American Motorcycle Association racing director Mike Pelletier joined Jason Weigandt and Jason Thomas on this week’s edition of SMX Insider to explain why Tom Vialle and Haiden Deegan had other effects after going off course last week in a 250 race at Fox Raceway in Pala. California.
Vialle penalized a position for not reducing speed and re-entering the track in a detrimental way in Moto 1. Deegan was not penalized for either of the two instances in which he went off track in Moto 2.
“I’d like to start with the rule itself,” Pelletier said. “It’s very specific, there are three main facets to the rule, right?Did the driver, when he goes off the track, get a merit in time?or position? Didn’t manage to slow down?And it increased dangerously? That’s 3. This doesn’t mean that all 3 have to line up to receive a penalty.
Race Direction decided that Vialle did not slow down after abandoning the race and did not assess the scenario well when he returned to the track.
“I think it’s important for everyone to know that we have a lot of images behind the scenes, not just the images that are being transmitted, right?” said Pelletier. So we can extract the drone images from other camera angles. We go back so far to see its previous round. You know, how long did it take you in that section?The schedules of the segments, all of that is analyzed. . . So, as a race direction he looked at it when Haiden passed. off the track, he evaluated. He looked around. We felt that he had slowed down the race and that he had indeed lost time, according to our images. So, the 3 speeds are the ones that we evaluate and make a decision that. There was no penalty.
Deegan won motos at Fox Raceway to take the overall win.
Reacting to WADA’s complaint about the time it took to announce its decision, Pelletier explained that he could simply take a look at the 250m footage after the 450m race.
“We’re trying to do this as temporarily as possible, but it’s more important to use all the photographs and all the knowledge we need to examine,” Pelletier said. “It’s vital to do it well. And that takes time. Now we’re looking to do it faster, but again, with all the interviews we need to do and all the photographs we need to receive, look at, see, and evaluate, it just takes a while and that’s what it took. See you later.
A panel of officials and industry members reviews those moves weekly. At Fox Raceway, Pelletier was joined through former Suzuki factory mechanic Tim McAdams and 450 rider John Short.
Short, who competed on Fox, failed to break out of the last-chance rankings after finishing 16th.
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