I am unsure that all the starts in KF2 were rediculous. The start that resulted in Jordan Chamberlain receiving a serious injury was appalling, and to many remains an outstanding issue as the cause of that incident and how it occurred remain unresolved. The inconsistency between the first KF2 heat on saturday where several starts were deemed required, ulitmately resulting in a re-griding and the start that left the pole man with a seriosuly damaged collarbone were materially different. What was also inconsitent was the application and consistentcy of rule applications by the officials who appeared to take a petulant view to the KF2 driving on saturday and sent all drivers in to the park ferme, and yet on the sunday pre final took no action when a very serious accident had occurred, simply left all drivers on the track to recommence.
To many observers the drivers went around the first corner without incident in the majority of starts on saturday, though in the eyes of the officials these were viewed as too fast. The start to the pre-final was of materially higher indcident in terms of collisions etc than the majority of thr "false" starts that occurred on saturday heat 1 and yet proceeded without blame or restart.
I understand that the a representation from the organisers of karting in the UK have attended european races to understand the approach to racing and application of rules. The european application seems to be that if the pole man is too quick this is penalised at the end of the race with a time penalty. This does not impede the start and allows racing to commence, and is surely not the logical approach? If one allow's a start to be re-run and the pole man ulitmately wins are you not rewarding failure? The poleman has suffered no penalty for the original breach. It is surprising that the "obersvations" made by a karting delegation to europe do not seem to have filtered through to the practicalities of racing.
The grids in KF2 have fallen since the start of the season. In part this may be attributed to the economy and personal financial situations. It becomes increasingly less attractive to spend the sums that are required to race when compeititors/parents/observers are left bewildered in how the meeting is officiated.
I am not suggesting european racing is perfect, but I would suggest that if you argue that the race commences "after the gate closes", then false starts are simply not a required rule as they are to be dealt with in the final analysis along with any other offence, whether in real time or post race.
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