There’s an interesting gate drop story to come out of the MXGP season opener in Qatar last weekend, reports veteran GP photojournalist Alex Hodgkinson.
FIM tech steward Andy Summers’ hammer skills have been called into question after dropping the MXGP gate too consistently over the last few years, it’s reported. Summers has been relieved of the job following complaints from some team bosses that the gate was being dropped too frequently between five and five-and-a-half seconds.
And although that’s within the FIM rules, which say it should be dropped between five and 10 seconds, some team managers thought that too many riders were able to anticipate the gate.
The gate will now be dropped by alternating officials – in Qatar, it was Chris Warren.
After reading this, will you be putting a stopwatch on the gate drops in Indonesia this weekend? I sure will be, but that’s just me.
Will any steward wait until nine seconds – that could be very interesting.
