Has anybody ever hit a track marker?

Lamby · In rehab

Has anybody ever hit a track marker?

simpson · Rehab Dropout...

Yes, in thick DUST at Hyden while overtaking another car I avoided hitting a marker and the other car and went the wrong side of one and got. A 30 min penalty, another WDR run event !

KUSTERRACECO · In rehab

the aorc at the pines has issued penaltys for hitting markers

KUSTERRACECO · In rehab

also interesting said photographer is wa and maybe aligned to a team.

-- Edited by KUSTERRACECO on Thursday 24th of April 2014 07:19:28 AM

Flat Out Off Road Racing Team · Powerhouse Poster

Its very common in WA, we have that rule written into all our supp regs. It keeps people on the track and our property owners happy, which is a major priority at a brand new event. I know the photographer, he is from WA but he is independent, not aligned with or paid by any teams. Im not going to name him so you can all bash his name as he hasn't done any wrong, simply reported a breach of the supp regs as all volunteers/officials are asked to do. Yes it is harsh and yes it is very unlucky but it was in the supp regs right from day 1

simpson · Rehab Dropout...

And you would not expect us to believe he was the only car all weekend to hit one!

Flat Out Off Road Racing Team · Powerhouse Poster

No but how are you meant to penalize someone without it being seen?

Cam254 · Regular Poster

I believe there was one caught on the official Australian Off Road Championship Replay XD Camera. From what im led to believe it wasn't penalised! Maybe if it is inforced a bit of consistency would be better!

Danny Brown · Forum Junkie

Personally I think a warning system should be in place, 1st offence (per event) is a warning then penalties after. What happens if in say a prologue someone knocks over a no road, caution or danger sign that could cause damage or danger to other cars, surely they should be able to come back into the pits and report what happened so it can be rectified without the fear of recieving a penalty.

simpson · Rehab Dropout...

Yeah well said Danny, I agree it doesn't seem fair whether you come first or last the money it costs us to race our cars to put up with this rubbish please!

Stingray 2212 · Rehab Dropout...

So this is what the sport has come to at a national level, dobbing people in for what I assume was an accidental incident. It's really not in the spirit of what our sport is supposed to be about, or is it. Do we now race for sheep stations?

FULLSCALE · Forum Addict

So the penalty was for infringement of Sporting Reg 19/I/b short cutting or a Sup Reg rule from WDC??

Surely if you try to stop or miss it and you hit it by accident your day shouldn't be stuffed. for sure I'm setting my in car camera so it shows me trying to avoid it.

tumbleweed · Forum Junkie

Trying to manage a track in a location with so many side tracks and areas where you could wrong turn is difficult. So many markers required to ensure a clean line is established where we want it. Massive amounts of no roads to ensure we did not end up where the pastoralist and the miners did not want us and we lose the track forever. Pretty hard to convince people of the seriousness of hitting them when it just seems very few people enforce the rules across the board. Number one issue for this sport over the next 5 years will be track degradation with massive tyres and vehicles to drive them. We have a chance if they stay on the track where we want them and where we have permission to be. 6m wide corners become 50m wide corners. It is simply a matter of respect for the marker and the guy that put it there.

Pretty disappointing to get pinged for hitting one, not what anyone wants. What is a solution? - Danny's idea of a warning system? In a two section race you get free run in the first section as they haven't given you a warning yet so hit as many as you like. We need a system that forces the crew to pay due respect to the marker. A potential time penalty certainly does that. A Marker on a tree does that too - they don't get hit. A marker with an official visibly standing near by seems to do OK as well.

Personally I would love a solution that everyone is happy with, but let us hit them as long as we don't mean too is not a solution for the sports future.

SANDMAN · Forum Addict

Doesn't matter there are enough things stuffing up the future of this sport, hitting a sign post is the least of our worries i would have thoght, I have hit one once, came out of dust and there it was to late avoid, nobody deliberately goes out to hit sign's, I shit myself expecting it to come through the floor as many have, I bought a car from WA with a nice size hole in the floor pan in a not so good place that would fit a star picket through nicely.
Maybe arrows with star pickets should be regulated at a certain distance from the race race track, cams seem to regulate the hell out of everything else to cost us money.

Flat Out Off Road Racing Team · Powerhouse Poster

Jeremy how about an option ( nobody will agree or like it, but I think it would be effective) 5 minutes or $500 per marker...That way if you go where you weren't meant to we can pay the property owners so they can fix the land and keep the property owners happy so we keep racing there or you can cop the 5 minutes. I know the threat of either of those options is enough to keep me between the markers...

I have hit markers before and copped penalties. I hit a cone here at 8:05 in the video and took a 5 minute penalty for it. Its harsh, but its a rule we run in WA to keep the property owners happy and limit the areas of track degradation and if that's what we have to do to ensure that we have places to race then I'm all for it

youtu.be/vlhPUQleFGU

martin motor sport · Forum Addict

Did any one get a warning over the weekend.

simpson · Rehab Dropout...

We have a section in our licence book for offences, instead of WDR's approach why not note each offence and if there is a case for serial offenders let CAMS deal with a penalty, instead of the way Tony was delt with, I've been through one off these at an event and when you've transported your car across the country for such a harsh penalty it stinks for a one off mistake.

Cars at the pointy end do shave every inch to achieve a fast time so why don't we see the big names getting penalty's don't they hit any? And I'm not picking on them I just think it makes no sense!

And $ 500 for hitting a marker are you serious, could be a money spinner for you club but try and hand these out. Good luck getting cars to your events.

Ever heard the phrase (Sacrificial lamb) ?

-- Edited by simpson on Monday 28th of April 2014 10:06:25 AM

Beans · Newbie

Is a hard thing to police. In the early days of off road racing a lot of the track markers had marking tape (the type of stuff police/ firebrigade use to tape stuff off) or packing tape from post to post so if you hit a track marker post the tape would tangle around your car or you would drag it along for awhile. There is no denying it then!
It would take a bit of extra setting up and few more posts but it would be clearer way of marking track and may be a help with this issue in the future.

Cam254 · Regular Poster

Totally respect the fact of respecting land owners property ect as without them we have nothing! Seems a little unfair as to why some received warnings and one received the penalty! Maybe a warning system with a notation to go in their Licence passbook and with a penalty to be applied if a repeat offender would be an option! Also need to remember that some of these competitors have travelled from one end of Australia to the other and without competitors we also don't have an event! Think there has to be a more realistic and fairer approach! I don't think paying for the offence is great nor a fair option at all as that leaves it wide open depending on budgets people have!

tumbleweed · Forum Junkie

Some great feedback people.

No warnings issued as far as I know. Anyone suggesting otherwise is guessing. Yes it was in our sup regs and is in all regs at WA events to keep people on the track. Its history stems from people significantly cutting corners and taking lines (by taking out markers, often on reccy) that have cost farmers lots of money, coupled with cases of significant shortcutting as guys decide their own lines including for eg missing parts where the track is directed off a firebreak or similar and into say a tree section and then back onto the track . One year I distinctly remember a clerk of course starting his drivers brief with 25 or so markers in his arms that had been taking out on reccy, along with a significant lecture about respecting the marking (at that event the markers had been put in by the local crew including the farmer, imagine what they thought of these guys that came to race on their property)

Maybe a warning system has some merit, but any system that allows too much flexibility is prone to interpretation causing judicial headaches. Currently there is a prescribed penalty for the offence and no option for alternate penalty. ie you know what you will get.

Cant say I would agree with a cash penalty although its good to brainstorm solutions. Yes it is a long way to travel to cop a penalty, but ultimately distance traveled should not interfere with the judicial process nor should the effect of the penalty on results. It certainly worries events to balance keeping everyone happy, along with property owners. We need competitors to want to keep coming back and it is unfortunate that people feel that enforcing a rule they don't like means they may not come back. I would argue that an event not enforcing the rules would be one that I didn't want to go back to as it was not an even playing field, even if I am on the wrong side of the rule today. Anyone that thinks a clerk of course doesn't assess a massive heap of factors before acting, is pretty ignorant or simply does not understand the job. In my opinion, any clerk of course that turns a blind eye to breaches of the rules only adds to the problem.

It would be good to find a medium where competitors have their say through their panels about the rules they are not happy with and feedback is assessed and solutions found. That medium does exist so i encourage the discussion. It does seem there are some different applications of the rules around the country, which may result in some confusion. Just for the record I am pretty sure the penalty applied under our supplementary regulation was a lot less than could be applied under the AORC sporting regulations, so anyone going to an another event thinking its OK to accidently hit a marker should read up in case they cop a massive penalty. It is all in the rules and regs and you sign to say you understand them.

Anyone with any feedback regarding our event is welcome to email me direct at president@westerndesertracers.com

Jeremy

rivmasta9 · Powerhouse Poster

Shortcutting and accidently hitting a track marker are two entirely different things.

I challenge anybody who has raced more than a few times to honestly say they haven't hit a track marker...by accident.

(old proverb) If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it...did it really fall at all? Same can be said of hitting a track marker. How many track markers were hit during the event?

Are photographers now officials and therefore 'judges of fact'? (Been a while since I was on a track so maybe they are?)

Clearly the only answer to this problem is:

No racing in dust - events should be rescheduled to when ideal conditions exist and/or when a vehicle approaches a dust cloud, said vehicle must stop until it is safe to continue.

Likewise, no racing in mud - far too slippery to safely negotiate a race track.

If all else fails vehicles must be speed limited...

Seriously though... maybe the answer is to penalise the offending racer points in the series, rather than for an 'accident' during a single event.

That being said, deliberately short cutting needs to be dealt with very harshly.

-- Edited by rivmasta9 on Monday 28th of April 2014 07:05:31 PM

Newbie

I was the driver that got the penalty.

We were informed by an official that roughly 300 signs had been knocked over during the Kalgoorlie race.

Yes a photographer text the photo of the sign being knocked over to the clerk of the course.

I believe that the supp regs said MAY occur a penalty not WILL occur a penalty

Another driver was given a warning about knocking signs over during the shoot out.

After showing the officials our on board footage there was significant evidence showing the reason why the sign was knocked down as there were no signs leading into the corner as they had all been knocked over as well as the sun was low and it was dusty. Totally agree with Danny that a warning should have been given. I have no issues with rules but officials from all clubs need to be consistent. To defend myself I had to come up with $4500 within an hour to lodge a protest, I don't think thats very fair. We never denied that we didn't hit the sign but had enough evidence or so we thought to show that it wasn't deliberate, the clerk of the course insisted that I be given the penalty

Tony

martin motor sport · Forum Addict

19. Penalties

(c) Causing damage to property,

deemed by the clerk of the course to have been deliberat :- exclusion.

This is the only rule that I can find that mite be close to hitting a track marker.

But I did find a rule for short course racing.

under off road standing regulations

11.2

(ii) Striking a course marker 30 seconds per marker.

Flat Out Off Road Racing Team · Powerhouse Poster

From the Supp Regs for the Kalgoorlie event

13. PENALTIES

In addition to the penalties provided for in Art 18 of the 2014 AORC Sporting Regulations, the following penalties may be
applied by the Stewards of the event for the actions indicated
a. Dislodging a course marker, and reporting this to the Start/Finish control 5 minutes
b. Dislodging a course marker, and NOT reporting this to the Start/Finish control 30 minutes,
c. Failing to allow a faster car to overtake at the first available opportunity 1 minute.
d. Exceed speed limit on reconnaissance up to exclusion

Stingray 2212 · Rehab Dropout...

The key word is MAY.

martin motor sport · Forum Addict

which was put in your sup regs for your event by western desert races.

Scorpionawd · Newbie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kBrdhsA49A

This is a link to the in-car footage of Tony hitting the directional arrow for which he incurred a five minute penalty and lost his third place outright. I have put this up so that you can see for yourself what actually happened and make your own minds up whether it was a fair decision or not. As stated previously the key word to the supplementary regulations ruling was MAY not WILL. In my own view Tony was not overdriving, he entered the unmarked corner appropriately and struck a directional arrow placed on the exit point of the corner. The footage also shows other tyre marks going around the arrow. I agree with the rule in principal with the aim being to prevent overzealous drivers using more of the track than intended causing damage to valuable property and in some cases gaining advantage through corner cutting. In this case where discretion could have been used, I believe the decision was made irrationally and the director was simply hell-bent on making a point.

martin motor sport · Forum Addict

Do you have footage of the laps before that I CAN NOT SEE HOW THE sign stayed there for so long it looks like is in the middle of the track.

Stingray 2212 · Rehab Dropout...

Thought exactly the same thing. Why would you put a marker there?

Steve Hilton · Newbie

I have read all the current posts about this penalty and looked at the video (FRAME BY FRAME), the sign in question seems to be very close to the side of the track making the track what would seem very narrow, also it looks to close to the exit of the corner, also the sign is very low to the ground.

? Has the sign been seen by a recovery or other persons knocked over and kindly been re-erected (BUT TO CLOSE TO THE TRACK AND NOT FAR ENOUGH OUT OF THE CORNER) for a vehicle exiting the corner to miss ?.

I agree with the idea of a penalty if it has been proven a sign or sign's are hit with no thought to other competitors and property owners, but not where an accident has occurred through no fault of a driver, also you must have consistency in all your ruling throughout you event, a warning for one person should apply to the next, but one warning only then the penalty.

We must remember, off road tracks are a moving entity and change after a lap, not like a bitumen circuit some other's race on.