Had the first race of the season, and cutting the track penalties popped up. Just wondering how this is handled elsewhere in the karting world. I have my own personal opinions, and although track cutting didn’t impact my race this weekend, it has in the past. At G&J, the direction of travel is counter clockwise on the maps attached, and I marked where I think the most egregious track cutting takes place. Some drivers, if they leave the track, for whatever reason, will follow the routes with half ass looking red arrows, and rejoin the track 3 or 4 turns past where they exited. Many times having to wait, then they generally try and rejoin in the position they were in when they left the track. What’s everyone’s thoughts on this?
You can’t always rejoin where you go off for various reasons. If you do go off and cut track, RD needs some established guidelines for how to handle rejoins. Minimum lap time allowed or time penalty added, loss of lap for certain track cuts, etc. Going off track significantly should penalize a driver, if it doesn’t then something is wrong with how the race is being conducted.
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This is where a clearly defined rule set is your friend. Here is a screenshot from the penalty guidelines used at the tracks we often race.
A simple string of plastic barriers would prevent drivers from being able to do so in these areas, at least as easily. If the possibility of cutting is removed, then a driver’s first instinct will be to rejoin around where they left the track.
Oh man, I had this come up I think 3 years ago when I was helping officiate a series. Two drivers get caught up in an incident, cut the track through the grass, and rejoin probably 15 seconds ahead of the leaders.
Driver A slowed down once they got to the front straight and allowed the whole field to pass, Driver B let about 4 karts by and then tried to reinsert themself into the top 10, proceeded to ignore black flags, and tried to help push his teammate onto the podium. I was pushing for Driver B to be thrown out for the weekend for ignoring black flags and manipulating the outcome of a race, the head race directer decided just to score them at the back of the field.
In my eyes, if you drop yourself all the way to last place, you’re fine. You should be trying to rejoin the track where you went off, but sometimes that’s not feasible and I feel like falling to the back of the pack is a compromise, even if you still theoretically make up some time compared to turning around and not cutting the track.
I agree with Evan that barriers are the best option. They’ve used those at Road America where you could cut the chicane on the start and make about 20 places. Add some barriers the next year and suddenly nobody has any problems making the first turn on the start.
Currently from the OVKA rulebook:
507.1: If during the progress of a race, a driver
inadvertently leaves the course with all four wheels off
the track, the competitor must rejoin at the nearest
possible point with the safety of themselves and other
competitors as a priority. No improvement in position
(placement/distance) is allowed.
I would ask for clarification on nearest possible point, being either nearest point to the kart or nearest point from the location the driver went off, and no improvement in position, whether that is no improvement from where they were when they went off or where they would be if they were to go and rejoin right where they left the racing surface. To me, it should be nearest possible point to where they went off, and no improvement from if they were able to rejoin right where they went off initially.
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Thanks for the input, everyone!
