Is the curb a part of the track ?

[eran0004]

I thoroughly enjoy how an off in a early turn somehow gains me enough of an advantage to invalidate my next lap (which I'm nearly a minute away from even starting).

Typical Polyphony logic.

That logic is: "Better safe than sorry."
There's been a lot of cheating in the past.

 

[mister dog]

Let's be honest; it would suck bigtime if you have to watch out not to run the curbs all the time no?

 

[Wardez]

In official motorsport worlds no, the white line defines the edge of the track. Generally most racing organisations will allow a car to take two wheels beyond the white line (whether it be onto tarmac or a kerb) but not four wheels, even if all four wheels are on a kerb.

There's some wiggle room here though. The curbs are illegal to use four wheels on, but since they are technically allowed to be used (and let's face it, if they didn't want them used at all, they wouldn't be in the track) I'd say they are definitely part of the track. And no, It's not in the same vein to where grandstands or grass are also part of my definition of "track." I am talking about useable track surface for cars.

What you should be saying is that the curbs are not part of the track boundaries, to be more clear.

But boundaries are more about safety than arbitrarily forcing drivers to stay within the white lines, this isn't tennis.

So organizers will sometimes allow people to overstep them due to the nature of a certain turn (if it's mellow enough) or if people run wide there so much (and safely) that they concede the point and allow it anyway.

FIA used to be much more liberal about things.

They used to allow drivers to use the run off out Ascari in Monza (which is still ok in the race), turn 4 out of Mercedes Arena in Nurburgring GP, and this:

http://youtu.be/CIZ-T8y9_9c?t=9s

http://youtu.be/NOuCPOQ_L28?t=8s

http://youtu.be/wnQBTibckFM?t=16s