After seeing yet another red flag last weekend its become blatantly obvious that doing a restart after a lap has been completed is ridiculous. Brayton brought this up on his podcast with AC and hes 100% right. Youre supposed to get 1 shot at a start, its all on the line, and if you pull it off you should be rewarded. I love hampshire, but there should be consequences for crashing in the first turn. At the other end hammaker pulling the holeshot with the championship on the line should also be rewarded.
It shouldnt be complicated, if they complete 1 lap they do a staggered restart. You should not be getting freebies in supercross. Re-racking them after they did their start, went around the track, crossed the finish, and even a couple laps have happened is insane. This 100% should be changed after this season. The start should be THE start, not one start out of a few chances if someone falls. Theres so many red flags these days that its important they get this squared away, its not a rare thing anymore.
His podcast with AC popped up in my YouTube feed today. I didn't know they had one.
AC is totally awestruck by Davies to the point of being delusional.
And yes, I agree with Brayton on the staggered start after red flag.
I would be good with that plan
I believe there was a race this year where someone holeshotted, gate restart, got collected in a crash first turn. (RJ?)
I wanna say its a common theme on restarts where people run it in a little harder to get a better start then theres a crash.
Brayton had a good point as well about how much momentum plays a part in supercross. Brayton and AC both said theyve both experienced it first hand and they know how hammaker felt when he saw the red flag. The second he sees it when hes out front all the air gets let out of the room and hes like nooooooo are you seriousssss… Then for RJ who crashed in the first turn he goes from miserable to his heart pounding and thanking god. Then you see rj gets the holeshot in the restart and hammaker is like 5th. Also on top of that a gate that was good the first start could be completely destroyed on the restart.
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I've had it go both ways for me in the amateur ranks. Mostly, at local tracks they don't have the manpower or the equipment to do a flag-style restart, so that's why we go back to the gate.
In the pros, however, there is a well-executed process whereby they can restart a race after a safety concern. I say do a staggered start if the race was halted for any on-track reason, and a re-rack only if there was a gate malfunction or otherwise unfair start.
One of those things when you hear it, you're like wait, why the hell isn't this just how it is?!
One thing I just heard from some podcast this week and it makes sense. It if you are the "leader" and10ft from the corner going into a the rhythm lane verses the 20 place guy 100ft who gets a full run at the corner and can do the whole rhythm lane how fair is that ?
I just said that last Saturday! Totally agree. One gate drop is fair to everyone.
I can't understand in this day and age why there can't be a timed gate system where every gate can drop individually at a set time. Then if there's a restart you just line the guys up behind their appropriate gate and each gate drops according to where you were on the last lap and the distance behind the guy who was in front of you.
Inbreds in charge of the racing, same inbreds who think c class should be able to run open pro sport lap times in the amateurs…
Agreed, unless the start causes the red flag there is no reason to re-rack them after a red flag. All restarts should be staggered based on the last lap
Electric selanoids could theoretically drop each gate at the time gap interval already determined by timing and scoring. Just line them up 1st to last and drop each gate from one side to the other letting technology do the work. I dunno, seems feasible to me.
I agree 100% though, staggered restart if they pass the finish on the first lap.
Someone called in on pulp and had a good suggestion - line back up on gates and they drop in sequence and gap last lap each rider had. Technology today that should be easy...
I said the same thing at the race to my cousin. We were both a little bummed for Beaumer.
The only time they should go back to the gate is if there's a gate malfunction. Otherwise they have timing lines all around the track so there's no reason to not stagger them based on their current running order.
This would make so much sense. Except they still have gate malfunctions now dropping it all together lol.
Drop every gate .5 sec or 1 sec for each guy. Everyone would be gone in 10 or 20 seconds based on the order at the red flag.
Sounds like how the starts should be as it is to reduce the pile ups and actually make gate picks worth something. Would also reduce races getting destroyed by lappers fucking up the starts for the top guys every single week.
Agree but make it a 2 wide staggered start like NASCAR does.
Pit Row
Endorse. This is a great idea
Just one other concern: If there's a short laptime (like in Supercross,) and the start straight joins the main track at some point other than at the very end of the circuit (like in Supercross,) or the track officials have to move tuff blocks to "change" the track orientation after the start (like in Supercross,) and the leader is significantly ahead of the last-place competitor (like what often happens in Supercross,) we then have a dangerous situation wherein the leader comes around before the last rider joins the race.
I say keep it simple: line them up and let them rip. The AMA can address all other problems by placing the tuff-block in the right location to ensure a fair restart. (I say put it at the beginning of the start straight, not at the end. Make the riders line up in the rhythm lane or whoops just before. That way, nobody can gain a ton of speed and slingshot around guys ahead.)
Brayton makes a good point but that doesn’t fix the issue if it’s a gate malfunction or worse yet a partial gate malfunction. The rider(s) affected by the gate deserve a complete restart.
For down riders who aren’t able to restart there is no need for a complete restart. It’s actually unfair
If you want to see gate malfunctions, hook all those individually to a PLC and have it all relied on sensors, timers, and relays all connected with tiny wires in inhospitable environments.
Then you have to have someone input each rider in the gate he started from and then plug in his timer. That's time consuming and introduces the possibility for mistakes.
Just stagger them, and let's go!
Chris? Is that you????
Each side of the gate is dropped by a lever or whatever the box man does.
How do you propose they drop each individual gate, let alone on a timer?
The cost, complexity AND chance of failure within a single gate per riser system is massive. Let alone the weight and CST of transport, technicians required to break it down and reassemble at every round.
The solution is easy, flag restart but from the gate, they all go individually once each bike has hit a certain line 5 -10m past the gate.
You wouldn't have to enter them in their original gates. Enter them sequentially. Leader goes in gate 1. 2nd place goes in gate 2, etc. Gate position doesn't matter if the riders are being sent off seconds apart from each other.
But to your point on malfunctions - judging by the leader board on the screen that often goes haywire during the race, they seem to really struggle keeping that running properly.
While a timed gate drop is obviously the fairest solution, it’s way too complicated and expensive
I like the idea of back to the gate 1-22 left to right and have each person take off 1x1
I do think it’ll lead to some protests/arguements on riders “jumping” the gate (leaving before it’s time)
The race at Budds 2023, Deegan had a big lead and it was close to or over halfway completed when they did a full restart. That decision was mind blowing.
Staggered start after 1 lap complete makes too much sense to ever make it into the rule book.
I like the "put them back in the gate sequentially." You can even approximate the time gaps with the two people. one with the flag releasing the rider and the other with the stop watch. doesn't have to be exact to be better than what we currently do. I mean just round it off for seconds and that will be much closer to the true running order pre red flag. The only real issue I see is the track design to allow the time to separate everyone. Maybe after a specific place (5th? 8th?) the just let them go one right after another? I don't know. But almost anything is better than what the currently are doing. They could even do a maximum time differential between any two riders if the track length was an issue. Say 5 seconds or something?
AC is trying to hard. I like AC I just wish he would chill. He will get there, hopefully.
You guys all talking about these time sequence starts…have you seen timing and scoring this year? They can’t even get that right
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