So what we have here is a self-reinforcing problem:
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Smaller grids would alleviate some of the issues, as it would be easier to police and for all the reasons Xander mentioned. But I don’t think we should be cutting grid size.
Grid size is only part of the issue. General respect, communication, and lack of empathy is the real problem.
We should feel lucky that we have this issue, in a way. Grid sizes being so large is hugely positive for the sport and what every series is striving for. USPKS capped class sizes and actually turned away entries because they knew it would be difficult to manage all those karts and they didn’t have time to run LCQs for every class. I think you would have quite a few pissed off people if you allowed say 25 karts in the final rather than 36-40, and had to send half of the class entries home without a final.
There will be changes coming for the next event. The event sizes getting bigger and bigger is a learning curve for the series too. They haven’t had to deal with that big of a field before.
ya pretty much the only way to avoid it is smaller grids or more devistating penetys
It’s unfortunate it has come to this, but there’s definitely no place for the “Euro Swerve”. It’s flat out dangerous. I’m not condoning these things, but if you get euro’d and then give the guy who did it a little extra speed into the next corner that’s much safer overall. Even pushing someone wide (side check) is usually safer, but can go bad too. Like I said, not condoning any of it, but the Euro Swerve is by far the worst thing in my opinion. Personally feel they need to start black flagging this more, maybe even sitting someone for the day if multiple offender.
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@XanderClements
Ask and ye shall receive… thanks!
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How many total sessions for the weekend? Curious on the avg per session and how many are bumpers vs driving infractions. Either way, 500 is crazy!
Similar complaints are going on in the 206 page on FB.
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About 5-7 official sessions per class, per day depending on class size. Some classes had split pre-finals and some had LCQs. 7 classes.
So lots of sessions but yeah lots of penalties. And my dad told me he did about 40 bumper video reviews where people brought video to protest their bumper penalty, and basically all of them got overturned. So the guys who legitimately thought they didn’t deserve the penalty brought them up to be reviewed, the officials agreed almost 100% of the time, and the guys who knew they effed up and deserved a penalty didn’t even bother protesting.
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Thats a good sign of that piece working properly.
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Pasting my reply to post on 206 FB page. Just to add some discussion. I feel it fits here too…
Some valid points in here. Some not so valid. Overall things are being missed. Are they being missed on purpose? No. Could they do better? Probably. Can they do it with the entry fees that are being paid? No.
For discussion sake.
How many eyes do you think are needed for 40 karts? I’m going to assume and suggest you need at least 20 people, outside of the flaggers to make this happen. 1 person for every 2 karts.
Let’s assume the series pays $15/hr, that’s the magic number.
Rough numbers
8hrs/day - $5000
Hotels $125 avg 2 nights - $5000
Flights assume $400 - $8000
Food assume $10 - $600
You’re looking at $18,000-$25,000 in expenses. Someone needs to pay that.
There is no perfect answers. Work needs to be done on both sides. Every large series has this issue.
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Err can we talk about Ka100 senior?
Wtf.
I think introducing 20 different sets of human perspectives on penalties invites a lot of room for error and confusion. If you’ve ever had the “privilege” of being on the radio when a race is happening, it can be difficult to come to a common stance on racecraft between just 2 or 3 officials. Usually you have one guy who wants to call every piece of contact a penalty, and another who doesn’t want to call anything. I can’t imagine it would be easy with 18 more sets of eyes on the field. Not to mention, how would you control all that radio chatter…
I get where you’re coming from though. There is improvement to be made.
Edit: I’m not sure how many they have now, but USPKS has trialed up to 4 race directors at times to try and get more eyes on the karts. It’s tough just to manage that many people.
Shenanigans. The class is so tight the racecraft is pretty brutal right now.
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Which is the same reason people are throwing fits about 206 race craft as well. 
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Exactly! We will never have perfection because when we try to make it so, we end up altering and making difficulties somewhere else.
I could not imagine the radio chatter with that many people trying to tell you what is going down.
Realistically, most series are probably catching 90% of all the problems as is.
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Hol up. Intentional sideswipe into boards to wreck Lemke (nice one handed drive btw). He said so post race interview so I don’t think that’s in question.Then he ignores “you must always give a da space” rule several times to create more intentional chaos, driving over other guys etc.
I am not a consumer of pro karting so this is somewhat new to me so maybe I am just a big ol n00b.
No penalties? I’m all for exciting races but that was rough as heck.
Yayaya be nice and finish last, I get it but that was too much “memememe”.
Finally, I am rather pleased with Lemkes performance. I am giggling to myself about how I was training one handed in sim for “sensitivity” purposes and had a subsequent IRL race that I had to do one handed for 15 laps. This is a terrific experience that all should be so unfortunate to have to do.
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I think most people who saw the contact between Liberante and Lemke thought it should be a penalty. I think in the heat of the race, it could’ve been construed as Liberante running Lemke up the track a little too hard and the consequence was disproportionate to the offense, given there was a wall there. I think Race simply got away with one there. And then on the last lap he wrecked with Fletcher, which I don’t think was on purpose as he apologized for that one, and it spun him out too, so that was sort of self-policing. In the end Liberante got DQ’d out of the win for illegal fuel so it didn’t really matter. But I agree he should’ve gotten something for the contact with Lemke. The initial punt from Lemke looked minor to me and didn’t warrant getting monster trucked.
To be fair, they were on Kart Chaser together and hashed it out and I guess Lemke punted him pretty good earlier, so Liberante was dishing out vigilante justice. They kissed and made up after everyone cooled down.
Some of these national-level guys who have been doing it a long time know the unwritten rules and conduct and are perfectly fine settling things themselves on-track or in a discussion afterwards and don’t need the penalties to dictate things for them as much.
But again, I think Liberante got away with one there.
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At the expense of everyone else’s race, mind you. The finish was a travesty, really.
Where’s the respect?
i think there might have been a penalty called if it weren’t for the fule dq.
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I have too much time on my hands so I did a bunch of counting for all of us. 58 official sessions of qualifying, pre-finals, LCQs and finals, plus 7 for happy hour which can have penalties applied.
Bumper penalty, loss of fast lap in happy hour - 8
Light in scales, DQ - 15
Impeding a driver during qualifying, loss of fast lap - 1
Bumper penalty, loss of fast lap in qualifying - 1
Bumper penalty, 6 sec - 122
Bumper penalty, 3 sec - 168
Avoidable contact, 3 pos - 21
Incident responsibility, 10 pos - 1
Blocking, 3 pos - 19
Avoidable contact, put-behind - 10
Blocking, 5 pos - 2
Avoidable contact, 5 pos - 7
Jump start, 5 sec - 1
Not acknowledging meatball flag, DQ - 1
Unknown DQ - 2
Cut track, 5 sec - 16
Passing under yellow, 3 pos - 4
Avoidable contact, 10 pos - 4
Tramline violation, 3 sec - 3
Post-race tech, DQ - 4
Attempt to push out PBB, DQ - 1
Tramline violation, 5 sec - 2
Unsafe re-entry, 3 pos - 6
Unsportsmanlike conduct, DQ - 4
This gives me a total of 423 penalties, minus whatever was protested or reviewed i could definitely see over 500 being handed out, especially if Tim looked at 40+ bumper penalties alone. 70% of the penalties were bumper penalties, sure, but there was a not-insignificant number of on track calls made.
To be fair to Race there, Lemke isn’t really entitled to the outside line of the track when being overtaken. I’d have to rewatch the pass again, but most drivers had been giving space to the others because they knew the barrier was right there, but Race had 2 issues with Brandon in both pre-finals that weekend, so he wasn’t interested in leaving that space for him. They talked after the race and got things sorted out though.
His pass on Fletcher was somewhat self-policing, but I think the stewards also believed Stanfield ran Race into Fletcher, as he had a penalty initially that got overturned to give him back the win. Race admitted that was a mistake, talked to Fletcher right after the race and apologized, and took himself out of contention at the same time.
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Big lack of respect in the past few years at the national level, and there was a pretty big discussion about that in the Kart Chaser Happy Hour. I recommend giving it a watch/listen if you need to burn an hour or so.
The driving standards are about back down to where they were before we introduced the push-back bumper. I think a lot of drivers need to be reminded of the rules of engagement again, and the parents and mechanics need to be reminded that they should encourage respect and higher standards.
The young generation coming into senior now have different values and opinions on racecraft than some of us greyhairs.
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I agree, but I watched it about four times, and Lemke was defending into that hairpin. Race wasn’t even next to him at the apex, he went wide to cross him over, so he didn’t even get along side until after the apex. Race couldn’t really claim the space since they were already past the corner.
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