Funny you were on about the FIA GT rules Scipy which state:
131. The grid will be in a 2 x 2 formation and the rows on the grid will be separated by at least 8 metres.
138. ...whereupon the cars will begin a formation lap with the organiser’s official car leading, maintaining their starting order. During this lap, practice starts are forbidden and the formation must be kept as tight as possible.
140. ...No car may overtake another one before the starting signal is given.
I always thought rolling starts were side by side affairs, everything I've seen from Legends, Nascar to FIA GT live at Spa has been side by side, none of this staggered taken to the extreme crap. Like everyone always says its an endurance race, what does it matter if someone is alongside you rather than a metre behind at the start?
This is just a mindless witchhunt from both sides really with no gains in it for either team, other than the great battle of the egos.
You are pursuing justice with your band of merry men, scipy... Extreme hypocrisy, knowing both your history and the facts about R1 (i saw plenty of it on track myself). What is this about, couldn't unlock the "Lead from start to finish" Achievement?
It is rather suprising to see direct blaming of my3id and NIKI from the rest, to be the root of all evil and ruining the whole championship, while the rule is what is supposed to be discussed here?
Your points may be valid scipy, but you manage to somehow always render them useless with hypocrisy.
I don't really care which way it goes, as long as the pole car is the one that passes the s/f line first when the green comes out (meaning he'll most likely be the first car into T1 also).
The other 5h 59m is more important anyways.
Edit: That "revenge" thread is hilarious, since you can penalize every other team (including your GT1 team Niall) for constantly hitting the pole and tire at the chicane in R1. Sorry for off-topic.
Wow, you agree with the things he did say, and still found the time to insult him for the things he didnt say but decided to jump to that conclusion anyway. Good job!
Im glad theres absolutely no sign of hypocrisy from you in all that bitterness and talk of mindless witchhunting from the comfort of your ivory tower
Staggered line-ups have been in place for as long as i can remember in MoE, which goes back to the S2-R2, i cant remember for the first season, and whether it was an official rule or an unwriten one, it was standard practice and a matter of sporting/gentlemanly agreement of how it was done. Back then the series was run by EU folk, with mostly EU drivers, and so I guess to a standard which was familiar to the EU's knowledge of the matter.
Lately its turned into ALMS/US rules because its under new influences, but in the early days it certainly wasnt acceptable to be as good as side by side with someone who was ahead of you on the grid, i guess 50/50 overlap would be the expected location to find them.
There probably wasnt the need to specificly write the rule in the rulebook, it was standard track etiquette to be like that. If some choose not to follow that, then it needs to be made clear to stop abuse or unfair tactics being used, and the start procedure made clear as to whats acceptable and what isnt.
As Scipy's pics show, the insim app, and even before then, you drove in staggered formation, the rules dont suggest that has changed, but then they dont specificly say thats the rule either. TECHNICALLY, the rules dont say you cant just drive flat out and drive off into the sunset, they dont specificly state you cant overtake or pass people or make mention of holding grid position throughout the rolling start... I dont recall anyone abusing those rules though. Infact, to my mind there isnt a rule which states theres a penalty for failing to use the appropriate GT1/GT2 class restrictions for the season, does that make it acceptable to ignore those settings?
Personally i wouldnt have thought everything needed to be in black & white to know what should be done, and i can understand why Scipy assumed that the rules were what they always (to my mind, and apparently many others) have been considered to be. If not, GT2 class might be keeping up with GT1 class at Westhill.
MoE had its acceptable starting proceedure made very clear a few years back, nobody has said its no longer the case either, whether its under new administration or otherwise, those people were around when that was clarified, they knew the rule then and havent said its changed since taking over. So its hardly surprising so many of the experienced front-running drivers expect other drivers to follow the instructions they've been told, and then get annoyed when others ignore and take advantage of it, and do so successfully because the new regime decided they didnt know the original rule and adopted their own understanding and expect others to know it.
I've said this in another last season, but in LFSPS i included a 'Common Sense' clause in the rules, which basically says if theres something which is missing from the rules, but common sense says its not sporting, then the admins have the right to penalise as they deem suitable (or words to that effect). Its not there to find new ways to punish people, but to prevent loop-holes which you know arent acceptable but arent strictly wrote in the rules as been unacceptable or punishable. It doesnt help on grey areas, but then this has never been a grey area before, we were told the rules, and until now stuck to them. Unfortunately the rule has been removed without anyone realising, and people have continued with the way MoE has always told them to.
Looking at any single MoE race line-up from the last 4 years would have clearly shown what the general understanding of this rule was, that speaks volumes IMO, as does the fact that people have been given direct instructions (even a number of practice runs) saying how MoE starts are to be conducted, and nothing has suggested that isnt the case. If its under new management, and they believe it shouldnt be done that way, they should say so, not ignore the instructions they too were given (as drivers) in favour of their understanding without telling others about it.
This is absolutely insane of a discussion, and it's being overly nit-picky about for all intents and purposes, a .005 second gap in the beginning a 6 hour race, or 12, or 24 hours. It's well and fine to make sure that 1st is ahead of 2nd, and 2nd is ahead of third, and that sort. being perfectly side-by-side to me, is not putting one ahead of the other...they are just side by side, even. Eliminating any measure of overlap makes it a single file start, not 2 by 2. You MUST have overlap for it to be truly double file. Otherwise you just have a staggered single line. An outsider looking in, I doubt will care much if someone is 5% alongside, 50%, or 99.8% alongside another car in the row.
I see no reason to write a rule about it...the rules are fine enough regarding this...unless someone can give me a damn good reason why no overlap is better, then I'll listen. But to be perfectly honest, I see currently no reason. If it's anything like "It can mess up a perfect line into T1" then I will only laugh and tell you to get off the racing track and go hotlap. If you want a perfect line and to act like no one else is there, you don't belong on a racing track on my view. You belong alone on the track, driving around in circles.
The advantage is in the positioning. It's much better to be 3rd than 5th. It's better to be 1st than 2nd. EVEN IF the rows are fully even. When I call a start on an NDR race, I don't give a flying toss about how far alongside of someone someone is, all I look for is a good formation, with close, but not invisible gaps, and that people are ready to go. will I call it off if for some reason the polesitter is a fender behind second ? No. Will I call it off if second is loads ahead, say by over a full car length ? Yep. The goal is to race till the end, not worry about who gets to turn 1 first.
You are driving racing machines. They are built and designed to be raced, not treated with perfect care. Care for them yes, but don't freak when you have trouble passing. The racing cars are designed to race, and that's what is needed.
My only major complaint about this series is that it seems to me, to be more about the bureaucracy of what is considered clean and fair racing than actually doing clean and fair racing. I want to see LFS' best racers racing, not arguing about a 5 foot gap at the starting time of a long race. In the big scheme of things, that will not matter, how far ahead P1 was of P2 at the start. What would matter is if P1 gets shunted up the boot by 5th because 5th was trying to pass 3rd into T1 with a divebomb but dropkicked P1 driver as a result. That is a big deal, not this.
I will see any decision made on this within the near future as anything other than an excessive, unnecessary knee-jerk reaction. Any decision made to amend the rules based on this at any time will be an excessive, unnecessary reaction, just without the knee-jerk reaction.
Can we please stop complaining about every little "wrong" and just race on the bloody track ? Maybe we should just stream a boardroom meeting for 6 hours next month and say "This is what Masters of Endurance has become since we were last with you"
Without giving prejudice to the current admins' staff decision on future start, the "old" management would not have policed the fact that there was overlap between the cars.
We always took the real live endurance racing as a measuring stick and, as boothy said, they start basically side by side. they don't touch, as the pictures above seem to imply, which might be policable, but as long as the car on the even grid positions is not ahead of the one on the odd side, everything was fine in our eyes. Iirc the starting tool did not do any different, either.
Again, this is not as a prejudice to future decisions, but I find the decision taken by the current admins in the last race acceptable and within the practice of the rules we had taken previously.
Scipy, it's very ugly to use our private conversation for this matter.
Everyone, I might have used different words towards scipy then I normally would and I might have had a hot head at that moment, so it's not everything as it looks like.
Then notice who tried to make me look dirty, those who always have tried for many times and most of them is much dirtier than I could ever be.
And then why is everyone still sticking to the fact that I started side by side with Norbi when I clearly didn't.
I was positioning my car before the green flag, and by some accident I pulled to the front a little bit too much (probably cos it was on the inside of the corner and just held my pace, or I was scared to be too far behind and loose the momentum), when I noticed that I should back off a little Norbi already made his little trick with totally dropping the pace (braking, lifting or something, i dont have lfs here atm so cant tell 100% acurate), so it's not like he's super clean either...
And when the green flag dropped I was back in position where everyone else also were, half a car down. I just had better reaction to the green flag and nailed it.
So please stop talking like I started race 100% aside him and that was only reason why I passed him.
Furthermore notice that even with the tool back in 06/07 everyone weren't 100% where they should be and noone made a big deal out of it...
Oh, changing the tuner now, are we? In our conversation it wasnt "accidental" or "because of the inside line".. in fact it was pretty clear what your opinion was. Don't go taking it all back just because someone showed your true side. There wasn't even a HINT of remorse in our whole conversation, and it's pretty 2-faced to even try and explain your way out of this one.
As far as deko's comments go..
How about this for a reason: YOU GOT OUTQUALIFIED. There MUST be some sort of an advatange in having pole position, or any other position in front of someone and the fact that you say "0.05 difference" at start just proves you have no clue about relationshiop of TIME and VELOCITY. What 2 meters of difference is at 80 km/h doesn't mean it's 2 m at 200 km/h, on the contrary.. @ 200 km/h the distance will be 5.5 m.
Just because the cars look very close to each other on a regular grid at a standing start, doesn't mean the time difference is 0.05 s.
This whole discussion is becoming pointless, you are entitled to your opinions, whatever they may be. But 84 % of the drivers who voted WANT the rules (that they already obide by) to be formalised. End of discussion.
This is entertaining. Scipy wanted to suggest a change in rules. People from the beginnin of the MoE had the idea that what happened there in GT2 wasnt acceptable in start. So atleast a clearing it out from now on wont hurt anyone. And DWB already said it will be.
Leave the rule like its atm "doublefile", and you can see the dirtiest starts ever in MoE because everyone WILL pull "Nikis" from now on.
Yes, since every driver in MoE is there to exploit the loopholes in the rules to gain everything they can in the start, jeopardizing the outcome of the rest of the race.
Im sry, should have used some other expression when writing my reply in a hurry than "everyone" so it wouldnt have confused you. I forgot how emotional you can get with your hatred towards scipy and his band of merry men and manage to come up with a reply like that missing the point what I really said.
Fuse, can you please stop being a dick just for the sake of being one? I've wrote SPECIFICALLY that it's not everyone and that 95 % of the grid followed the rule even if it was unwritten. But there was someone trying to gain everything they can at the start, jeopardizing the outcome of the rest of the race.. mostly for themselves, but it could've ended differently. Stop using the "the only elephant I ever saw was pink, therefor all elephants are pink" logic. Vote was done, admins already said the rules will be formalised and you are just using argument fallacies to try and one-up someone.
I can see estonian flag near Dmt. 