FORMULA D Rule Changes...

[courantcom]

http://www.drifting.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25213


The Team SA R34 has recently been deemed ineligible for the Formula DRIFT series in it's current state. The team has been accessed several fines, penalties, and faces possible removal from the series if the issues are not remedied.

"Ineligible" in this case does not mean "banned". The entry is, in fact, welcomed -- but with a penalty "fee" in addition to the regular entry fee each time until a said deadline until corrections have been made to make the car comply with the rules. In addition, no qualifying points will be accrued until corrections are made, and all earned qualifying points to date are all gone.

Let's see...currently, Takatori is 5th in points with 206 points in hand. With the deduction, that will leave him with 196 points. That will drop his standing to 6th in points. If no corrections are immediately made, then Takatori will not earn any qualifying points for rounds 4 and 5. Page 41 of the Formula D rule book outlines how many points anyone gets.

The main issue stems from the vehicle's current OEM front strut suspension setup. The setup, being OEM, is in compliance with the Japanese version of the rulebook but apparently not with the English version according to the current interpretation. Despite the suspension setup remaining OEM and from the same chassis, Formula D currently has deemed it ineligible. The decision has come as quite a shock to many in the series as a decision to allow the Scion tC to compete in the series seemingly put to rest the same issue at the start of the season. The decision effectively made the chassis, not the model, the deciding factor in vehicle eligibility. (a decision we are very much in agreement with) Unfortunately, for Team SA, consistency with this ruling is not being seen, leaving many to wonder how level the playing field is when what applies to one vehicle, does not apply to another.

The other question that has been left unanswered at this point is why, if the model of the car is now the deciding factor instead of the chassis, the current OEM suspension setup on the R34 has not been allowed. Considering that it is using OEM parts and does not give the vehicle an unfair advantage, the question remains. We must also note that several other vehicles in the series have more drastic changes in suspension design. Are these suspension changes unapproved and deemed ineligible now as well? At this point, we cannot comment on the situation as we have more unanswered questions than answers.

Formula DRIFT has yet to respond to requests for a description of the appeal process to this decision, or a detailed list of previously given rule exemptions. We fear that neither exist, and the series is unprepared for this type of action. The lack of both puts several vehicles in the series in question. Formula DRIFT Chief Steward has already stated that "we have several other actions pending with other competitors," leaving us to wonder if they will be subject to the same fines and penalties.

Despite the rulebook's lack of a appeal process, or a list of previously allowed exemptions for specific vehicles, and TIME, Team SA is continuing to explore options to have this decision overturned, seeking a sense of consistency, balance and fairness to be restored to the series.

[courantcom]

ah ok, well I'm friends with Roo...

Your sticker is on the back of my truck....Harte Attack

[courantcom]

I just noticed that they have this in there twice.

1.5.4 FORMULA DRIFT reserves the right to amend, or modify, the rules at any time (including individual series regulations and supplementary regulations) via Supplementary Regulations, Meetings, Tech Bulletins, Competitor Bulletins, Drift Competition Memos, or other medium.

4.8 CHANGES TO RULES AND SPECIFICATIONS
FORMULA DRIFT reserves the right to change any rule, regulation, or specification by written bulletin. These bulletins will be sent out via e-mail to the current competitors and staff, as well as being posted at www.formulad.com. The FORMULA DRIFT TECHNICAL MANAGER has the authority to make adjustments to safety specifications at any time if deemed necessary.
Requests for rule changes from participants are welcomed and must be received at least 14-days prior to the requested effective date.

[Brian]

Your sticker is on the back of my truck....Harte Attack

haha, oh cool!!!

[courantcom]

Someone named SOLDAT posted this on the other other thread where SA Drift posted their press release. I just copy and pasted it here:

Formula D is still a relatively new organization. Just like the mess with Rhys Millen's points deductions last year, I'm sure that a lot of this stuff hasn't been thought through completely and won't be until something comes up that makes them take another look at how things are done. Safety guidleines are the same way, until someone is seriously hurt or killed in a competition drift car we won't really know if the current requirements are good enough.

Unfortunately, someone like Team SA occassionally has to bend over and take it while Formula D revamps the rule book so that it's consistent and fair. You guys weren't the first and I'm sure you won't be the last. All we can hope is that you getting screwed means that the rules will be clearer and more consistent in the future.

I'm sure Nascar, NHRA, Formula 1 and all of the other racing organizations that have been around for decades have had this same problem at one point or another. It sucks, but it's just part of the process.

I hope you guys can get this whole thing squared away so you can compete again.

[courantcom]

Someone named SOLDAT posted this on the other other thread where SA Drift posted their press release. I just copy and pasted it here:

Formula D is still a relatively new organization. Just like the mess with Rhys Millen's points deductions last year, I'm sure that a lot of this stuff hasn't been thought through completely and won't be until something comes up that makes them take another look at how things are done. Safety guidleines are the same way, until someone is seriously hurt or killed in a competition drift car we won't really know if the current requirements are good enough.

Okay. I understand that Formula D is still a relatively new organization, and there's no way everything will be perfect for everyone. That just doesn't exist. With that understanding all said and done, even a new organization can still open a PUBLIC dialogue between itself and everyone else to further strengthen its foundation.
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I am copy and pasting this snippit of information from Formula D's website:

Entering its fifth season, Formula DRIFT Championship is recognized as the North American professional drifting championship series. As the first official series in North America, Formula DRIFT has taken competitive motorsports to the extreme attracting fans and car enthusiasts from all walks of life. This high-skilled, high-powered motor sport where drivers intentionally maneuver their cars into well executed, controlled sideways slides at high speeds through a marked course, has more than 60 professional drivers competing in all seven competitions this year.

Judged on execution and style, rather than who finishes the course in the fastest time, Drifting is a guaranteed crowd pleaser, and is often compared to the freestyle nature of skateboarding and motocross.

Drivers and Formula DRIFT also serves as ambassadors for the sport of drifting bringing exhibitions to traditional/mainstream motor sports events across the country which have included: multiple Champ Car World Series races, American Le Mans, USAC, NASCAR Busch North & Featherlite Southwest and the SPEED World Challenge, among others.
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There are some big words in there....none of which indicates that Formula D are a bunch of beginners. They do refer themselves as "ambassadors", and also as "The North American professional drifting championship series".

Unfortunately, someone like Team SA occassionally has to bend over and take it while Formula D revamps the rule book so that it's consistent and fair. You guys weren't the first and I'm sure you won't be the last. All we can hope is that you getting screwed means that the rules will be clearer and more consistent in the future.

Wow, now that sounds like a totally amicable solution...totally.

I'm sure Nascar, NHRA, Formula 1 and all of the other racing organizations that have been around for decades have had this same problem at one point or another. It sucks, but it's just part of the process.

Okay, so...are you trying to say that there's no purpose in trying to learn from other people's mistakes? Formula D should just follow the same paths as the other sanctioning bodies took? That line of reasoning is absurd. "We", as a whole, should learn from our mistakes as well as from the mistakes of others. Without trying to launch this thread into a whole other discussion, I find myself standing outside myself reading what you just wrote again. I mean, what? I mean, wow. So...how long has a History curriculum been in effect in every single school starting from an elementary age? What's the purpose of studying History? Why learn about what happened in the past? Hmmm....Hmmm....Hmmm....so that MAYBE, we won't repeat the same mistakes again.

When you cheat on your girlfriend time after time after time after time, do you go and make the same mistakes twice with a new girl? No...you learn from each past experience and perfect your craft to keep your pimp hand strong. ;-) Okay, now comes the example. When you SEE your friend cheat on his girlfriend time after time after time after time, and you see him go down in flames, do you go and do the same thing to your girl? ...or do you understand that what you saw was wrong, and you will more than likely do something else.

I hope you guys can get this whole thing squared away so you can compete again.

SA Drift CAN still compete. ...just under penalty. SA Drift isn't BANNED. I wrote about this. "ineligible" doesn't mean "banned" -- at least in this situation.

[courantcom]

By the end of the day, this thread will have THE MOST VIEWS on this forum. This thread isn't even a week old yet. As everyone can see, this is a hot topic...

[Slapshotnerd]

How hard would it be? ...I'd say about 4 days, including paint and body work to make it all pretty again? Without paint and body work, and enough talented people, I think it can be knocked out in a day's worth of work. BUT, doing all this isn't really the "point" of it all...

I know a few competitors that weren't happy with the car after seeing it come out of the truck in Long Beach.

o snap! didn't see this before... my eyes must be going on me already!

[rtype16]

I am not sure if all of you are just assuming what the suspension looks like or thinks what it looks like. I for one am very vague on how they actually set the car up from what I have read here on the board.

Would it be too much to ask to actually have SA post some pictures of the actual suspension in question for all to see.

Yeah most people can say yeah it just bolts right on, but I thought I read some where that they had to modify the mounting points of the lower control arm. I know there are teams out there with new lower control arms, but from day one when everyone was building a car and you ask formula D the original stock mounting points for the suspension must be retained. So in other words shock tower and lower control arm mounting points.

I beleive Rhyss had to re-design the new car to comply with the rules and so have some other teams, but the big thing is Formula D was informed of the new cars and mods people where making and always asked if something was legal or not legal. For instance I know for a fact since I work at AEM that we always kept FormulaD in the loop with what we were doing with the vehicles. If we had a question we call them sometimes they would even come out to inspect the cars before hand so if changes needed to be made they could happen.

In all forms of motorsports when you start to read a rule book and you have a question on something it is most likely illegal and if you have a question regarding the rule book you should contact the rules commitee to see if the mod is legal. You don't just build something and hope for the best. If you did something like that in NASA or SCCA they would say thank you for coming, you can race, but you will not be awarded any points til this is fixed.

So I am not harping that FormulaD is right or SA is right. Just stating my opinion on the situation.

Can we see some pictures of the suspension please?????

[jdmimpreza]

Team SA has components from other Nissan vehicles

ok point taken


Other S13-14 chassis are running S15 or even 300zx parts, is that against the rules too?

Might as well change all the S13 chassis back to 4 lug as well as their control arms and brakes.

This makes perfect sense.

[Formula D]

Wow, popular thread. But you got us. It's a huge conspiracy. We favor certain teams and we do things behind doors and we look the other way when someone sponsors us. We do it all in the name of the dollar. Mooo haa haa haaa.... Come on, get out of there with that! We've fined our own past Champion Rhys Millen. We even lobbied to have D1 drivers here, so the argument we don't want any J guys doing well is a lil soft. This is as down the middle organization as it comes. Forget all that stuff. Some of you are way off the reservation and doing a disservice to the team in question and the community of drifting by speculating and gossiping about things you don't have all the facts on.

There is no specific reason that we have been holding off in responding until this time. Rather most times teams and organization handle matters of dispute in a professional matter mostly done offline and generally with the team principle, not in a public forum. But it's fine. When one party has the forum all its own certainly, the picture painted will certainly represent the far reaching realm of that side. Kind of like the guy who tells the officer he wasn't speeding only to find out he got caught on tape blowing a red and counter locked on the 22/5 Freeway interchange and then when showed the tape says, "ok officer maybe it did break the law a lil bit."

So going back a bit.. Ask any team that has ever done a build that they feel falls within gray area of our rule book (and there is gray in every rulebook in every series) and you will find that that team has consulted our Chief Steward for direction on how to do it in accordance with our rules and within the confines of what is fair. To state an example that has been used in this post, the Scion team did just that. RSR, Design Craft(Gary Castillo), the entire team along with Toyota/Scion worked alongside Randy to complete this one of a kind and EXTREMELY unique build. Racing is all about finding gray and gray they did. Now we don't want every team to do that, but they did work within the gray and created a precedent of which we found helped us in how we work with these types of builds and circumstances in the future. You would never know the detail or time that went into the back and forth from them to us rather you are speculating on stuff you don't even know. The flip side is that SA did not contact us about the details of their build. Gray is gray..

..here is black and white:

Long Beach/Annual Tech. SA Drift brings the car to tech and our staff finds that the original suspension on the R34 has been modified to a strut-type suspension. When FD staff addressed the concern with SA staff, we were told that the R34 was available with strut suspension thus falling in line with the guidelines of suspension as directed by the rule book. For us and for fairness to other competitors, anything out of the ordinary like that has to be verified. So we worked with the team to try and verify the information.
This was to no avail. So our own staff exhaustively did the research and getting all the documents and paperwork from Nissan, spending many hours to make sure that we knew exactly what was what. Conclusion: R34 did not come with strut suspension, rather double wishbone. The suspension parts rather came off that of a C34. The team maintained the whole time that the R34 came with strut suspension. Not once prior to entering the series did they alert us of the build or ask for any kind of guidance (again this is a common practice for many builders that work in the series) on what they were doing.
Rather SA maintained that the parts were in fact from an R34. This is a black and white issue. And we investigated it for nearly two rounds so as to make sure we knew exactly what we were talking about and to take the time to get the right information. You can't complain about the rule book after the fact. That rule has been there for a long time.

At this point, our Chief Steward is basically backed into a corner with a clear illegal violation so a fair penalty was assessed. People that knew of the violation were calling for a very stiff penalty, even for the car to be completely illegal. So what we assessed is more than fair. Everyone knows that FD always give the benefit of the doubt and always is lenient when it comes to docking points or fining teams (Which by the way go to charity).
You really have to do something over the top for it to happen. Anyone that competes with us knows this. We have given the benefit of the doubt many times over.

Formula Drift has been criticized by teams in the past for being too soft and so in the off season we invested in additional tech staff to work on making sure teams are building cars that fall within the guidelines. We have already worked with teams to fix numerous safety issues and validate many, many builds. These are often not public record (unless someone makes it so) because teams to be charged with a safety or build penalty is an issue we like to deal with as much courtesy, delicacy and care. Imagine if you are a sponsor and you just plunked down many thousands of dollars to the team and then read on a public forum that your prize driver can't build a roll cage to spec. How do you think that makes the team and/or driver feel knowing their sponsors embarrassment? There is no need to bring an issue to the public and embarrass a team and it’s unfortunate that other teams have been pulled into this unknowingly and unprovoked and without any hard data to back the accusations.

There is no inconsistencies in rulings regarding builds. You either did it properly or you didn’t. You either consulted with FD staff on your build or you didn’t. Many teams have already fixed issues have been penalized and have gone on their way. Others are still being investigated. No one knows how many other active investigations are going on. It is a sensitive and special process and we take care in how we do it.

People either believe this is a fair organization or you don't. Most do. If you don't, then I don't know what to tell you. So what do you want to do from here? Do you want to keep the public bashing and trying to make a case for whatever you are trying to do? We hope that efforts shift to trying to help the team fix the issue. The penalty is fair; qualifying points are taken, small monetary fine and 10 weeks to fix the problem. We are very happy that Takatori is in the series and it is a very unfortunate series of events that have led us to this point. It is, however, not an excuse that the builders translated our rule book incorrectly.

Long story short...
- C34 suspension is OEM to C34 chassis vehicle not R34 chassis
- FD was never contacted or consulted on the build prior to Round 1
- Vehicle was brought to FD LB.
- Suspension was suspicious and FD tech staff did through research to investigate.
- Team did not supply need information to support the legitimacy of the change.
- FD assessed the issue and issued the penalty; qualifying points from Rd1 till the suspension is fixed and monetary penalty.
- SA team has until RD 6 to fix the suspension.

Our suggestion is that people keep the irresponsible speculating and rumor-mongering to a minimum and get back out on the track and run.

[deadpirate]

Long story short...
- C34 suspension is OEM to C34 chassis vehicle not R34 chassis
- FD was never contacted or consulted on the build prior to Round 1
- Vehicle was brought to FD LB.
- Suspension was suspicious and FD tech staff did through research to investigate.
- Team did not supply need information to support the legitimacy of the change.
- FD assessed the issue and issued the penalty; qualifying points from Rd1 till the suspension is fixed and monetary penalty.
- SA team has until RD 6 to fix the suspension.



ok...so...leme get this straight....

the TC SHARES THE SAME CHASSIS as a toyota WAGON in japan, and there is no problem.

but the skyline SHARES THE SAME CHASSIS as the C34 laurel..and all of a sudden there is a huge issue? where is the fairness in that?

how about that corvette...corvettes come with LEAF-SPRING suspension...and they are running coilovers...how is that not ILLEGAL!!???!!!



now, i COMPLETELY understand FD is still growing and still learning as a series, and to be honest, i LOVE formula D. but it seems that fairness to some teams isnt exactly top priority

[Al]

I don't care for any of this but all I care about is ALEX MOTHER*Censored**Censored**Censored**Censored*IN' FEIRPHER is back behind the f*ckin' wheel for VEGAS!

YAY YAY!

(hey retards i know how to spell his last name.)

[Brian]

Hmmmm

what is the "better" thing to lose?

Fans?

or

Teams?

[Mr.Two]

I understand the point of Formula D in saying that SA didn't contact FD for approval but why would they when the rules clearly state suspension must be OEM and as far as the rules and I'm concerned the SA Skyline is completely OEM. lmao

FD using the TC as an example is a classic attempt at trying to fool everyone.

There is a massive inconsistency that needs to be fixed. Period.

Long story short...
- C34 suspension is OEM to C34 chassis vehicle not R34 chassis
- FD was never contacted or consulted on the build prior to Round 1
- Vehicle was brought to FD LB.
- Suspension was suspicious and FD tech staff did through research to investigate.
- Team did not supply need information to support the legitimacy of the change.
- FD assessed the issue and issued the penalty; qualifying points from Rd1 till the suspension is fixed and monetary penalty.
- SA team has until RD 6 to fix the suspension.


the TC SHARES THE SAME CHASSIS as a toyota WAGON in japan, and there is no problem.

but the skyline SHARES THE SAME CHASSIS as the C34 laurel..and all of a sudden there is a huge issue? where is the fairness in that?

Using these points I can only conclude that the problem isn't the car, FD is applying penalties to a team because they did not ask for pre approval.

So let me ask a question, if Team SA asked for approval during the build of this car would they have been given the approval just like the Tc was?