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It should have been asked at the "start procedure demonstration" when all riders were present.
This exactly. Team USA made it a point to meet with the people who enforce the rules and asked specific questions and were told that specific thing is illegal. Then Hunter is all “hey mate can I wipe this clean?” and the charisma of the Aussie takes over and rule goes out the door.
Nah. He prepped behind the gate which has been the accepted practice for an eternity.
Australia won. Jett, Hunta, and Kyle rose to the occasion. Any protest is lame, and quite frankly, embarrassing.
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So is it great to wipe the grate, or did it grate on you that he wiped the gate?
You would have thought that Team USA officials would have videoed Hunter allegedly wiping his gate if it happened? No evidence, no foul!
Apparently they did; they were videoing their own riders at the start gates and caught it.
Also it was the grate, not the gate.
It's literally enough with one inch advantage going over the gate and you shut down the ones around you and you can start cutting over.
We are talking about riders who sacrifice clutch feel and performance on track, just to get of the gate.
Of course it matters, specially in wet conditions.
You also always have the risk that chain lube or oil has ended up on the grid from previous starts.
so.....teamUSA in fact won the race, they were the fastest racers and should have had the cup .......that got robbed from them by hunter wiping the starting grate in a race where tomac got the holeshot and got passed by 2 slower racers just as a result of that grate wiping.........
congrats to all americans who support this protest, your the biggest sore losers in the world and should get a cup for it !!!!!........and thats why i love to see USA loosing, their excuses are always very funny and entertaining
What's the point of a protest? Eli Tomac holeshot the third Moto anyway!
If he had been burried in the pack and Hunter holeshot then maybe.
Ain't gonna change anything now, results stand and Team Australia out pointed US riders on the track, where it matters!
I don't think it has anything to do with being a sore loser. Maybe it was because they where told specifically they where not permitted and watched someone do it then where told he had permission.
It is nice of you to spin things and take your opportunity for a cheap shot.
Now that is real entertainment.
If Paul Perebinjos didn't wipe the grate, then he had a serious reason to believe he could not.
Grate gate dilemma?
Pan Pam
So challenging to insure their understanding of the rules is being upheld has become a pussy thing to do? If more people obeyed the law and followed the rules (instead of treating them like suggestions if convenient) The world wouldn't be nearly as expensive as it is today.
"Permissiveness" is the tool by which we have been divided and conquered . . . and most don't even know it!
In a shocking twist....Aussies think it's bullshit the Australian team got protested for doing something the other Teams were told they can't do.... who woulda thought.
😉
You like to see the USA lose due to jealousy.
You can live here too.
The rule might as well not exist for as vague as it is....
Those whining about USA protesting are projecting big time here.... did you hear anyone outside of the podcast even mention this or care at all? I didn't.... nobody is whining here. Nobody is trying to steal a cheap victory. They met with a rules guy for the sake of knowing the rules and then it turned out those weren't the rules. Or maybe they were. So you file the protest and bring all this to light so they can write clearer rules or make sure everyone gets the same interpretation given to them going forward.
Exhibition or not, anyone who claims they wouldn't care at all about something like this after you were given bad info when you made good faith effort to understand the rules is just lying. Doesn't mean you're salty or a bitch about it but hitting send on the protest to make sure it's at least addressed is not a big deal.
The point now is, that it needs to be clarified and fully explained during the riders breifing before it could occur again.
Pit Row
With so much confusion in here with the written words Grate and Gate. It makes me wonder if when Team USA asked about wiping the grate, the official that gave the answer thought they said gate, since it is common knowledge ( to them) that wiping the grate is OK.
With the all of the confusion in here even with the 2 words written out, imagine how easy it might be to confuse what You hear . I imagine that they were asking a lot of questions and it would be very easy for a slight miscommunication like that. Since there is nothing in the written rule saying that You can not wipe the grate itself. And grooming is allowed when there is not a grate, so why would they not allow the grate to be cleaned if it was needed?
Doing a quick burnout might have been the way the other riders handled cleaning it off. Hunter and Prado's gates might have been the only gates that had some mud on them. Or they did not want to spin their tires to wipe it off, worried more about keeping their tires as sharp as possible for when they hit dirt.
I can understand why they protested , but I wonder how much they did to make sure they were correct on the violation before filing? Maybe they filed , knowing that there was an official that interpreted the rule in their favor. Hoping that there would be more officials that read the rule the same as the way they were told? If not, it seems like thy should have done a little more research to make sure they were correct before they protested. Especially since it did not look like it put the US team at a disadvantage.
“still salty over 1983 America’s Cup loss”
Sure, that is what motivated team USA to protest.
Dude, nobody gives a flying F about some ancient sailing competition back in the Stone Age,
from what I can tell, team USA was just questioning the inconsistency of the FIM rules as applied at the track.
But you go ahead and keep on believing it’s about a 41 year old boat race somewhere😝
When you are specifically told something by an official when you ask for clarification how much clearer can it be?
Did they specifically ask for clarification in detail about this single aspect? Or was it a bunch of things they asked about? Even on here people are confused with the words written out. And the written rule as well as hearing both sides of the argument.
I picture it as a meeting with a list of questions, Team USA asks about the starting and they simple say, You can not do anything to the gate. Team USA moves on maybe assumes that the gate and grate are the same thing. I doubt the intense focus on this single aspect that it is getting in this thread was how it happened in the meeting. And like I said, so many people on here are having trouble with the word grate and gate, when they can go back and reread it . When its part of what I assume were a bunch of rules they went over, and the hindsight I have from knowing that Hunter was told it was OK, I can see room to misunderstand.
So You are saying that the US understood that they may be in the wrong when they filed the protest? That they understood that Hunter was told it was OK and they were told something different? I could see that being the case too. In that case I feel like it was a weak move to protest considering how the starts went for Tomac and Hunter.
What were they told when they asked why Hunter was told he could do it and they were told no? I'm listening to the Renthal reaction right now. Maybe I'll hear something I'm missing.
Hunter could have ended up with a much worse start, for example. Put him 10 positions down on lap one and you have a completely different race.
Only thin i know, is that there is a difference between wet and dry after doing a lot of starts on grids. Not always it shows.
All the other teams? The US team were told what they were told in a private meeting.
The rule is written poorly enough they had to ask. That is prudent.
Then you see two of your top rivals doing differently. Do you:
a) throw a protest in to see if it sticks;
b) go ask the officials again with the evidence you have;
c) walk over to the other team and ask what were they told;
There are other ways to achieve what you want.
Why did t they protest Spain as well?
Spin it how you want but this isn’t a good look.
I didn't say all other teams did I?
But since you are being so nit picky to defend your first MXdN win, I should have said "another team". My apologies.
You said other teams, which is the same thing as you asked.
I can support this 100%!!!! lol
This is the biggest nonstory on Vital. Australia would protest Fuel to be tested if it was in question to win their first MXDN!!! As they Should. And I'm happy the USA brass protested this situation. But Hunter did Zero WRONG and Australia won and earned the MXDN!!. One of Many to come I would imagine.
Come on. Stop with the spin here. Why would the USA team care about Spain who is out of it at that point and Prado at the 3rd Moto of the MXDN when you are in a close second to Australia? Which protest do you do??? BOTH? No!! I have said here I have no idea what to make of Prado doing this, however apparently, he asked as well. Team USA asked for clarification on this before the event along with two other teams. FIM said NO.FIM is all over the place. I'm glad USA were on top of this. However, EVERYONE involved on the US side is happy with the decision. Hunter asked, he did NOTHING WRONG. No Foul. And it didn't affect anything at the end. The best TEAM Won!!!
ENOUGH ALREADY
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