When did the gates start being able to fall forward till they hit the ground?

It’s holeshot devices. They keep the front wheel low enough to push up on the gate rather than into the gate

Hate to break it to you but the wheel doesn't change size.

In defense of gate design,  it is very rare to see it react that way, it usually gets caught on the tire. In thousands of gate drops at our track wheels get caught forcing the rider to lean over and pull back. And our gate was worn and kinda low.

I always understood that style of gate to only drop towards the rider. As said before, self penalizing. If that weren't the case, why even have it.

But the reality of the matter is, if Jett did get out of the gate earlier and with his mad start skills, he's have run away. I believe he knew he was out early and let off to not be penalized. But received a penalty anyway. Sometimes you're the hammer, sometimes you're the nail. Even the best of plans have a failure here and there. Disclaimer, I'm a big Jett fan.

TM

Funny, you must not be as far North East as I, here in New England. The late Bernie Yellin (MX338 fame) was the designer of the backward falling gate. And it was designed to NOT fall forward thus trapping anyone trying to leave early. Every gate I ever raced on here in NEMA and NESC was designed like that aside from Lunenburg ( long gone and rubber band ) and Loudon ( also long gone and forward falling ). 

lol, I was making fun of people that blame holeshot devices on everything. 

Only 3 years of NESC here, but 100% agree. However I did find this post a few minutes ago which goes back to Middleboro, MA 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/421829086664391/posts/652536760260288/