- 149
- vrrm
I attended the Australian final as the guest of GTP_Devie. Thanks for the invite Steve, it was a great day, though I must admit it was exhausting... and I was just watching.
I do need to comment on the presentation and conduct of the event. For Sony this was a promotional event. It was about publicity. For the participants it was a potentially life changing sporting event. These two approaches do not fit well together.
For example I saw photographers taking pics, with flash on, while kneeling in front of & just to the left drivers. This happened to Devie during a race, a few seconds before he went off.
I saw another racing incident that put Dan's participation in the final in question happen right in front of Glen Seeton (the guest racing car driver steward), but he was on his mobile phone at the time and didn't notice.
Each driver had a steward looking over their shoulder to judge whether race behaviour was fair. None of these stewards had any real knowledge of GT. Only one had racing experience (Seeton). Towards the end of the day when people were growing tired the steward job often fell to young girls on the Sony publicity team.
This is completely unacceptable. Racing rules, stewards and scrutineers at events like this must be drawn from people experienced in Gran Turismo. Protests should be handled seriously by a panel rather than by a marketing manager who is more concerned about keeping to the event timetable.
I don't begrudge Dan's win in the Australian final in any way. He is an excellent driver, a great person and he drove with great skill and intelligence on the day to record a deserved victory. That said at least two of the other drivers in the final, either of whom were fast enough to win, suffered from incidents that in my humble opinion should have required the race to be rerun.
In my view we should insist that an agreed set of competition rules be applied to all formal competitions and that these rules and the racing itself be overseen by stewards who are experienced in GT and willing to take on this role. What do you think?
I do need to comment on the presentation and conduct of the event. For Sony this was a promotional event. It was about publicity. For the participants it was a potentially life changing sporting event. These two approaches do not fit well together.
For example I saw photographers taking pics, with flash on, while kneeling in front of & just to the left drivers. This happened to Devie during a race, a few seconds before he went off.
I saw another racing incident that put Dan's participation in the final in question happen right in front of Glen Seeton (the guest racing car driver steward), but he was on his mobile phone at the time and didn't notice.
Each driver had a steward looking over their shoulder to judge whether race behaviour was fair. None of these stewards had any real knowledge of GT. Only one had racing experience (Seeton). Towards the end of the day when people were growing tired the steward job often fell to young girls on the Sony publicity team.
This is completely unacceptable. Racing rules, stewards and scrutineers at events like this must be drawn from people experienced in Gran Turismo. Protests should be handled seriously by a panel rather than by a marketing manager who is more concerned about keeping to the event timetable.
I don't begrudge Dan's win in the Australian final in any way. He is an excellent driver, a great person and he drove with great skill and intelligence on the day to record a deserved victory. That said at least two of the other drivers in the final, either of whom were fast enough to win, suffered from incidents that in my humble opinion should have required the race to be rerun.
In my view we should insist that an agreed set of competition rules be applied to all formal competitions and that these rules and the racing itself be overseen by stewards who are experienced in GT and willing to take on this role. What do you think?
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and the Demo) - 2nd, moved to the semi's and was punted off track in Race 1 of the Semi's whilst 2nd... finishing 4th.
to Dan and Tony for having made it through to Silverstone.
