Fans are certainly wondering how the AMA ended up penalizing Tom Vialle one position for an off-course excursion in 250 moto one at Fox Raceway but did not penalize Haiden Deegan for going off course at least twice while leading 250 moto two. Jason Weigandt and Jason Thomas interviewed the AMA’s Director of Racing Mike Pelletier on this week’s SMX Insider Show to get some clarity on what happened, and how it happened.
Jason Weigandt: Mike, I know you were working really late after the race to try to sort it out with Haiden Deegan and we'll get into the specifics of each incident. But first, just explain who is the group that helps decide penalties or no penalties like this.
Mike Pelletier: There's a panel that we created quite a few years ago. We call it race direction. So, I have a race direction team, it's more committee-based when it comes to infractions or reviewing footage. It's myself, Tim McAdams [former Suzuki factory mechanic] and a rider rep. That's a fairly new position in the last few years. This past weekend, for example, it was Andrew Short.
Ah Andrew Short. Yes. So, if people are wondering, it's not just you, you had a ex-professional racer in there weighing in on this.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and that's, that's good every weekend. You know, we also have [former Team Managers such as] Jeremy Albrecht that comes in from time to time, and Christina Denny. So, a lot of different viewpoints, a lot of good perspectives and Andrew is certainly a benefit this weekend.
Jason Thomas: Cool. So, let's jump into the nitty gritty of this. Obviously, the first one that we had to cross is with Tom Vialle’s off track excursion in the first moto [which] drew a penalty. Walk us through the thought process and exactly the reason that he did incur that penalty.
Sure. So, I'd like to start by the rule itself. It's very specific, there's really three main aspects to the rule, right? Did the rider, when he goes off track, did he gain a time or position advantage? That's one. Did he fail to slow down? That's two. And did he accelerate in an unsafe manner? That's three. It doesn't mean that all three need to line up for a penalty. There's multiple things we can look at. Those are the main three as it's written in the rule. So, in Tom's case, he went off the track and as race direction reviewed the footage realized he never broke from race pace, so he failed to slow down. And when he did come back on, he really didn't assess the situation safely. We felt that when he came back onto the race track, he just jumped back onto the track. So, that was a set penalty in the penalty chart, it's a one position penalty. So, he was assessed that one position penalty for that situation.
Watch this interview with Pelletier in episode 72 of the SMX Insider show.
Thomas: So now we jump to moto two and I'm sure this is what has kept you from sleeping the last night or two. Haiden Deegan goes off the track as well. We saw riders going off the track throughout the weekend, burms blowing out. This is for the overall win though, right? All eyes are on Haiden Deegan and this did not incur a penalty. So walk us through. It seems like this was a subject that was talked about heavily after the race because we had a delay in official results and press conference. But what was the reasoning for him not getting a penalty the way that Tom Vialle did?
Sure. And, and it's important, I think, for everybody to know we have a lot of footage behind the scenes, not just the broadcast footage, right? So we can pull the drone footage, different camera angles. We go as far back to see his previous lap. You know, how much time did it take him in that section? The segment times, all of that's really dissected. And we try to do that as fast as we can. We do. We need to clean that up because I think it took too long on Saturday night, but it's important for us to also dissect that and come up with the right decision. So as race direction reviewed when Haiden went off the racetrack, he did assess. He looked around. We felt that he did break race pace, and for sure he lost time, based off our footage. So, those three areas is what we assessed and decided no penalty.
Weigandt: What made that one take so long to figure out?
Yeah, that's a good question, Jason. We try to do it as fast as we can, but it's more important to use all the footage and all the data points we want to look at. It's important to get it right. And that takes time to do. Now, we're working on trying to do that faster. But again, with all the interviews we want to do and all the footage we want to receive and look at and view and assess, that just takes some time and that's what took so long.
As for the delay in announcing Deegan would not be penalized, after the interview Mike pointed out that Race Control isn’t able to look at the 250 clips until the 450 moto is complete, because they’re watching the races as they happen. So the Deegan review did not begin until the second 450 moto was complete. Vialle’s penalty from 250 Moto One was not announced until right before 250 Moto Two. Also, many have pointed out that Deegan soon jumped a big leap after he came back onto the track, Pelletier explained that there was a lapped rider and Levi Kitchen behind Deegan, and rolling a jump with two riders behind him could be dangerous, so he was not penalized for jumping once he returned to the track.
