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I have been involved in drifting since the first U.S. D1 in 2003 and have seen drivers and fans alike become very frustrated because of the 100pt. Japanese D1 style judging. I have read the "Hard Call" thread by Ken Takahashi and still have questions about this style. First of all, I will be quoting from that thread and asking certain questions. Ken, if you are reading, please don't think I am knocking you for your judging because I am not. I am simply questioning the STYLE in which the events are judged. Let's get started...
First of all, I only question one part of the criteria in which the events are judged according to the "Japanese D1 100pt" style. Quoting the "Hard Call" thread:
"Excitement and style: a lot of people came up to me and ask me “I feel I did everything right, why did I loose?” Sometimes there right. They ran the line, they hit the clipping points, they might have bellowed smoke exiting, but my answer most of the time is “the other person did better.” See as a judge we don’t just judge with our eyes, we also hear it too. We listen when your on or off throttle. We listen when your back on throttle before or after the clipping point. We listen what gear you come in at and see you turning your wheel left when you should be turning right."
This is the gray area that causes the most controversy. This is what causes, "one more times" which have been abused in past events. I believe 95% of all the runs have a clear cut winner. This section of the judging is what gives the fans and drivers too much room to argue why the outcome was the way it was. Can you really filter out all the background noise and make a clear cut call on throttle noise or what gear they enter drift on? Different cars have different gearing. What if you lose a gear like Alex did in D1 2003 and have to jump from 2nd to 4th just to stay in the game? Will you dock him for that? I know you take other things into consideration, I am just making a couple points.
As far as speed is concerned, I do have to question one thing you said in your post:
"The Overall run of the course should be fast (a bi-product of speed is bellowing smoke = good points)"
Bellowing smoke does not always = speed. I know for a fact that different tires will put out more smoke than others and have seen cars doing 50 putting out equal smoke with the same throttle as a car doing 65. I know smoke is entertaining for the fans, but should it be a factor in losing an event?
Now I come to the part that NO-ONE has explained. Ken, you did a GREAT job in explaining how the events are judged and the criteria involved. Kudos for that. The question that we have about the 100pt scale, "what is the difference between a 12 or a 16 or a 17 or a 20 point run in the different criteria?" In a 100pt scale, there is too much wiggle room. One judge may give a 93 for final score and another may give a 75 for the same run because of the range. I believe a number should correspond to the outcome of a run and not a number that a judge blurts out as what it "could" be in a range of numbers. I'm the same way with ratings of games/movies, "how the F&*^ do you get a 87%?" Fans and drivers alike would like to score along with you guys during a run. Even in this last Olympics, they had a lady explaining the scoring in Figure Skating and how each number was determined on the point scale. I LOVED that. You understand why the person was docked points and why they placed where they did. I went to the Formula D website and saw the scores for different drivers in qualifying and regular runs. This was an example of the consistency between the judges:
84 60 86 50 68 66.17
A large discrepency in scoring. One judge thought, that was a great run! One thought it was utter crap. How is that possible? That scoring just knocked a possibly qualified contender out of the running. Even the scoring for the top guy:
88 90 94 85 78 85.00
A high of 94 but a low of 78. 16 points of difference? Again, too much wiggle room.
Tandem runs and single (qualifying) runs should be judged differently of course but the 100pt scale is not the answer to taking the guesswork and controversy out of the judging. What about a simpler method for judging that is easily explainable and that people can follow along with. Maybe a 5 point scale for the different criteria, where a 5 is the ultimate run. In tandem, you compare their runs in order to determine a score on that scale. Criteria could be speed, angle, driving line, and control. Basically you determine what the best run in each category on each track is. That would be a 5. Out of the two cars, which performed better in each category. How did that car compare to the possible "best run". So say they got a 4. How much off was the other driver? Were they equal (4) were they a little off (3), were they off enough but catastrophic (2), did they spin/wreck/hit the other car (1). Completing this in each category for each run will have a clear cut winner each and everytime after tallying and averaging the scores. You could give a scorecard to everyone in the crowd and they could follow along. Everyone would understand WHY a person received a certain score. This would hush all the people thinking that the event was rigged and that favortism was given to certain drivers. With that wiggle room in the 100pt scale, I could make anyone I want win and no one would ever understand why because there is too much interpretation involved. I'm not saying this has happened, I'm just saying that if someone wanted to, they could do this.
One last thing about judging, PASSING. I have read some of the driver's thoughts on this and for the most part I agree. I think I side more with Alex and Hubert's ideas of NOT passing. Shouldn't it be about letting the other guy run his game and you run yours? Once everyone tries to pass each other, you get into problems with "dirty" drifters who try to take the win by pushing someone off their line. What happened to "bettering" someone line or pressuring them from behind WITHOUT passing? Passing should only be attempted if the person in front royally screws up and slides way wide leaving the trailing driver's current driving line WIDE open to pass. Drifting isn't racing people, we have to get that in our heads. If you want to see sideways racing, watch Sprint Cars.
I've ranted long enough. Even though you guys may rip me for questioning the JDM style of judging, please at least think about what I'm saying before you do. I love watching drifting, it's a beautiful thing. If we are going to base driver's possible future careers on the outcomes of these races (picking up sponsors, prize money, etc..), can we atleast explain why they didn't place or qualify? Take care.
First of all, I only question one part of the criteria in which the events are judged according to the "Japanese D1 100pt" style. Quoting the "Hard Call" thread:
"Excitement and style: a lot of people came up to me and ask me “I feel I did everything right, why did I loose?” Sometimes there right. They ran the line, they hit the clipping points, they might have bellowed smoke exiting, but my answer most of the time is “the other person did better.” See as a judge we don’t just judge with our eyes, we also hear it too. We listen when your on or off throttle. We listen when your back on throttle before or after the clipping point. We listen what gear you come in at and see you turning your wheel left when you should be turning right."
This is the gray area that causes the most controversy. This is what causes, "one more times" which have been abused in past events. I believe 95% of all the runs have a clear cut winner. This section of the judging is what gives the fans and drivers too much room to argue why the outcome was the way it was. Can you really filter out all the background noise and make a clear cut call on throttle noise or what gear they enter drift on? Different cars have different gearing. What if you lose a gear like Alex did in D1 2003 and have to jump from 2nd to 4th just to stay in the game? Will you dock him for that? I know you take other things into consideration, I am just making a couple points.
As far as speed is concerned, I do have to question one thing you said in your post:
"The Overall run of the course should be fast (a bi-product of speed is bellowing smoke = good points)"
Bellowing smoke does not always = speed. I know for a fact that different tires will put out more smoke than others and have seen cars doing 50 putting out equal smoke with the same throttle as a car doing 65. I know smoke is entertaining for the fans, but should it be a factor in losing an event?
Now I come to the part that NO-ONE has explained. Ken, you did a GREAT job in explaining how the events are judged and the criteria involved. Kudos for that. The question that we have about the 100pt scale, "what is the difference between a 12 or a 16 or a 17 or a 20 point run in the different criteria?" In a 100pt scale, there is too much wiggle room. One judge may give a 93 for final score and another may give a 75 for the same run because of the range. I believe a number should correspond to the outcome of a run and not a number that a judge blurts out as what it "could" be in a range of numbers. I'm the same way with ratings of games/movies, "how the F&*^ do you get a 87%?" Fans and drivers alike would like to score along with you guys during a run. Even in this last Olympics, they had a lady explaining the scoring in Figure Skating and how each number was determined on the point scale. I LOVED that. You understand why the person was docked points and why they placed where they did. I went to the Formula D website and saw the scores for different drivers in qualifying and regular runs. This was an example of the consistency between the judges:
84 60 86 50 68 66.17
A large discrepency in scoring. One judge thought, that was a great run! One thought it was utter crap. How is that possible? That scoring just knocked a possibly qualified contender out of the running. Even the scoring for the top guy:
88 90 94 85 78 85.00
A high of 94 but a low of 78. 16 points of difference? Again, too much wiggle room.
Tandem runs and single (qualifying) runs should be judged differently of course but the 100pt scale is not the answer to taking the guesswork and controversy out of the judging. What about a simpler method for judging that is easily explainable and that people can follow along with. Maybe a 5 point scale for the different criteria, where a 5 is the ultimate run. In tandem, you compare their runs in order to determine a score on that scale. Criteria could be speed, angle, driving line, and control. Basically you determine what the best run in each category on each track is. That would be a 5. Out of the two cars, which performed better in each category. How did that car compare to the possible "best run". So say they got a 4. How much off was the other driver? Were they equal (4) were they a little off (3), were they off enough but catastrophic (2), did they spin/wreck/hit the other car (1). Completing this in each category for each run will have a clear cut winner each and everytime after tallying and averaging the scores. You could give a scorecard to everyone in the crowd and they could follow along. Everyone would understand WHY a person received a certain score. This would hush all the people thinking that the event was rigged and that favortism was given to certain drivers. With that wiggle room in the 100pt scale, I could make anyone I want win and no one would ever understand why because there is too much interpretation involved. I'm not saying this has happened, I'm just saying that if someone wanted to, they could do this.
One last thing about judging, PASSING. I have read some of the driver's thoughts on this and for the most part I agree. I think I side more with Alex and Hubert's ideas of NOT passing. Shouldn't it be about letting the other guy run his game and you run yours? Once everyone tries to pass each other, you get into problems with "dirty" drifters who try to take the win by pushing someone off their line. What happened to "bettering" someone line or pressuring them from behind WITHOUT passing? Passing should only be attempted if the person in front royally screws up and slides way wide leaving the trailing driver's current driving line WIDE open to pass. Drifting isn't racing people, we have to get that in our heads. If you want to see sideways racing, watch Sprint Cars.
I've ranted long enough. Even though you guys may rip me for questioning the JDM style of judging, please at least think about what I'm saying before you do. I love watching drifting, it's a beautiful thing. If we are going to base driver's possible future careers on the outcomes of these races (picking up sponsors, prize money, etc..), can we atleast explain why they didn't place or qualify? Take care.
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