How much of a car has to cross the line?

During last nights slot car racing this question came up...

How much of a car has to cross the line to finish?? Is there any rules on this? Does the driver have to be part of the car?

I know it sounds like a stupid question.. but Im curious, what was the least amount of car to cross the line and be classed as finishing..?

And for anyone who is interested, heres a link to our slotcar track

http://www.landshark.../htm/gslots.htm

Thanks in advance for any replies.

Stu

Logically it must be the first part of the car.

The first part would break any timing beam.

Imagine a Ford Galaxy leading a Mini over the line by a yard or so - you couldn't award the race to the Mini because it was completely over the line before the Galaxy.

Or when Dan Gurney drove his Lotus 19 over the Daytona finishing line on the starter motor, I doubt that he had to get the whole car across the line.

In the days when a driver could push the car over the line he might be behind the car.

I have a vague notion that there is (or was) some sort of regulation about the left front wheel having to cross the line.

I suppose that today the critical portion would be the transponder!

Originally posted by Vitesse2
I have a vague notion that there is (or was) some sort of regulation about the left front wheel having to cross the line.

Presumably it had to be still attached to the car!

I'll get my coat

Presumably it had to be still attached to the car!

Well, this is one of the things we were wondering... does it?

Have there always been rules about which part of the car needs to cross the line, and if those bits need to be attached to other bits by some means?

And, why cant the driver just jog accross the line holding a part of the car??

I know these sound like stupid questions... but I am curious..!!

Good question indeed, which brings up more questions:

As far as I know, the timing device for an F1 car is located at its front wheel. (Correct me if I am wrong.) Does it mean that for a car to complete a lap, part or whole of its wheel has to cross the finish line? How about the tip of its nose cone barely crosses the line but the car stops dead, with the finish line virtually in between the nose cone and the front wheel? Would that be a completed lap? What if the front axis of car A is further back than car B. That would, in theory, create some strange situation.

Originally posted by maxie
Good question indeed, which brings up more questions:

As far as I know, the timing device for an F1 car is located at its front wheel. (Correct me if I am wrong.) Does it mean that for a car to complete a lap, part or whole of its wheel has to cross the finish line? How about the tip of its nose cone barely crosses the line but the car stops dead, with the finish line virtually in between the nose cone and the front wheel? Would that be a completed lap? What if the front axis of car A is further back than car B. That would, in theory, create some strange situation.

Originally posted by bobdar
I suppose that today the critical portion would be the transponder!

If the current regulations require the transponder to be on the same line as the front wheel centres and the other regulations are written around that line, it makes life simple and almost logical. A car would start or finish when its front wheels (and the transponder) cross the line. This would agree with Vitesse2's half-memory of the left front wheel. Given the restrictions on dimensions all Formula 1 nose cones are probably the same distance from the magic line anyway so the first nose across the line would be the same.

In lesser races, where cars differ, it would be more rational to use the front-most part of the car as that is what you can photograph. And when mega-bucks aren't at stake a dead heat keeps everybody happy.

Transponders in NASCAR are located where the windshield meets the roofline...what matters as far as the finish line is concerned is what car touches it first. It's more a case of first car TO the finish line rather than first car OVER it.

Cris

NASCAR transponders are on the rear wheel, though, which blows the transponder theory. They definitely do the photo finishes with the front of the car.

Originally posted by ensign14
NASCAR transponders are on the rear wheel, though, which blows the transponder theory. They definitely do the photo finishes with the front of the car.

I also think so.

What about finish on the car's roof???

Originally posted by D-Type

Presumably it had to be still attached to the car!

I'll get my coat

Now, funnily enough, Duncan, the reason I have a memory of it is because of the old TV game show "The Golden Shot". The one which gave us the almost forgotten catchphrase: "Bernie - the bolt!"

The bolt in question was being inserted into a crossbow attached to a camera fitted with crosshairs. The contestants had to direct the blindfolded Bernie to the targets (still in the first round, but moving thereafter) and he then had to fire the criossbow on their command.

Each show was themed and on a sports one, probably in 1968 or 69, one of the targets was the left front wheel of Graham Hill's car, which detached itself and beat his opposition over the line. It was explained on the show that the left front wheel was the part of the car which was vital ....

And thus Bob Monkhouse probably makes his first and last appearance on TNF!

In the US, almost universally, if not completely, a race is won by the first car to reach the finish line, meaning that point at which the foremost part of the car actually reaches the finish line. Take it as a carryover from horse-racing if you will, or track & field, where the first horse or the first runner reaches the tape marking the finish line of the event

I would suppose that the idea of the front wheels having to reach the finish line comes from the early timing & scoring devices which used a taut wire stretched across the track, perhaps an inch off the surface, the front tires of a car pressing that down, pulling a tight wire even tighter, in order to actuate an electrical contact in the timing device--but those went away shortly after the first Indianapolis 500 Mile Race, when in either that, or a subsequent 500 soon thereafter, a car lost a wheel, as it was approaching the finish line and the timing wire, breaking the wire. The broken timing wire snapped back, in a whiplash motion, the end of it cutting the neck of the driver of another car. Only quick action by that driver's riding mechanic prevented this from being a fatal injury. For the next Indy 500, lights and photoelectric cells were used, and the light beam would be broken by the foremost part of the car to pass into the light beam.

Art

Since the cars start with the front aligned to the grid mark, it is logical that the front be used to determine who wins.

Kudos to the first designer to come up with Pinocchio nose. Although with the bullshit in F1 some races would be over as soon as the lights went out.

Im still curious as to any rule or precedence that is set on how much of the car actually has to cross the line...

In other words, if you had a crash on the start finish line, but one of the wings, or a wheel or something bounced accross the line, Does that count? Is there a rule on how much of the car needs to make it accross? If I skated accross the line in nothing more than the monocoque, is that counted as a finish?

Has anything like this ever occured?

I suppose, depending on category and rules, that there has to be enough of the car left to preclude it being disqualified for being underweight or otherwise contravening regulations. For instance, IIRC OTTOMH, 'Wattie' was disqualified from a points-scoring finish in the 1976 French GP because his rear wing support was bent during the race, rendering the wing dimensions illegal. Then again, rallycross and rally cars are occassionally seen crossing the line in a very sorry state (even upside down), which surely must technically breach some safety or dimensional regulations from time to time, yet I've never heard of someone being chucked out for finishing such races with missing bonnets, windscreens, wheels or whatever...

Presumably enough of the car must cross the line to comply with the minimum weight limit?

Maybe it sounds as a joke, but some very weird thing happened not so many months ago, during a race of the 2005 Argentinian Turismo Carretera series, held at Buenos Aires tracks. The cars are some 70’s sedan silhouettes, and according to the rules they have to carry the transponder somewhere in the rear right wheelarch.
Juan Manuel Silva and Rafael Verna were fighting very closely the race (and as it happened, the title fight also) and they passed the chequered flag too close between. The impression was that Silva had won by a whisper, although there is no white line across the track, but the official timing gave Verna an advantage of 16/1000th of a second over Silva.
The two transponders were, in effect, in the rear wheelarches. But Silva’s was at the back of the wheel, and Verna’s was at the front! That tiny difference, less than 20 cm, was enough to win although impression was that Silva has been the winner!
You can see what I mean at:

http://www.clarin.co...tes/d-02601.htm

The incident between Silva & Verna is exactly the odd case that I have been looking for. It seems that in order for a car to complete a lap, the transponder has to cross the finish line. Other things such as wheel, body work or nose cone would not have counted. Is that true in F1 or other racing as well? If that is the case, photo-finish will give us the wrong results as, base on Pablo's post, the very front of Silva's car hit the line first.

NASCAR transponders are on the rear wheel, though, which blows the transponder theory. They definitely do the photo finishes with the front of the car.

Nascar mandates a standardized location for the transponder, so there would be no difference between the photo image and the transponder result, unless one of the cars was doing a donut as it crossed the line! It seems reasonable that the photo result should overrule in that sort of situation.

From Circle Track:

NASCAR, one of AMB's most notable clients, has been instrumental in mandating standardized transponder mounting in order to forestall any advantage, as well as to assure the continued functioning of the transponder in case of vehicle damage. All Nextel Cup cars must carry the transponder mounted on the right-rear of the fuel cell, exactly 13.6 feet back from the frontmost part of the car, and this position is verified at tech.

Hi,

Would this one count.
http://f1gt.ifrance....GP/IMGP545e.jpg

Did Christian Fitipaldi crash with his teammate before, on or after the finishline in the '93 Monza GP. His car did end the race as it started.

Roland

Originally posted by bobdar
All Nextel Cup cars must carry the transponder mounted on the right-rear of the fuel cell, exactly 13.6 feet back from the frontmost part of the car ...

Is there a similar rule in F1?

I love these bizarre 'what if' scenarios. I confess that the 'minimum weight' argument didn't occur to me. I was thinking more along the lines of, if a car was no longer in one piece, and only part of it crossed the line, then the severity of the accident would probably produce a red flag situation, thus rendering 'crossing the line' irrelevant. Or would it?

This led me on to a more general question - is it possible to deploy a red flag AFTER a chequered flag, and, if so, would the winner be determined by the 'first past the chequered flag' rule or by the 'red flag countback' rule? An example, to make my question clear:

50 lap race. Positions at the end of lap 49 are A, B, C, then a gap to D, E and F.
On lap 50, car A slows and is passed by B and C. (Cars D, E and F may sense a potential podium finish, so will be racing harder than ever).
Car B completes lap 50 and passes the chequered flag.
Behind him, car C has a major accident (let's make this an obvious red flag accident by having the driver lying injured in the track).

So, under the red flag countback rule, leader is on lap 51, result is declared as at the end of lap 49. A wins, despite B having completed the race and having passed the chequered flag.

Or not.

Thoughts, please.

Stuart, in my shed, my one-man slot racing car races are timed with a stop-watch, but each individual lap is timed with an electronic beam timer. In order to actuate the timer, it is the very first part of the car to reach it that registers the time. (more often than not, the tip of the nose)

If this sounds suspiciously like stating 'the bleeding obvious' surely this must be the answer. If any other part of the car was to be used, it would be possible to reach the line first but not actually win!

I would stress that I am talking slot racing here, not the real thing.

In modern racing, the transponder is all important, wherever it may be located.

Years ago I guess it would have been up to the time-keepers and the criteria could have varied from circuit to circuit.

Anybody remember Muddy Walters...

Another story from Argentinian motor sport but this is quite tragic, related to what Roger Valentine was asking.
It happened in 1992, at a race of Turismo Carretera series. Roberto Mouras was leading the race closely followed by José María Romero. They had covered 2/3 parts of the race, at Lobos, when Mouras' car blocked a wheel, the tire explode, the car went outside, and hit a bank.
The race was red-flagged, and results were produced over the lap before the accident.
So, Mouras was winning.
But Roberto -a friendly good guy, I assure you- was painfully dead.
And he won the race. The last one of the 50 he managed to win between 1976 and that year.

Where there any other times when a driver was awarded the victory postumoushly?

Originally posted by Andretti Fan
Where there any other times when a driver was awarded the victory postumoushly?

Rich Vogler at Salem in July 1990.

Originally posted by D-Type
The first part would break any timing beam.

An odd incident occurred at this year's NHRA U.S. Nationals in the final of the Pro Stock Bike category. The timing data showed that Matt Smith had taken the win, but the camera on the finish line showed that Steve Johnson had actually crossed the line first! The NHRA later declared that, based on the television footage, Johnson was the winner of the race. In this instance, the first part of Johnson's bike did not break the timing beam, even though he crossed the line first.

More: http://www.nhra.com/...d=7784&zoneid=8


Not strictly circuit racing, but I thought it was still pertinent to the discussion

Originally posted by Andretti Fan
Were there any other times when a driver was awarded the victory posthumously?

And one in F3000, wasn't there? The name escapes me.

This, though, really has more to do with the fact that a race is called as at the beginning of the lap on which the red flag is brought out.

Originally posted by roger_valentine


This led me on to a more general question - is it possible to deploy a red flag AFTER a chequered flag, and, if so, would the winner be determined by the 'first past the chequered flag' rule or by the 'red flag countback' rule? An example, to make my question clear:

Actually Roger, this happened quite recently...in an AMA Superbike race at Brainerd this past summer. It began to rain on the last lap and in particular one corner was affected. The first six bikes took the chequered flag but as the rest of the field arrived at the affected corner, all hell broke loose, prompting (correctly in my opinion) a red flag being shown to bring the field to an immediate stop. Almost unbelievably, this exact scenario is covered in the AMA rule book and while I don't recall the result at this moment, I know the first six were left as they finished.

Mo.

Originally posted by Ray Bell


And one in F3000, wasn't there? The name escapes me.

This, though, really has more to do with the fact that a race is called as at the beginning of the lap on which the red flag is brought out.

Your right there was...... dutch driver named Albers........ could he have been related to Christian, maybe an older brother?

Marcel Albers (elder brother, I think) was killed in an accident approaching the chicane at Thruxton in a Formula Three race in the early 90s.
I was there, unfortunately.

The posthumous F3000 race winner might have been Paul Warwick, perhaps?

Originally posted by stuartbrs

.... what was the least amount of car to cross the line and be classed as finishing..?

Perhaps in this type of situation…..



Zandvoort, June 10, 1951. National 500 cc race over six rounds. Jan Flinterman (Cooper-BSA) and Lex Beels (Beels-JAP) competing for second and third place.

There were only four entrants. Kühne retired in the second round. Flinterman and Beels both suffered mechanical problems in the fourth round. But they pushed their cars to the finish line, making sure that the front wheels didn’t cross the line. They waited till the winner, Dolf Dillenius had finished the race. Then, with a single forceful tug on the left wheel, they classified themselves. Flinterman was declared second; he had beaten Beels by about 2 cm.

WONDERFUL!

Originally posted by 2F-001
.....The posthumous F3000 race winner might have been Paul Warwick, perhaps?

Yes, that's the one...

Great story about those 500s, Henk!

I`m not sure if the minimum weight thing is an issue...

In the recent Bathurst 1000, the Craig Lowndes car was hit by a flying tyre, and had both front and rear windscreens removed, and carried on in the race... surely, removing a few kilo`s of glass is going to effect the weight of the car..

And of course, the same thing happened to Peter Brock in the 1985 race, both windscreens removed as he was chasing down the leading Jag of John Goss.. that car was retired with alleged "timing chain" failure..but was it going to be disqualified anyway because it was underweight?? Obviously, these are touring cars though, so Im not sure how close they are to minimum weight... but I`d imagine the Lowndes car would ahve to be pretty close wouldnt it?

Originally posted by roger_valentine

This led me on to a more general question - is it possible to deploy a red flag AFTER a chequered flag, and, if so, would the winner be determined by the 'first past the chequered flag' rule or by the 'red flag countback' rule?

How about this alternative scenario?

Driver X is way, way in the lead in a Formula 1 race, he is 2 laps clear after a monsoon took out most of the leading runners. The 2 hour limit is about to approach, but as X takes Turn 1 he aquaplanes off. Oopsie. Ten seconds later the chequered comes out, driver Y approaches as the nearest guy to X but still 2 laps down, he takes the flag, the race is over.

Who wins?

ME!

Sorry to be pedantic, but does the wheel have to be on the ground when it crosses the finish line?

The answer is simple. ANY part of the car. There have been situtations where the winner car in a Nascar race actually crossed the finish line backwards after spinning out. If any part of the car crosses the plane of the finish line it is the winner.

Originally posted by ensign14
How about this alternative scenario?

Driver X is way, way in the lead in a Formula 1 race, he is 2 laps clear after a monsoon took out most of the leading runners. The 2 hour limit is about to approach, but as X takes Turn 1 he aquaplanes off. Oopsie. Ten seconds later the chequered comes out, driver Y approaches as the nearest guy to X but still 2 laps down, he takes the flag, the race is over.

Who wins?

That one's easy...... I think ;)

In the event of the time limit coming into play, it is the leading car to cross the line after the time limit expires. Driver X was not the leading car still on track at the 2 hour limit, therefore Y is the winner despite having covered less distance.

Originally posted by smithy
That one's easy...... I think ;)

In the event of the time limit coming into play, it is the leading car to cross the line after the time limit expires. Driver X was not the leading car still on track at the 2 hour limit, therefore Y is the winner despite having covered less distance.

If I was the race steward, I would wait until Driver Y completed 2 laps more, thus passing Driver X, and then ending the event.

Originally posted by roger_valentine
I love these bizarre 'what if' scenarios. I confess that the 'minimum weight' argument didn't occur to me. I was thinking more along the lines of, if a car was no longer in one piece, and only part of it crossed the line, then the severity of the accident would probably produce a red flag situation, thus rendering 'crossing the line' irrelevant. Or would it?

This led me on to a more general question - is it possible to deploy a red flag AFTER a chequered flag, and, if so, would the winner be determined by the 'first past the chequered flag' rule or by the 'red flag countback' rule? An example, to make my question clear:

50 lap race. Positions at the end of lap 49 are A, B, C, then a gap to D, E and F.
On lap 50, car A slows and is passed by B and C. (Cars D, E and F may sense a potential podium finish, so will be racing harder than ever).
Car B completes lap 50 and passes the chequered flag.
Behind him, car C has a major accident (let's make this an obvious red flag accident by having the driver lying injured in the track).

So, under the red flag countback rule, leader is on lap 51, result is declared as at the end of lap 49. A wins, despite B having completed the race and having passed the chequered flag.

Or not.

Thoughts, please.

Well, there have been occasions in which the last lap results of the race were not considered because of crowd invasion AFTER the chequered flag, but before all the cars had crossed the line. IIRC, in the fateful '94 San Marino GP this happened. In your scenario, I think this would be the better solution.

The chequered flag means the finish of the race. I don't think you can deploy a red flag and "count-back" 2 laps after the finish of the race.

A bit OT, but as it's already been mentioned, I just thought I'd ask..........

Why was Brocky required to remove his rear screen in the '85 Great Race?

I find it hard to believe that enough air pressure would build up in the car to blow out the rear screen (although given the ease with which the mechanic kicked it out, maybe it would), but I can't think of any other reason why it would be required....

I think the rule... and it was a rule that required that it be removed... relates to a fear that it will blow out down the straight...

However, in post-race interviews, he claimed that they're tested to stay in place to 185mph or something silly. Oh, and don't underestimate the power of a shock load from the plates of meat that pushed it out!

But surely, the car must have been underweight with both front and rear screens removed...

I remember hearing rumours that the timing chain didnt break on the 05 Commodore, the reason it was "retired"..

Did someone realise it was going to be DQ`ed anyway...??

Originally posted by ensign14
How about this alternative scenario?

Driver X is way, way in the lead in a Formula 1 race, he is 2 laps clear after a monsoon took out most of the leading runners. The 2 hour limit is about to approach, but as X takes Turn 1 he aquaplanes off. Oopsie. Ten seconds later the chequered comes out, driver Y approaches as the nearest guy to X but still 2 laps down, he takes the flag, the race is over.

Who wins?

It depends on how non-finishers are classified.

Driver X, having spun off and was unable to resume the race, was not running at the conclusion of the race. However, driver X had completed more laps than anyone else once the race had concluded.

From this point, there appear to be two distinct schools of thought:

• Non-Finishers can be classified as finishers
  To be classified as a finisher, the rules only require that competitors complete a minimum percentage of the race distance. Once this is done, a competitor is classified as a finisher irrespective of whether they are running at the conclusion of the event.
  In this scenario, driver X is classified as a finisher, even though they were not running at the finish of the race. Therefore, because driver X is classified and completed more laps than any other finisher, driver X is the winner of the race.
  
• Non-Finishers are never classified as finishers
  To be classified as a finisher, the rules require competitors to complete a minimum percentage of the race distance and be running at the conclusion of the race.
  In this case, driver X is not classified as a finisher and cannot be the winner of the race, despite completing more laps than anyone else. Therefore, driver Y is the winner of the race becuase they have completed the most laps of all the classified finishers.

The FIA tend to use the former system, which is why (for instance) Alain Prost, Didier Pironi, Andrea de Cesaris and Derek Daly were all classified as finishers of the 1982 Monaco GP, despite the fact that none of them were running at the conclusion of the race.

Australia uses (used?) the latter system. It's ironic that Simpson RX1 brings up Peter Brock in the 1985 James Hardie 1000. In retiring from the race on lap 160, Brock had completed the third highest number of laps in that race. However, under the rules, he was not classified as a finisher because he was not running at the conclusion of the race. Under the FIA rules, he would have finished third...


David Greenhalgh wrote a very good article explaining this in either the latter days of Racing Car News, or possibly for Motor Racing Australia.

Judge of Fact is a job in the control tower to arbitrate on who is first across the line....obviously the postion of the transponders these days can skew a timing result. Thats why you have a pair of experienced and trained human eyes observing what happens.

Interesting thread which I finally found some time to read myself into. Like with laws in general I don´t think it is possible to write down rules, that cover every thinkable situation. So in the end there must be some interpretation by the judge, who finally comes to a decision. This is not necessarily the "truth", as we all know that verdicts may be revisioned by a higher court.

In particular I think in the FIA ruling system there is always some explicit room for such decisions. For example I remember an instance in the eighties, where in my view the final decision was in my opinion not according to any rules. In 1983 Rosberg lost his second place because of being push-started, but the interesting thing is, that - other than usual - the second place was declared "vacant", where normally one would have expected, that all the other finishers would have to be promoted one position. But nevertheless the decision stood and would have almost decided the championship, as Prost, who would have been one of the benefiters, lost it by two points in the end. Ok, this is a little bit OT, but I can imagine, that there will be some similar space for the judges to decide, when to count somebody as finisher an when not.

Some further remarks to what has already been written:

Originally posted by Bonde
I suppose, depending on category and rules, that there has to be enough of the car left to preclude it being disqualified for being underweight or otherwise contravening regulations. For instance, IIRC OTTOMH, 'Wattie' was disqualified from a points-scoring finish in the 1976 French GP because his rear wing support was bent during the race, rendering the wing dimensions illegal.

This is exactly what I wanted to make clear with my example above. I think much depends on the personal attitudes of the stuarts of the race or other persons "of influence" (just think about Benetton´s "illegal fuel" affair, I think happened around 1995).

Originally posted by Vitesse2

Each show was themed and on a sports one, probably in 1968 or 69, one of the targets was the left front wheel of Graham Hill's car, which detached itself and beat his opposition over the line. It was explained on the show that the left front wheel was the part of the car which was vital ....

I f I did understand you right, then to me it sounds physically impossible, that any "un-driven" part of a car (means not attached to the transmission) should have some kind of speeded up against the rest of the car which is still under power. Shouldn´t the drag have immediately slowed the wheel down from the moment it lost contact to the rest of the car?

Originally posted by Pablo Vignone
Maybe it sounds as a joke, but some very weird thing happened not so many months ago, during a race of the 2005 Argentinian Turismo Carretera series, held at Buenos Aires tracks. The cars are some 70’s sedan silhouettes, and according to the rules they have to carry the transponder somewhere in the rear right wheelarch.
Juan Manuel Silva and Rafael Verna were fighting very closely the race (and as it happened, the title fight also) and they passed the chequered flag too close between. The impression was that Silva had won by a whisper, although there is no white line across the track, but the official timing gave Verna an advantage of 16/1000th of a second over Silva.
The two transponders were, in effect, in the rear wheelarches. But Silva’s was at the back of the wheel, and Verna’s was at the front! That tiny difference, less than 20 cm, was enough to win although impression was that Silva has been the winner!
You can see what I mean at:

http://www.clarin.co...tes/d-02601.htm

As I understand from the Spanish text (and also concluding from the picture) at this moment the cars were certainly much faster than the 45 km/h, which is the upper limit, at which a difference of 20 cm would have been decisive. Just calculate:

20 cm * 1/0,016 s = 1.250 cm/s = 45 km/h

or in other words at about 150 km/h (about the calculation in the text) a difference of 0,016 s represents already a distance of 67 cm.

Beyond that I think it is the responsibility of the team to build their cars to the optimum allowed under the rules. If they don´t and the rules are transparent, they must not blame anybody else.

Originally posted by scousepenguin
Sorry to be pedantic, but does the wheel have to be on the ground when it crosses the finish line?

At Avus Dieter Quester once brought home a 3rd place, finishing his BMW DTM-car on the roof...