Was WORCS Phoenix restart fair?

writeforus · #1 01-30-2007, 11:52 AM

Did anyone see what the course markings EXACTLY were when Doug Eichner missed the turn into the pit on lap one of Sunday's final?

Was WORCS restarting the entire race the fair thing to do, or should WORCS just have re-routed all the other riders the wrong way for that first lap? Or docked Eichner and the other riders that went the wrong way?

And did Justin Waters catch a break by getting to restart after his big crash, or what?! Whew.

Anyone have a pix of Justin's crash?! Post it here so we can see it! He doesn't remember it.

writeforus · #2 01-30-2007, 02:26 PM

Come on - one of you probably snuck in and moved the banner yourself, trying to get Doug lost on purpose. Someone somewhere must have seen wha' happened.

Our feeling is that if Sean called them all back, that's him admitted WORCS screwed up, not Doug. Weird though.

If I'd thought it would restart the race and buy Justin fix-it time, I probably would have done it myself!

phildampier · #3 01-31-2007, 02:20 PM

I didn't see it since I was racing the pro/am but I don't think it was fair they should have docked him some time at the end of the race. I guess its easy to miss turns though when you are riding that fast. Its not like it was way out on the course where you couldn't check it out prior to the race. Its like the NBA some established stars get breaks in the rules.
Now if the right way had a tape across it then that is the only reason for there to have been a restart and then the race should have been red flaged and started right away. I thought there was to much time waiting for others to fix their quads. Not that it would have helped me either way since I am not that fast.

There was some talk in the pits that WORCS seems to help certain riders on a regular basis. I don't beleive that but its not the first time this has come up.

writeforus · #4 02-02-2007, 06:36 PM

Easiest thing in the world is that if the first racer or two screws up, you route everyone else the same way. Especially on the first lap. No harm, no foul. Then fix the markers correctly. But you have to think fast enough to do that, as quads are blazing by you.

I'm curious where exactly the error was, a banner down, a banner up that shouldn't been. And how did Doug know to loop back around, when the other rider(s) that skipped it the first time did not?

And yeah, of course that's the first murmur. Sean knew people would accuse it; Len Duncan knew people would accuse it. Kind of like Honda winning Baja each year? It's great controversy, and as they say, "The world may never know..."