the winners.

#

yeey! Podium on our MoE debut! weeeeeee!!

Congratulations to the podium finishers in two classes!

Congrats to admins for sorting this out.
Despite we lost a great amount of time by erasing gaps at the end of part one, we have to be happy with final results.
Also we are happy that this now will be the rule for future [but lets hope it doesn't happen again].

At first I wanted to write a complety story about wrongs and rights, but in the end you won't listen to what I have to say anyway. Needless to say I'm speachless about the decision beeing made, endurance racing is about who drives the longest distance and in this case that was us. All the redflag bullshit is just pointless.. I understand you want to be as real as possible but the are boundaries, and I stronly feel this is where the line was crossed. We can't timeout in real life, can we? Period.

We (the admins) talked about this problem since the race ended and this is the best solution out of the options we had, at least we all agreed on this one as the best. A server crash, for what reasons ever, is never good, nor makes it things a lot easier for the teams or the admins.

Basicly I really believe that if we had taken any other option, we would have now exactly the same discussion with other team(s) who say that it's unfair because they just had their pitstop (or any other incident you can think of) just the lap before we decided to red flag it and will start questioning why we didn't took the lap earlier and that we are unfair and biased and so on.

Just think of the fun we had in the last season during the 24hour race... do you really think that this, meaning wasting half an hour just with the discussion of in which sector you were at the crash and why the other team was not, is a better option?

Thank you.

edited my post into a reasonable one (not that it will take away my anger about this case)

If a team makes a pitstop a lap "before" everyone starts timing out from the server it's just a "tough shit" rule. They opted to pit, it has nothing to with any timeouts, they didn't pit because they saw everyone timing out etc.

If you are going to ignore the first 3 hours of the race and not count the gaps that respective teams had over each other, then you are basically anuling the work that a particular driver did. It's your perogative, but then - discount the 45 % rule at the restart, if a driver already did 3 hours of driving then wipe that clean, it never happened (since we have nothing to show for it) and just let him drive another 3 hours.

If ur gonna make silly decisions, than let's take it to the max.

Great Work of the Admins!

No one has "ignored" the first 3:19 of the race. We have treated those first 3:19 as they would be treated in an actual race stoppage. There is no series in the world that restarts following a race stoppage with the gaps that were in place at the time of the race stoppage, down to the minute and second. Teams who managed to put another team a lap down get to keep that advantage. Teams who lost laps still lose those laps.

We feel that our decision is in the best interest of all teams in the series, for the reason stated above and for the others listed in the OP. It was made unanimously by all of the series admins, including one from F1RST.

Good work, admins, thanks for the results...

F1RSTies, what would you suggest as an alternative to this restart method? I seriously think this is the most resonable way to do it...

Dear admins,

We understand the complexity of this issue and therefore want to thank you very much for making a swift decision on this matter. We appreciate that a new rule is proposed to avoid uncertainties in similar situations in the future. We can also understand you wish to treat the server crash as a SC period and following the list of beneficial aspects we certainly agree it is the perfect solution to use for the rest of the season.

We disagree, however, on the fact that this rule is applied with retroactive effect. One of the main reasons being that, during the race, drivers and teams were in the understanding that the results of the first part of the race would be taken into account in the final results. This has lead (and apparently now mislead) to strategical choices that are obviously irreversible now.

Secondly, in our opinion the second part of the race would have had to be restarted under SC conditions in order to make the application of this rule legitimate. Therefore - with reference to your aim for a better simulation of real life endurance racing by using the ALMS/ACO rule set, and taking our arguments into account - we would like to hear your reason for not applying the following rule from that rule set:

Quote :

25.2.4 - Should the race be run in two (or more) parts, the distances
covered in each of them will be added up. In this case, the winning car
is the one which has covered the overall greatest distance :
Dead heat : the order will be fixed according to the addition of the
times achieved in each part.

source: REGLEMENT SPORTIF - SPORTING REGULATIONS - ACO 2008

We sincerely hope for you to take these points into account and reconsider the decision. Once again, we're very much for the rule change, but we certainly feel that applying the change on a finished race is unfair for everyone involved.

Thank you very much for a reply, on behalf of F1RST Racing GT2,

R. van der Kooij

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

No one has "ignored" the first 3:19 of the race. We have treated those first 3:19 as they would be treated in an actual race stoppage. There is no series in the world that restarts following a race stoppage with the gaps that were in place at the time of the race stoppage, down to the minute and second. Teams who managed to put another team a lap down get to keep that advantage. Teams who lost laps still lose those laps.

We feel that our decision is in the best interest of all teams in the series, for the reason stated above and for the others listed in the OP. It was made unanimously by all of the series admins, including one from F1RST.

Well, in an "actual race stoppage", a red flag would be visable to everyone at the same time, and if u take the lead car (mercury) being on the start/finish line at that moment, then that car would do another lap and stop in the pit lane, every other car which would be coming up to the pit lane entry would have to pit right there - so the lead car would get 1 lap advantage. But you are just making up rules by mixing parts of real life rules and race sim rules to fit together so you have the most uncomplicated job - not in the best interest of the field. Also in a red flag situation no car would be allowed to refuel or change tires/fix damage.

Do you guys really believe that adjusting times for each team based on the first 200 minutes of the race could possibly be a good idea? This would make on-track passes completely irrelevant, and what happens if a team is 'virtually' 3 minutes behind another? When do you decide that a gap equates to a lap?

Go and actually think through the logistics of it and maybe you'll understand why it's such a crap idea.

Quote from scipy :

Also in a red flag situation no car would be allowed to refuel or change tires/fix damage.

How on Earth could those things be avoided in LFS? Try to be reasonable.

Quote from joshdifabio :

How on Earth could those things be avoided in LFS? Try to be reasonable.

Great job. Taking 1 sentence out of context and making it sound outlandish. I was just trying to make a point that they can't enforce real life rules as they wish because not everything is simulated, and they cant just pick what they want as a rule to make their job easier.

Quote from traxxion :

Objection to protest

Please sent this to the appropriate email address (applications _at_ mastersofendurance.eu). Objections to the outcome placed in this thread will not be dealt with, as it is merely used for information and, till a certain extent, discussion purposes.

Quote from joshdifabio :

Do you guys really believe that adjusting times for each team based on the first 200 minutes of the race could possibly be a good idea? This would make on-track passes completely irrelevant, and what happens if a team is 'virtually' 3 minutes behind another? When do you decide that a gap equates to a lap?

Go and actually think through the logistics of it and maybe you'll understand why it's such a crap idea.

We do understand the logistics behind it, but we completed the race with the understanding that the results will be added up. It's so easy to say things after they happend. I know how you'd feel in our position, so quit to act like we're morons.

Atleast we all know what would have happend if the server made it 12 hours
/edit: and Rudy's PC too :P

Quote from scipy :

Great job. Taking 1 sentence out of context and making it sound outlandish. I was just trying to make a point that they can't enforce real life rules as they wish because not everything is simulated, and they cant just pick what they want as a rule to make their job easier.

Okay, so you think that they should account for the time differences after the first "race"? Do you at least appreciate the numerous difficulties presented by this approach?

Quote from Thommm :

We do understand the logistics behind it, but we completed the race with the understanding that the results will be added up. It's so easy to say things after they happend. I know how you'd feel in our position, so quit to act like we're morons.

Atleast we all know what would have happend if the server made it 12 hours
/edit: and Rudy's PC too :P

Why exactly did you think that the time differences would be accounted for? The admins said that they would take the first part of the race into account and they did. I was very confident that the time differences would be ignored, and that's why I told the drivers of our GT2 car to take it easy after your disconnect.

If the race ran for twelve hours, and no one had any disconnects then yes, F1rst would have won the GT2 class. You would also have come 3rd in the GT1 class.

Stop acting like a retard. They said they're trying to model the series after ACO rules, so add distances, yes. I don't care about the problems it poses or the work involved, they have a MONTH before the next race to figure it out, if there is a need for someone to check replays, write down position of every car on track and calculate everything, i'm more than happy to help.

Quote from traxxion :

We disagree, however, on the fact that this rule is applied with retroactive effect. One of the main reasons being that, during the race, drivers and teams were in the understanding that the results of the first part of the race would be taken into account in the final results. This has lead (and apparently now mislead) to strategical choices that are obviously irreversible now.

Strategical choices that are irreversible now? AFAIK strategy usually wraps around going as fast as possible within the situation presented to you, and that situation wouldn't have changed no matter how the first race was cut off. And I'd like to know where you got the official word that this method would be used to combine the two results. Especially considering the official word I heard went in all different directions and was unsure of even where the first part of the race would be cut off when the race was still running. (If I still had the #igtc logs I could show you DWB discussing after the race ended that they were unsure of how they were combining the two results but they had a probable solution, and it wasn't what you mentioned which kinda flies in the face of all this.)

Fact is, no one is going to be happy any way the first part of the race is cut off. There is no fair option, there is however an option that allows us to maintain some semblance of sanity with regards to adminning now and running in the race later if this situation happens again.

Quote from traxxion :

We disagree, however, on the fact that this rule is applied with retroactive effect. One of the main reasons being that, during the race, drivers and teams were in the understanding that the results of the first part of the race would be taken into account in the final results. This has lead (and apparently now mislead) to strategical choices that are obviously irreversible now.

Agree, I was gonna say the same thing.

Anyhow, good you atleast try to come up with somekind of solution, but like some said already I also fail to see how this serves the best interest of everyone on the track. This is now 3rd different approach ive seen to solve this issue in MoE. Id have hoped you have had thought about this already before the season since it was obvious theres a chance server crashes happen. Instead you now decided to create totally new rule after the race while probably most of the grid thought you would handle it the way Traxx described.

Quote from scipy :

Stop acting like a retard. They said they're trying to model the series after ACO rules, so add distances, yes. I don't care about the problems it poses or the work involved, they have a MONTH before the next race to figure it out, if there is a need for someone to check replays, write down position of every car on track and calculate everything, i'm more than happy to help.

I appreciate your offer, but we have all that data available as well. Yes we have both outcomes, methods, worked out. We know precisely what the difference between the two is.

It is not a matter of workload, which you seem to claim, that our decision is to go with this method over the other. Our decision is based on the material for hand (LFS, supporting software) and the races which are still ahead of us. The outcome of using this method over the other option we find more weighty (see the summery of best interest for MoE in the OP) and since it will be applied in the future, it will applied for this case as well.

Quote from AppiePils :

Please sent this to the appropriate email address (applications _at_ mastersofendurance.eu). Objections to the outcome placed in this thread will not be dealt with, as it is merely used for information and, till a certain extent, discussion purposes.

Sent. Apologies for misinterpreting the discussion "request".

Quote from scipy :

Stop acting like a retard. They said they're trying to model the series after ACO rules, so add distances, yes. I don't care about the problems it poses or the work involved, they have a MONTH before the next race to figure it out, if there is a need for someone to check replays, write down position of every car on track and calculate everything, i'm more than happy to help.

I could understand and support an approach similar to the one used in January's 24h race, where cars were positioned approximately in the position on track that they were in before the server went down.

However, what's being discussed here is the time difference between each car after the first part of the race. Can you suggest something reasonable which could be done post-race to incorporate those results, considering the fact that everyone finished with different lap counts, either side of the winning car?

Are you capable of forming a cogent argument or can you only insult people?