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AC I was watching it with my son and we discussed straight away AC did everything right. I never got to see the interviews, go on vital anything. I didn't think about it again I was so sure he did nothing wrong. Than all this drama.
Who was that guy in the LCQ who pinned it around the triple for the transfer? it was nothing like that, not even close.
Anyway looks like 10 percent Cooper 90% AC on this one. What I want to know is what is up with this Yamaha team outdoors this year?
AC loses the supercross on his own. He did it he owned it. Said nothing disrespectful about Ferrandis. Than last week Dylan (who I am a bit of a fan of) was crying like a bitch about AC having contact with him. It just kept going and AC kept justifying himself but Dylan wouldn't have a bar of it. I thought it was a little lame. Now this week they are protesting and Cooper has lost himself. Why are they so anti AC? It is crazy the negativity there.
Just watched the Swapmoto interview with AC where he adressed this and he just explained everything very logical and then going on to say how great Cooper is riding, how AC is learning stuff from him and that Cooper is just killing it.
The more dumb things the Yamaha guys says about AC, the more dumb they look when AC is such a great sport at every moment.
https://youtu.be/1KS7V1DBjUQ
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So here's the rule:
i. A rider leaving the course may continue the race by properly re-entering the track at the closest safe point to where the rider left the course without gaining an advantage.
1. While off course the rider may not accelerate in an unsafe manner.
2. If a rider accelerates in an unsafe manner while off course or cuts part of the race course, the rider may be determined to have gained an advantage without gaining a position.
3. It will be the duty of the Race Director or his designee to make the determination as to whether a rider gained an advantage by leaving the racecourse and re-entering.
4. The penalty for gaining an advantage while off course during a race will be the loss of number of positions gained plus one additional position in the final results for that race. If no positions were gained, the penalty will be the loss of one position in the final results for that race.
So watch the race footage and GoPro above and decide.
For what it's worth, I think;
Rule 1. AC did accelerate hard up the hill, unsafe though? Probably not but who decides? Nearest flaggy may say unsafe, race director watching a video declares safe.
Rule 2. Is so open to interpretation it's not funny! Did AC gain advantage by accelerating? Watch the GoPro above and see how far he is behind JC when he goes off track then he jumps back on in front of JC- is that gained advantage? Yes.
Rule 3. Again totally open to interpretation and therefore bias.
Rule 4. At worst AC gets awarded 2nd.
It's not about Cooper being a douche and whatever he did after the incident is irrelevant. What AC did in slowing down after coming back on is irrelevant by the rules but sounds like the AMA took it into account in their ruling. My guess is AC knew he came back on too early so redressed it by slowing but if the rules are black & white that doesn't change anything.
Bottom line; the rules have too many gray areas and the AMA doesn't make consistent concise rulings. But it's done now, bring on the next round, this could get interesting!
Which is what we like right?
This whole modern concept of going off track, losing no time and pinning it through access areas needs to end.
Cianciarulo decided to negate the error. I think a time penalty would have been appropriate.
He did not go to the “next safest place”. He cut straight across and wheelies those banners. Doing a wheelie over the banners is something he could have done there at any point prior to when he decided to do it. The banners were the same throughout the section. He decided to not ride along side the track and instead cut directly across. That’s the issue here. Had he ridden beside the track at idle speed the entire time and then re-entered at the next safest place, okay. Fair. But he obviously didn’t ride along side the track because he cuts directly over. He cuts directly over to wheelie banners, something he could have done several feet prior.
I don’t think many here dislike AC or blame him. I love the guy and it’s impossible not to cheer for him. His interviews are top notch and he has a great personality. But that rule. Oof. It’s bad. It makes no sense. If Adam makes that mistake and gets kicked to the middle of the track, his momentum is completely slowed and he loses much more time than he did by going off the track. Yes he kinda let Cooper go a little, but nowhere near what that mistake should have done. That rule needs to be revisited for sure. It has to be better. You can’t just go off the track like that and keep your same spot on the track, allowing you to keep the pressure on the rider in front of you.
Do I think AC should be penalized? Yeah. But do I think he should per the rule? No. Well. I guess if we get technical he did re-enter in front of Cooper by the letter of the law. But anyway, his wasn’t even the worst one of the day. Sexton’s was way worse. In what world can you just go completely off the track and rejoin it however many million miles later in the same exact spot you were? That was a joke. And don’t even get me started on Martin at Millville a few years ago. AC’s was extremely tame in comparison to those two, and he owned it, apologized, and did what the rule states he should do. However, we can’t kid ourselves and say that rule is okay. It’s not. Nor should it ever be.
That is exactly what happened. If you can’t see or acknowledge all that from the go pro video then you simply have an ulterior motive here rather than truly admitting what happened.
Would you really want to get your first win from appealing an “incident” like this? I’d want to earn it.
If you exit the track, you have to re enter where you exited. It was like that in the us too I believe, and as said by someone in a previous posts, it got change to reduce somewhat the risk (as both situations are risky anyway).
"2.11 On-Track Regulations
[...]
b. A rider leaving the course may continue the race by properly re-entering the course at the closest point to where the rider left the course, without gaining an advantage. If a rider leaves the course for any reason, the rider must immediately slow down to a safe speed so as not to endanger life or limb of other riders, crew members, officials, or the public. It will be the responsibility of the Race Director or his designee to determine whether the rider gained an advantage upon re-entry or failed to slow down after leaving the course. A rider may be determined to have gained an advantage without gaining a position."
This is further brought up in Appendix A, section A2 (page 24):
"A2 General Offenses and Penalties
[...]
l. Failure to re-enter the track at a point as close as practical to the point at which the rider left the track or slow down after leaving the course, and in so doing gaining an advantage"
The rule-book doesn't dwell much on the reasoning behind this slowing down shenanigans beyond "safety", and that is fair (it is a rule-book, not an essay). But it should be evident to anyone that this is to serve as the penalty one receives from obviously pushing yourself to the point where you make a mistake and unwillingly (allegedly) leave the track.
Cianciarulo was pushing it to catch (and pass) Cooper, in this pursuit he made a mistake which ultimately costed him nothing. The path he took from point A to point B ("point A" being where he exited the track and "point B" being where he re-entered it) and the speed at which he went through said path turned out to be faster (or, if you choose to count his slowing down during re-entry to "reset" the gap between him and Cooper, just as fast). This is why this win is questionable (or was, rather, before the official ruling was made).
In other forms of racing, most of them taking place on asphalt, going off-track will usually result in either vehicle-damage or slow-down (superbikes don't do gravel very well, after all). Only really obvious "track-cuts" would result in any gained advantage (or just the mitigation of a previous mistake).
I really wanted Cianciarulo to win, but this one did not sit well with me at all. And for the record (for the sake of consistency if you so will), I thought Sexton's move in moto 1 was equal amounts of (or perhaps even more-so) wrong. I also thought Barcia jumping out of the whoops and then going mach 5 on the side of them during the mud-race that was the Ironman national last year was bs.
Had Cooper still made that mistake if Cianciarulo wasn't on his ass at that point? Who knows. Had Cianciarulo still passed Cooper if his mistake had actually costed him "something" (leaving any specifics beyond that out of this discussion for sanity's sake)? Who knows. But people really need to start being intellectually honest regarding the fairness of these rules and how they are applied these days.
Watching Cooper's interview after watching the GoPro above was cringeworthy. AC entered the track and then gave him even more gap than he had before he made the mistake. Not sure on what planet he feels AC endangered him...
Pit Row
AMA Pro and/or MXSports officials say no rule was broken and Cianciarulo did no wrong. It's a shitty rule book when a rider can make such an error resulting in going off track and not suffer for it. MotoGP Race Direction will not allow any rider in any GP class to gain from leaving the track - a rider will receive either a time penalty or made to take the long-lap lane (newly implemented for 2019).
Maybe that is the answer for future races - introduce a long-lap lane, If a rider is not able (for whatever reason) to re-enter the track from where they left it (or very, very close to it) make them take the long-lap, or give a time penalty.
As per my earlier post in the thread I believe the rule is written in such a way to do the best it can with a difficult situation, and it could be that AC's choice of exit point isn't wrong because there's something not apparent on the video - as anyone who's ridden knows; there's a great deal that doesn't show up on the TV. But at the same time he does miss an awful lot of track whilst suffering no time penalty... The bit of race track he missed, the rollers and the corner, are obstacles, they are obstacles he didn't have to deal with on that lap due to his mistake. And yet he suffers no time penalty? That doesn't seem right to me.
And again, the only reason he couldn't immediately jump back on course was because of the banners. If not for that he could've gotten right back on track while losing a second at most. You can't penalize a rider just because the AMA wants to generate more marketing revenue.
Last week, gate flinch
This week, banner gap
What’s it gonna be next week?
https://youtu.be/iBGSgJ0HyVI
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