Was it stupid? Yes. Was it avoidable contact? Absolutely.
He shouldn’t be penalized though, as he finished behind the kart he hit, made plenty enough of an ass of himself, and technically didn’t alter the finishing position of the other driver.
Just my 0.02
I don’t want karting to turn into handing out penalties a la F1. I like the “no harm no foul policy”, if Formal got by Morgatto with that move, I’d say penalize him, otherwise NHNF. If stuff gets bent up, there should be penalties. Not that it would affect anyone driving at the Pro-Kart level but could have a profound effect on the club racer.
In this case it affected nothing, but I wonder about precedent. If it’s normalized as OK then why the hell not do low probability hail Mary’s? No consequences unless it goes bad, and if you are in the sender position, well… watcha got to lose? How about respect while we are at it?
I would wager that a race weekend doesn’t go by at any level, at any track, where the hail mary isn’t used. Is a slide job on dirt a hail mary? That happens every lap. Now granted the high-risk (low probability) pass might be the extreme end, it is part of racing especially when competition is so close. Although I am not a fan and even less so when its used on me, its part of racing.
Some comments in the discussion reflect what I discovered in other forms of wheel to wheel racing that I’ve done, as well as when I was playing a lot pickup basketball, which is that essentially the ‘rules’ a decent percentage of participants adhere to come down to, ‘Anything short of literally asking someone to fight is just all part of the game’. (but if you can get away with an ‘incidental’ elbow to the head, hey it’s all good)
I don’t regret my more competitive activities but ultimately, after being exposed to the above circumstances enough, I decided that I’d rather have an actual fight or else not do the activity at all than to try to exist in a no-mans-land of ‘rules, sorry no rules’. Sanity prevailed and I went with the latter impulse and not the former.
That said the above is 100% why I choose not to do wheel to wheel competitions these days. (instead opting for racing the clock)
To be fair and transparent, it’s somewhat of an indictment of me as much as anything/anyone else. I’ve realized that I don’t like myself or what I do when things get pushed to the edge of competition. I also realized that not everybody would react the same way and/or not everyone would even have a problem with themselves even if they did react the same way. I also realize that other people are able to participate in these activities and not feel the same way about it at all, or else just think about it completely differently. Fair play to them in that case, but after considerable thinking on these subjects for a number of years I made my choices based on my tolerances and interests.
If there’s a point, I guess it’s that culture matters, and the subjects around the rules of competition and conduct are important and affect everyone who participates, even to the extent that it may effect whether people participate.
One doesn’t expect it in SKUSA, of course, but similar behavior on the road, subway, sidewalk might get you murdered. It’s probably a good idea to remember that in ones athletic endeavors. I try to, because I had to learn how to bury Ghenghis real deep. But that’s almost beside the point.
The real issue is one of respect. If you respect the sport you must respect the drivers you race against. All of them, even the slow ones. Ego are like arseholes, everyone’s got one and you aren’t special, and neither is your race.
No, unless it deliberately forces the other driver to avoid contact and cede position to preserve the safety of you both.
In high level dirt racing, this is basically every slide job. The one getting passed usually has to check up or change lanes to avoid rear ending the front car.
Road course etiquette is different than bull ring dirt oval etiquette though.
My main rule about racecraft is that if everyone agrees on the rules of engagement and we are on the same page with what constitutes “clean” or “dirty”, there can be no complaining when a move is made within the bounds of those agreed upon rules. And this is not necessarily the same “rules” the race officiating team uses to make calls. In X30 or KZ or even KA at the national level, you have to accept that it will be rough and tumble and you may get the short end of the stick, but by taking the green you have accepted that.
I stand by my original comments that Danny’s move was not within the rules of engagement the drivers expect, nor was it within the regulations of the series.
I should have been more specific - discussing things like this is all part of the fun of engaging in social media as a community. My bad for making it sound like that wasn’t cool. Wasn’t my intention.
However, what I was poking a stick at was the folks that go over the top. Heck, I saw people alluding to the idea that Danny’s car owner might be unhappy to learn of his antics in karting… That is the kind of shit that is just unacceptable to me. This is a guy that busts his ass to make it in the sport and rightfully is championed for what he has accomplished in a kart as well as cars now. The only thing all the negativity does is probably make him think twice about coming back.
This is what a retired driver noticed yesterday when he came back to racing after 20 years. In the second heat he started in the midpack and only gained one position because he was almost thrown out of track twice. He was afraid of gaining more positions because everyone was driving like a madlad.
After that he told his mechanic “Everybody is a brute”. He’s accostumed to the driving style of his young days. In the end he got third place, but the experience thrown him out of loop
Agreed - I have watched the video several more times. I don’t think that was even a hail mary pass attempt, Formal was looking to punt him and it didn’t work.
Dirt oval is its own thing, I suppose. If it’s accepted practice to do that, it probably isn’t like a block, more like line intersection, and depending upon your defending line, you’ve got options and knowledge that it’s coming. As they say a gap is a gap and ovals are multi line races.
I mean you could park the apex in formula cars and carts on pavement. But that’s different, it’s a deliberate pace reduction with the sole purpose of screwing with the other guy’s expectations of your racing. It’s effective, but risky, and totally douchey, imo.
If it comes down to doing that tactically, I feel that’s a betrayal of the compact of (sprint track) racing. I’m not a pro and don’t have the pressure to win so I have the luxury of racing for pleasure and personal growth, however.
Also, I don’t race open wheel, have wraparounds, and am not easily moved and pretty hard to bully. If someone chooses to ram/move me with bullshit for their benefit, and doesn’t manage to spin me, I then control the overlap, should I choose to respond in kind.
Thankfully I don’t have this issue often. In fact, only once at SC in league context, and instead of taking his bait and showing him some return violence, he got an earful from me in the pits, got told by everyone else that he was a douche when seeking absolution from the field, and hasn’t been seen since. I believe I said, “you were a disrespectful asshole to me and everyone else on track, but what’s worse, is that you enjoyed it.”
One fun thing to do with the guys misbehaving is literally hold them down into the wall until we are both at a stop, blocking them completely. (The joys of cages and vinyl walls). Then I look them in the face as the back markers go toodling by us.
For the most part though, I try to let the overzealous, I wanna win so bad, knuckleheads go crash other guys. Racing is too precious to have it spoiled by anger. My amateur perspective, I guess, and totally free of the concerns/needs of the pros and their performance pressures, fwiw.
I am not sure no harm no foul applies here. I think it probably should have received a penalty, if applicable in the rules.
The race promoter in me likes the fact we’re discussing this because it means the racing means something, but the steward in me says they Formal should have a penalty. I think the fact he came from so far back, had no overlap at all, and made major contact means that a penalty is warranted. If he did that in a classic kart he might have ended up on his head.
Agreed. Issue the penalty even if it didn’t affect his final position. When the NAKL was going to happen, I was excited because I thought that it would weed out the checkers/wreckers drivers. But when they don’t call things like this, it wouldn’t have helped. Then NAKL didn’t happen.
I agree TJ. What Danny did was wrong “PERIOD”. There should be some sort of penalty. There wasn’t anyone hurt this time but someone could have gotten hurt bad. All the younger drivers all look up to Danny and this wasn’t something they should have seen out of a PRO driver. He got away with it and when they get into something like this they will think it’s ok. We don’t need to wait until someone gets really hurt before it’s gets addressed. You have a 300lb + weapon that could hurt or even kill someone.
Here is my $.02. The first contact seemed unavoidable. The second contact was avoidable. Pretty cut and dry.
With that said, these are two very high level drivers in a race with high stakes. Do they take calculated risks? Of, course they do! Are they good choices? Most of the time. Is it NHNF? Not exactly, but it did not effect the finishing order of either driver. Does the incident deserve a Penalty? That depends on the rules relating to driving standards and Avoidable Contact. In the least I would have issued and Official Warning for Conduct.
Everybody here knows that, especially in shifters, they are going to have contact. Many of the drivers at that level not only expect it, but pre-plan it to get a pass done. Does that make them malicious? No, it is just the standard that has been set. In almost all other classes, this would not be permitted and likely a penalty would have been issued. The finishing order would have been compromised due to the momentum lost in the incident had it been a single gear class.
Back to NHNF, although the finishing order did not change, I would be hard pressed not to think both karts suffered damage as a result of Danny’s dive-bomb. Teams of this level expect and are prepared for damage to their equipment, usually from a driver mistake or an unavoidable racing incident. It’s not like Danny’s brakes failed going into the final corner. He made the decision to put his kart where he did. The result of which cost both teams money. For Danny that may be penalty enough, but that doesn’t help Morgatto.
For prospective, I do race and I have been dive-bombed in a slow corner by a rookie driver that thought he could use me as his brakes when he put his nose into my sidepod. The result for me was a loss of several positions, while for him he still finished last. Not because of our incident, but because of his wreckless driving elsewhere on the track. He popped his chain when he dropped a wheel after blowing a corner. Following the race, I had a few comments for the Driver and the Race Director. ;I wasn’t looking for a penalty, but rather an official statement about his driving standards. .I am not the only one to suffer from contact from this driver. If standards are not adheard to, then what is the point in having them?