Round 6 Objections Thread

[DeadWolfBones]

Please post any objections to on-track conduct or administrative rulings here, in accordance with rule #17 on the IGTC website: http://www.freewebs.com/lfsgtseries/rules.htm

Thanks!

[Lotesdelere]

Objection 1:
Cars: #18 ([CD]Subon) and #26 (cyber|scipy)
End of lap 31-Beginning of lap 32 / Time 57:02
In pitlane. Car #26 exits the garage on full acceleration without taking care of car #18 rolling on the pitlane, thus having the right, and almost hitting him.
Plus car #26 is crossing the yellow line at pits exit few seconds after the previous dangerous driving mentionned above.

Objection 2:
Car: #26 (cyber|scipy)
Lap 33 / Time 1:00:49
Car #26 spins into T1 and then overtakes to retake his place.
Rules state:
4.5) Drivers who spin during the parade lap but do not incur serious damage may safely rejoin the field in their qualifying position. These drivers may disengage the pit limiter in order to retake their position, but must re-engage it once safely back in line. If the car is seriously damaged and difficult to control, the driver must join the rear of the line.
However this was not a parade lap so the rule is not valid. The safety car is a full course yellow so no overtaking
6.1) Overtaking under a full-course yellow will result in a drive-through penalty (hereafter DT) if caught by the marshals, or a one (1) lap penalty in the final standings if protested after the race, unless the overtaking driver promptly relinquishes the position.

Replays:
http://www.mediafire.com/?8ns0zulddzm
http://download.yousendit.com/C9979DC129A70FD8

[DeadWolfBones]

Objection 1:
Cars: #18 ([CD]Subon) and #26 (cyber|scipy)
End of lap 31-Beginning of lap 32 / Time 57:02
In pitlane. Car #26 exits the garage on full acceleration without taking care of car #18 rolling on the pitlane, thus having the right, and almost hitting him.
Plus car #26 is crossing the yellow line at pits exit few seconds after the previous dangerous driving mentionned above.

Just to clarify, this is lap 31/32 of the 3hr portion of the race, right? Not the first hour?

[BenjiMC]

#26 (cyber|scipy) will recieve a 1 lap penalty for crossing the pit exit line.

However i haven't got enough time to look over the incident properly between #18 ([CD]Subon) and #26 (cyber|scipy)

[EsCoRt RaLLy]

Just to clarify, this is lap 31/32 of the 3hr portion of the race, right? Not the first hour?

Correct.

[jasonmatthews]

Also [SR] RSX was in 8th before disconnection but we started in 9th when reconnected. So someone had jumped a place in front of us....

[tongey]

Objection 1
Start of Lap 41
Car 21 Keeps moving across my line to prevent from passing
nearly taking us both out of the race

Objection 2
Lap 44 (first hairpin, chicane and back straight)
Car 12 under Blue flag blocks racing line twice severely
holding me up and allowing car 02 to catch me

[Kaw]

Also [SR] RSX was in 8th before disconnection but we started in 9th when reconnected. So someone had jumped a place in front of us....

In my memory i reckon that we asked 10000000.3 times if everyone was satisfied and had the right place. And i dont recall any objections from RSX ? :shrug:

[jasonmatthews]

That could be something to do with the fact he was disconnected......and wasn't there for all of the 100000000.3 times you asked ;)

Our next teammate then joined [SR] Weed, as we were just about to changeover when disconnect happend.

[Kaw]

Well that kinda explains the deal. But maybe he should have told him what position he was at?:smileypul

[jasonmatthews]

RSX was apparently 7th when the server crashed, so we lost two positions. He has replied to the race report thread.

[scipy]

didnt want to waste any more time on this then necessary, but u can give a 1 lap penalty to CD too, cause subon crossed the same line as he was driving behind me.. so much for beeing petty. :detective

[DeadWolfBones]

RSX was apparently 7th when the server crashed, so we lost two positions. He has replied to the race report thread.

We are denying this objection on the following basis:

1. RSX should have communicated his place to Weed. We asked repeatedly who each car was behind and [SR] had no answer. We had no empirical evidence to go on, and we had to move fast since we were basically under a state of force majeure. In the future we will have replays to work from, but in this case there was no replay available for the pre-crash stint so we had to go on driver testimony. Your driver didn't testify, ergo...
2. Supposing the two positions were indeed lost, there's no reasonable, logical way to recompensate the [SR] team for those positions.

Sorry, but this is a combination of circumstances, uncertainty, and miscommunication--on both sides of the fence.

[DeadWolfBones]

Objection 2:
Car: #26 (cyber|scipy)
Lap 33 / Time 1:00:49
Car #26 spins into T1 and then overtakes to retake his place.

We are denying this objection on the following basis:

The spirit of the parade lap rule was intended to be applied to the SC period laps, but was not explicitly written to be so. However, the legality of re-taking position after spinning under the SC hasn't been clearly delineated, is nebulous, and thus falls under the discretion of the administrators. Since our intention was to allow this behavior, we are not going to penalize car #26 for engaging in it.

The rules will be changed for round #7 to make this more explicit. Thank you for bringing the issue to our attention.

[nmanley]

We are denying this objection on the following basis:

The spirit of the parade lap rule was intended to be applied to the SC period laps, but was not explicitly written to be so. However, the legality of re-taking position after spinning under the SC hasn't been clearly delineated, is nebulous, and thus falls under the discretion of the administrators. Since our intention was to allow this behavior, we are not going to penalize car #26 for engaging in it.

The rules will be changed for round #7 to make this more explicit. Thank you for bringing the issue to our attention.

Bare in mind that a persons spin or loss of position under the safety car that is NOT caused by another entry but by losing control of your car when heating up the tires SHOULD NOT be allowed to retake their position. Nothing complicated about that. If you can't maintain control of your car then you need to suffer the loss of position.

My teammate had to jump into my driving stint due to my system locking up as I was entering the server. His wheel did not take his current calibration and he had to do it on track causing the car to spin and the loss of two places, 6th to 8th (Lap 32 I think). He did not try to re-pass the two cars as it's the correct thing to do. It's a shame that others cannot police themselves in this situation. :doh:
Grow up as a proper sportsman or get out of playing with others. :chairs:

[Lotesdelere]

We are denying this objection on the following basis:

The spirit of the parade lap rule was intended to be applied to the SC period laps, but was not explicitly written to be so. However, the legality of re-taking position after spinning under the SC hasn't been clearly delineated, is nebulous, and thus falls under the discretion of the administrators. Since our intention was to allow this behavior, we are not going to penalize car #26 for engaging in it.

The rules will be changed for round #7 to make this more explicit. Thank you for bringing the issue to our attention.
I'm sorry but the following rules are pretty clear:
6) When the SC is deployed, the track is under a full-course yellow condition. As such, drivers are to cease racing for position and fall in line—this means no passing whatsoever.[...]

6.1) Overtaking under a full-course yellow will result in a drive-through penalty (hereafter DT) if caught by the marshals, or a one (1) lap penalty in the final standings if protested after the race, unless the overtaking driver promptly relinquishes the position.

Car #26 did a mistake and spun by his own into T1. No other cars were involved in this incident so I see no reason why car #26 should be allowed to overtake under full-course yellow condition while he lost positions due to his own mistake thus breaking the above rules.

[DeadWolfBones]

Yes, to further clarify, the rules will be changed to make it so that spins that aren't the result of contact from other drivers will result in the spinning driver re-joining the line where they recover.

Drivers who are spun by others (admin's discretion) may re-join the line in their previous position when they recover.

However, since this wasn't clear for the previous race and since it was noted by the marshals at the time, who allowed it to happen, it will not be penalized in the #26's case.

[DeadWolfBones]

I'm sorry but the following rules are pretty clear:

Car #26 did a mistake and spun by his own into T1. No other cars were involved in this incident so I see no reason why car #26 should be allowed to overtake under full-course yellow condition while he lost positions due to his own mistake.

I understand your concern, but we feel that this is a significantly different case than the sort of "passing under yellow" that the rule describes (following that logic, according to the rules, the cars behind the spinning car should come to a halt so that they don't pass it under yellow), and we feel that since the rule for the parade lap allows it and since the rules previously didn't specify for the SC periods, we have to allow it in this instance.

More importantly, as noted in the post above, the incident was seen by the marshals at the time and judged to be OK. Even if we felt we were wrong in making that call (and we do not due to the ambiguity of the rules), it would be unfair to reverse our judgment in retrospect and penalize the #26 post facto, as after-race penalties are inevitably harsher than in-race penalties.

This judgment will stand.

The rules, as has been often noted, are very much under development this season and we greatly appreciate your help in pointing out flaws and helping us to tighten them.

[srdsprinter]

Fair enough on your ruling; However, the rules were meant to crack down on the idiotic driving under the caution. (After the South City round, where a large part of the drivers were making fools of themselves under the cautions and damaging competitors cars). You were not yet part of the league, and presumably haven't seen how bad it was. I highly suggest you look into it and see why this behavior has to be stomped out.

Spinning your car out under caution is perhaps the most laughable thing there is to do in racing. Endangering yourself and your competitors during a period of caution should be amoung the worst of offenses and punished without remorse; the behavior needs to be made an example of what not to do in the IGTC.

As for "stopping behind the spinning car", I cannot think of a real life series that does not include "maintaining a cautious pace" clause, such that you have to drive safely under the yellow to maintain your position.

Spinning under yellow should warrant the pentalty of lost position(s), drive-thru, or worse.

Edit 2,4 -> As for your ruling, its acceptable only just. The rules, in fact, are Very explicit. There are no clauses saying it is okay to retake position under Safety Car Caution in ANY case. Since you can do so, please move the LOTF FXR entry up the 2 positions it needlessly gave away under the caution period, yielding after it spun. :thumbsup:

Also, Please penalize the 2 cars who passed the LOTF FXR 1 lap each, for Passing under caution and failing to yield their improved positions.

Edit 3 -> And furthermore, what if the spinning Cyber car had spun into a competitor, damaging a competitor or resulting in a classic LFS "physics glitch", and thus resulting in a DNF for another compeitor? Would this go unpunished? Driving wrecklessly under Caution simply cannot be tolerated, much less go unpunished. I am at a loss to understand this dumbing down of the rules to please the lowest common denominator. What happend to holding a higher standard?

[DeadWolfBones]

As stated, the rules governing this situation have been found to be lacking and will be rewritten and tightened for the following rounds. As there were no specific rules in place to govern it in this instance, we feel it would be unfair to penalize Cyber in this case.

End of discussion.

[srdsprinter]

That is perfectly fine, and I appreciate the honesty. I am pointing out the drastic oversight, as many of the teams saw no grey area in terms of the rules, though the admins did. (in attempt to ensure the rules are clearly designed for the future).

Is there a ruling on Scipy's counter-claim, as CD followed behind Cyber across the pit exit line?

[DeadWolfBones]

Yes, CD will also be receiving a 1 lap penalty for their line crossing. We are finalizing the finishing order and writing the standings post at the moment. It should be up shortly.

It's inevitably going to be controversial, so we'd appreciate your understanding of the difficulty involved in sorting it out fairly.

[Lotesdelere]

We're still waiting for a ruling about one of the points of our objection #1 (http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=525075#post525075):
The dangerous exit from the garage, ignoring the drivers rolling on the pitlane who have the right of way.
Subon had to brake and to steer to the right to avoid contact.

Not to mention that when Mogster pitted he stopped at the beginning of the pitlane, I believe in the 5th box. But when Scipy joined the track he spawned in the 2nd garage closest to the pit exit line.
Because of this behaviour Cyber saved the time rolling on the pitlane, about 8-9 seconds thus should have exited the pits behind Subon and Forbin.

Plus I see nothing in the rules allowing a driver change while the previous driver is not on track anymore. So it's not a driver change at all but a new car entering the track.
15) If a driver is disconnected, that driver may rejoin the race. After the race, the marshals will calculate the team's total laps and place them accordingly in the standings.

[srdsprinter]

Wow, that second part is very interesting. It has been interpretted as "team"* in the place of driver, as it is a mechanical/electrical flaw, but you are correct in the way it is worded.

*in numerous cases of the IGTC.

[DeadWolfBones]

Wow, that second part is very interesting. It has been interpretted as "team"* in the place of driver, as it is a mechanical/electrical flaw, but you are correct in the way it is worded.

*in numerous cases of the IGTC.

Yes, it has been historically interpreted that way and that's the way it was meant--it's just poorly phrased. The wording will be changed in this round of rules updates.

[DeadWolfBones]

We're still waiting for a ruling about one of the points of our objection #1 (http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=525075#post525075):
The dangerous exit from the garage, ignoring the drivers rolling on the pitlane who have the right of way.
Subon had to brake and to steer to the right to avoid contact.

We're still discussing this one and we should have a verdict on it shortly.

Not to mention that when Mogster pitted he stopped at the beginning of the pitlane, I believe in the 5th box. But when Scipy joined the track he spawned in the 2nd garage closest to the pit exit line.
Because of this behaviour Cyber saved the time rolling on the pitlane, about 8-9 seconds thus should have exited the pits behind Subon and Forbin.

This, however, is just down to the nature of LFS disconnects/rejoins--not a lot to be done about it. I'm not sure off the top of my head how long it took for Scipy to reconnect once Mogster lagged out, but it was surely close to the amount of time it would have taken him to complete his pitstop and get rolling (as evidenced by the fact that the CD car ended up exiting the pits at about the same time as the Cyber car, despite coming in in 2nd place).

We have the half-lap rule (#15.1) in place to prevent drivers from gaining time from disconnects and it works well in most situations. It's the best we can do until Scavier come up with better race management tools and solutions for disconnects.

[DeadWolfBones]

Objection 1:
Cars: #18 ([CD]Subon) and #26 (cyber|scipy)
End of lap 31-Beginning of lap 32 / Time 57:02
In pitlane. Car #26 exits the garage on full acceleration without taking care of car #18 rolling on the pitlane, thus having the right, and almost hitting him.

We are denying this objection on the following basis:

While #26 was indeed somewhat reckless in exiting his pit stall, reckless driving that doesn't result in damage traditionally earns a warning rather than a penalty, as seen in the rules:

12) Drivers will not be automatically penalized for disregarding rules #8-#10. However, incidents that result from drivers’ failure to abide by these guidelines will result in a stop and go penalty (hereafter SG) for the offending driver.

Cyber Racing has been warned and any further incidents of this type will be punished.

The subject of track re-entry after a disconnect is another area that the rules previously failed to fully address, and a change will also be made there in preparation for Round 7. The admins are discussing this change and will post about it in the upcoming Round 7 Rules Changes thread.

Thanks.

[Lotesdelere]

reckless driving that doesn't result in damage
There was no damage because Subon braked and steered to avoid contact. Not because Scipy was carefull enough, see the difference ?
(Crappy screenshots (with no AA/AF and low res textures because it's faster to forward the replays at 8-16X) are attached)


This, however, is just down to the nature of LFS disconnects/rejoins--not a lot to be done about it. I'm not sure off the top of my head how long it took for Scipy to reconnect once Mogster lagged out, but it was surely close to the amount of time it would have taken him to complete his pitstop and get rolling (as evidenced by the fact that the CD car ended up exiting the pits at about the same time as the Cyber car, despite coming in in 2nd place).
FYI it took about 34 seconds to Cyber from the moment Mogster stopped to the pits to the moment Scipy exited the garage. It took about 29 seconds to CD and Core from the moment they stopped to the pits to the moment they restarted.
So we can assume Cyber lost about 5 seconds there but gained 4 seconds by non rolling through the pitlane thus should clearly have exited behind Subon and very close to Forbin.

To me rule #15 does make sense as it is. The driver who lost connection must be the one who reconnects and keep on driving for the team. Losing connection can be assimilated as a mechanical failure (eg suspension damage or tyres popped) so it's slowing down the car and you have to drive to the pits. If you can't do that, in our case reconnect, you're out of the race. This is the spirit of endurance as far as I understand it.
Because of rule #15 I have given instructions to my team to be sure to avoid any PC/connection troubles because I was sure that the driver losing his connection had to be the one who must reconnect and rejoin the track, which is logical to me.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not denying your ruling but the rules about disconnections have to be rewritten for the future and especially for the oval where the track is short and the pitlane quite long.
The MoE rules about disconnections should be taken as an example IMO. If you loose connection and reconnect in the same lap you have lost one lap.

I have to admit that I'm quite disappointed to see that the people not having PC troubles nor doing mistakes are paying the price of other teams troubles and mistakes. This can't stand like that. The rulings don't match with the written rules.
However I do know what organizing a league is, what dealing with the objections is, be sure that we appreciate your work and we enjoyed this race despite of all the troubles of all kind which occured :)

[srdsprinter]

How pray-tell can your teamates "try to avoid" internet/pc related disconnects?

[Lotesdelere]

How pray-tell can your teamates "try to avoid" internet/pc related disconnects?
You can put as many chances as possible on your side :)
Of course an ISP / power / whatever failure can always happen but at least you know it's not your fault.

It worked, some of our drivers who are used to have a 'fragile' connection didn't have any trouble all evening/night long :)

[srdsprinter]

Like how? You have no control if your power goes out, or you ISP drops you.

What could you possibly do to control or even "better your chances"?

[BenjiMC]

There was no damage because Subon braked and steered to avoid contact. Not because Scipy was carefull enough, see the difference ?
(Crappy screenshots (with no AA/AF and low res textures because it's faster to forward the replays at 8-16X) are attached) We know, and he has been warned.


FYI it took about 34 seconds to Cyber from the moment Mogster stopped to the pits to the moment Scipy exited the garage. It took about 29 seconds to CD and Core from the moment they stopped to the pits to the moment they restarted.
So we can assume Cyber lost about 5 seconds there but gained 4 seconds by non rolling through the pitlane thus should clearly have exited behind Subon and very close to Forbin. I'm not denying your mathematical abilities here but logically, cyber entered the pits first so should exit the pits first.


To me rule #15 does make sense as it is. The driver who lost connection must be the one who reconnects and keep on driving for the team. Losing connection can be assimilated as a mechanical failure (eg suspension damage or tyres popped) so it's slowing down the car and you have to drive to the pits. If you can't do that, in our case reconnect, you're out of the race. This is the spirit of endurance as far as I understand it.
Because of rule #15 I have given instructions to my team to be sure to avoid any PC/connection troubles because I was sure that the driver losing his connection had to be the one who must reconnect and rejoin the track, which is logical to me. I see your point but it has always been this way. Hardware issues are rarely avoidable whereas driving mistakes such as rolling are. Bare in mind it is the aim of the league rules to only punish drivers for driving errors.


Don't misunderstand me, I'm not denying your ruling but the rules about disconnections have to be rewritten for the future and especially for the oval where the track is short and the pitlane quite long.
The MoE rules about disconnections should be taken as an example IMO. If you loose connection and reconnect in the same lap you have lost one lap. I agree this is easier to rule but it is punishing good drivers for having hardware issues. Agreed it is fairly obvious that all the drivers should have capable PC's but sometimes it is out of your control to prevent disconnections or PC crashes. The current rules do punish for disconnections but on the other hand they at times do not.


I have to admit that I'm quite disappointed to see that the people not having PC troubles nor doing mistakes are paying the price of other teams troubles and mistakes. This can't stand like that. The rulings don't match with the written rules.
However I do know what organizing a league is, what dealing with the objections is, be sure that we appreciate your work and we enjoyed this race despite of all the troubles of all kind which occured :)

They are hardly "paying the price" here. as i see it nothing was gained. However we see that there can be a gain thus we will be re-writing rules regarding disconnections.