You raise excellent points, hard to argue against anything you said.  Yet, I'm not sure potential sponsors would want to read this dirty laundary in a public forum either.  Bring it in off the line. Write to CARS, RSO, etc. This rally was over a month ago.

I'd chalk it up to more hard won experience that may give you an advantage for the rest of your rallying carreer.

Aside from the envigorating academic debate it has generated, the results are final as much as that sucks, we all know certain people are pissed off about it, and no doubt the people who feel they got screwed will be using their microscopes on the errant or cheating team or whatever you want to call them next time they're competing together. I have no doubt that this infraction is very unlikely to happen, or go unnoticed, ever again, by you, anyway. I'll be on my toes for sure!

darryl wrote on 10/13/5 at 06:49:05:


Think of it this way.  Before the rally (any rally for that matter), all competitors were told that the rally was a specific distance, I will guess and say about 400km.  But by towing through that transit, that car did not travel the full 400km, it only travelled 320km.  That is most definately an unfair advantage.  And It should be very easy to say that this car "Did Not Finish".


Note: I don't know anything about the specific incident at Defi, I don't even know what competitors were involved.  I'm just commenting on the specific point of trailering through transits.

darryl wrote on 10/13/5 at 08:26:26:

actually, I think it would make pat look silly.
OK, but he would certainly get a note in his logbook that would tell them to fix it by the next event.  We can't be picking and choosing the rules we follow.

Does no one else see how being able to trailer cars between stages would really increase the cost?  Most sane people I know use their tow vehicles as a giant toolbox/resource vehicle at service.  The last thing I would want to do would be to unload my car, and then start unpacking/seting up service in 20 minutes.

Just because I couldn't afford to have 'tow crew' AND a 'service crew' would put me at a giant disadvantage..

OR, what if someone has an enclosed trailer and decides to work on their car in transit(inside the trailer!)?  Pretty tough to police that?  (don't laugh, it happened at Targa).

I don't know who was involved at Defi either, I just don't think the rule should be changed.  If anything, a variation of SuperRally should be adopted.

SuperRally? Like a giant rallycross, right? So without transits.

I think the officials would need to decide, and state in the Supp Regs, whether trailers could be used on long transits. I know one rally out of Calgary allowed competitors to do that, if they chose.

Regarding Defi, I would comment that the officials at any, and every, rally need to keep their eyes open.

I'm also sure there are discussions at the official level about this situation. It can't have gone unnoticed.

Re the rules: a penalty for towing sounds like something that could be discussed. Then you get to finish it but suffer the consequences for having had an advantage, so to speak, over your fellow competitors.

Is this Darryl M, by the way?

And about signal lights: I remember the team I crewed for at Targa Newfoundland 2002 having some very intense moments because of something as minor as lights. It needed to get fixed before they could run.

I should say that we are a really grassroots team, so everything we are discussing affects us.

Jeannie

Teams CANNOT score points after they restart in SuperRally.  That wasn't clear in my previous post.  They are scored as a DNF.

To recap, isn't the point of this discussion:

1. A team unfairly towed a vehicle through a transit.
2. No one noticed and/or lodged a protest.
3. The team won their class, accumulating points against others who ran by the rules.

Then someone who did notice began this topic.

I can't imagine drastic changes being introduced because of this situation. Whether RSO chooses to address it with the team involved is something we wouldn't necessarily know about.

I don't think it will affect the sport, discourage people from entering or disenchant the fans. What it does mean is that not all competitors are reading the rulebook, or abiding by those rules.

The rallies we are involved in are small and often the transits are minimal. You would want to think about that before proposing rules for all rallies. Perhaps the next step is to formally address any proposals with RSO.

Jeannie

AlanO wrote on 10/13/5 at 18:34:33:

Stage times?! I'm just in this for the single babes. Never mind.
Quote:

Mechanical DNF you mean, I guess. If they they crashed on a transit... that would be rich, verging on sweet (less injuries).

The original point of this thread, is that somebody is (still) pissed off, not without some justification.  But I don't suspect this problem will occur again anytime soon, what with all the all-seeing eyes out there now, and I don't think any rules need to be changed.

Quote:


Think of it this way: time penalties and broken suspension are analogous in the same way as helping your competitor calculate their time-in and a broken alternator.

There's nothing a healthy car can do in the former cases - the broken car can't be towed (easily) and the crew cannot have their opponent's time penalties removed once they are incurred.  The outcome is decided and it's tough luck for the unfortunate team.

However, in the latter cases, the healthy car can tow the competitor's car to the next service, and the crew can help their competitor calculate their time-in to avoid incurring penalties.  Something can be done to avoid the DNF/time penalty.  The effect is that the playing field is levelled in the competitive sections of the rally.

I guess I see transits differently - I see them as merely a means of getting from one stage to another.  Strictly my opinion, though.


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Rally people also have a reputation for helping their fellow participants.  Should we start abandoning other competitors when something can be done to keep them in the rally?

I'm not suggesting that teams should tow cars through several stages to get them to the next service, or that they should give up spare tires/parts that may be needed later.  

But I think that teams should try to help each other when there is minimal cost to a healthy team, even if the "weaker" team is a direct competitor.   Keeping them in the event makes it more interesting at the end.  Having more people in your class is fun!  It's always been way more enjoyable for me when I've had good battles in my class - P3 with Dmitri, and P4 and Group N this year.