I’ve heard the argument about people getting podded more now and I’m not convinced. I mean, nothing changed on that front, you could pod people the same way before. I think it’s just more noticeable now because that’s the ONLY form of harsh contact we are seeing.
I really enjoyed running with them in Mooresville. It’ll take a race or two for drivers to really learn how much you can lean on them. We already saw in New Castle and Mooresville that the driving standards improved dramatically from Saturday to Sunday. Watching all 30 Yamahas get around lap one with zero incident was a beautiful sight to behold.
That was my thought too, just hearing about it. I never got run off the track or anything like that, it’s just a part of racing. To me, catching wheels would be too risky to really go for a side pod maneuver like that.
I was expecting a crash to happen on lap one I actually ran more conservative in that first lap than I really should have. Cost me in the end but it’s good that I didn’t have to avoid anything either.
As an official, it’s amazing how much we miss. It just simply isn’t possible to catch all of it. We get a lot of “did you see that?! It was so blatant!!” after races with a lot of drivers. And we have to just say look we were looking where we thought there would be an incident, which is about the best we can do without 10 officials in the field!
Another thing these drop down bumpers creates is yet another officiating call we have to make. This distracts us from additional on track action. That may not seem like a big deal, but I would argue in some cases it further hinders the ability of our flag men and race director to watch the race as a whole on some laps, as now they are focused on a kart to see if the bumper has dropped or not, and what number it is, getting out the white board and administering a penalty. If you have 2-3 of these in a field at a time, sure we are penalizing people, but it sucks up time in execution.
I agree with you, Full width rear bumpers has created less flips…but it has also been a major factor for encouraging some of the aggression we see now. ~Shakes cane~ Back in my day, if you tried to punt someone, you better do it right, otherwise you ended up on your head, out of the race. It made people think twice about doing it, which usually meant they would just pass someone instead of run them over.
They just checked the bumpers as we got to the scales at Route 66. One guy had a clipboard and wrote down the numbers as he walked down the line. They’d receive a time penalty after the race. That way, the officials can watch the race and one of the tech guys covers the bumpers
In agreement with Aaron here. Eric it sounds like its being implemented incorrectly at the races you are talking about. It is supposed to be purely post race penalties determined by a judge of fact walking down the scale line.
We don’t have the system here in CO, it was unclear to me how it was implemented at other races. If it is enforced in tech that definitely makes more sense. Have there been instances of people brake checking other people on cool down laps to drop competitor’s noses?
I haven’t seen any brake checking; I don’t think anybody is truly that concerned about the person behind them to bother doing it and especially after a race.
The only incident I have seen was that in TaG senior. There were 3 guys in line and right after the checkered flag and the first two slowed down from the race pace at the first turn, but the third driver didn’t and plowed right into the back of them, throwing them off course. It was stupid, and the driver behind should have paid more attention but I wouldn’t have called brake-check on the guys in front.
As Aaron noted, I only saw that one instance too, and it wasn’t really an intentional brake-check, the leading kart just slowed down more than usual and the two karts behind him accordian-ed a little bit.
Fortunately I believe they are also accepting video review if you have footage to show where it dropped down, if you want to protest and overturn the penalty.
This is a hot topic again following the most recent SKUSA pro tour race…
Updated the topic name to pushback nosecones since that’s what is being adopted
@tjkoyen & @Tim you’ve seen these in the wild now… what are your thoughts?
Yes, I understand all the arguments against them and how it isn’t “pure” like it was “back in the old days”. These aren’t the old days anymore, this is where we are currently and we will never go back to no bodywork like the 70s and 80s, so that isn’t even an argument anymore.
They absolutely curb the poor racecraft and make all the races far cleaner, especially on the starts. It’s a solution that works, I can’t see why anyone would be against it at this point.
Last year when I ran in my first Route 66 event, one of the first things I was told was that the drivers are twice as rough as how it was at the club. And man, they were right.
This year, with the nose cones, driving cleaned up immensely right from the first session. Everyone should be adopting these if not this year within the next couple.
Sorry to bring back this old post but we’ve just started with the pushback with getting into 2 cycle. Ran our first 66 race last weekend and had our nose popped 3 times. First time Son got into the back of someone when there was a big check up on lap 1 and he had no where to go. Another in what would be a normal push/bump going down a straight working together to move up. Again in the final Sunday with a hit on the corner of the nose when a driver got off track in front and came back on.
2 of the 3 seem a wrong place wrong time deal. The other I’m lost with. Clamps are tight. Really tight. Is there a difference in some of the new noses than the “old” style FP7? Different clamps? I watched drivers get into each other in what looked much harder than anything with our kart and bumpers where fine.
I have heard something recently from people who know people, who know people racing in Europe. So absolutely FACT, LOL.
Some of us noticed that most teams in Europe all run the OTK M6 bumpers (until just recently). we assumed it was for an aero advantage. I have been informed its because the OTK bumper are a lot more pliable. Therefore they can take a larger hit and absorb more energy without transferring the shock load into the clamps, hence harder to dislodge.
