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He really should be upset with himself.
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With that being said, I slowed down that video and really don't see Chase reacting AFTER the guy on the outside hits the gate. It appears to be at the same time, as if they reacted to the gate flinching. The same gate flinching that happened in the 125 race.
I understand it's impossible to get things 100% in a time crunch and I wasn't on the line so I'm not going to go full Vitard on you. Thank you for doing what you could in the moment to make the best call possible, even if in hindsight, we realize it wasn't the correct one.
The dispute is: when did it flinch and Why?
But at normal speed I didn’t see a damn thing haha
There is nothing we can do about a rider jumping early and hitting the gate, causing it to reverberate. That's what a backwards falling gate is meant to do: keep everyone behind it until it hits the ground. If they red-flagged every start where one of the 40 went early and bumped the gate, it would become the strategy -- have your whole team count to 4 and pin it. If they time it right, holeshots. If they go early and hit the gate, restarts. And then repeat, and repeat.
It's like the old dirt track strategy of falling in the first turn when you don't get a good start. Red flag and try again.
The gate bar moved because a couple of guys nearby hit it, but it dropped evenly for everyone. I don't know what else we can do to have a cleaner start and not get caught in an endless loop of red flags because guys will guess and ultimately go early, which is what started this whole thing on Saturday.
One other thing: the referees on the gate do not have the luxury of hi-def, slow-motion helmet cam footage from every rider and endless replays from until after the fact. They have one look from the sides and front to decide within 1:45 (in the case of Pala) for the race to either go on or stop it.
In this case, I feel for RJ and Chase and others in getting a bad start, but I believe the three officials all made the right call in allowing the race go on.
DC
Racer X
If you analyze the video frame by frame you can see the gate twitch and drop a few millimeters before any rider advanced forward to make contact with the gate. If you don't think these highly attuned athletes focusing on a gate would not react to that, then you probably don't know very much about rider mindset on the gate.
RJ should have been changing, but the officials should have analyzed the video after the gate dropped and made a decision during the first lap to re-start the race.
Pit Row
All I know is when I am waiting for a gate to drop, my left hand is like a hair trigger, double barrel, shit machine gun...ready to let go...
Can you imagine the talking-to Marv would get from Mathilde if he crashed out of the lead at a race because some girl was flashing him? Hahaha..."Honey I try my best to focus on the track but they was so perky" lol
So it even "flinched" for the drop on the parade lap, according to Cooper. No wonder some of the riders thought it would be restarted. And a lot of personnel ( riders and mechanics) thought it should have been restarted, and some kinda banked on it as the first lap unfolded.
Like I said earlier in a post, there is lots of footage that will come out, and we will all know the answers to everything by the end of the week. Seems like that is happening as the week progresses. Hooray for Vital-tards!!
I watched that video that DC put up. Seems like guys 4,6, and 7 all jumped at the same time. I don't see that much, if ever, but I guess it could happen and they all jumped on their own for no reason. Seems strange, but I guess it could happen. It was stated that they dropped the gate six times after that start, so they must have had a reason to do that because someone had some doubt.
I think after reading the article, and the authors comments, we won't have this problem ever surface again. I am sure if there is any doubt, they will do what they just did and run the race.
Pala looks like a flinch, but not a malfunction, If the gate drops evenly, as DC said it was tested immediately after the start to understand if the race should be red flagged, then no grounds for restart.
ANYone who didn't go WFO that first lap thinking they might restart it just learned a valuable lesson. I would be absolutely furious if my riders excuse was "oh the gate kinda flinched so I thought they might restart the race so I just kinda cruised around". My dad would pack up the van and sell my bike if I tried to pull that shit as a kid. People are way too soft and way too fragile these days. I stayed out of this thread as long as I could but for f*ck sake....some of you blow my mind.
Or if the flinch was caused by somebody hitting the gate on the inside, then there is no way to police that and its play on also.
Either way in my opinion it wasn't enough of an issue to justify a restart. If anybody laid up the first lap expecting a restart then that's on them. Play the referees whistle is what i was always taught,
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