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Re: was: Stupid cone tricks, now: DNF?

To: PbPied@aol.com
Subject: Re: was: Stupid cone tricks, now: DNF?
From: Mark Sirota <msirota@isc.upenn.edu>
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 11:45:06 -0400
PbPied@aol.com wrote:
> Even if the single pointed cone were the first slalom cone, I'm not
> convinced that I did not break the line between the two when I looped
> around to run the slalom on the correct side.

Okay, here's what happened (in ASCII art).  Alan is coming from the
top of your screen towards the bottom.

    .     X
>X   .
      .
       .
        .
  ..    .
 .  . X<.
 .   .  .
 .    . .
  .    .
   .... .
        .
        .
      >X.
        .

The X's mark upright cones.  The > and < represent pointer cones.
The .'s mark Alan's path.

In other words, he passed through the gate at the top, but went to the
outside (driver's left, screen right) of the next cone and its pointer.
He then looped around, back past the pylon he missed, and resumed
his course.

I maintain that since he never crossed the line defined by the first
and second cones with pointers, regardless of the fact that the first
was part of a gate, means that he was off course.  Others apparently
say that since he backtracked physically upstream of the first "real"
slalom cone, he went far enough back.

In the end, it didn't matter -- whether or not he was off course, he
was nine seconds behind after looping around like this, so naturally
he lost the round (he spun off on the other side and DNF'ed anyway).
But it's an interesting academic exercise...

Mark

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