Image: Octopi Media.

The decision-making process that resulted in Haiden Deegan being cleared at Fox Raceway has been outlined by AMA director of racing Mike Pelletier, the 250MX winner holding onto his 1-1 sweep despite going off-track during moto two in what appeared – at least on the surface – to be a similar scenario that saw Tom Vialle penalized in the first race.

Double world champion Vialle ran wide in the opening encounter and was quickly docked a position last Saturday in between motos – dropped from third across the finish to be credited fourth position – before going on to seal third overall.

It was Deegan’s situation, however, that delayed the official results for as long as four hours post-race, as Pelletier and race direction deliberated over the outcome while adhering to regulations as sanctioned by AMA Pro Racing. He too had exited the course, but an apparent attempt to slow and make a safe re-entry was instrumental in him keeping the victory.

“I’d like to start by the rule itself… in Pro Motocross, it’s very specific,” Pelletier explained on this week’s SMX Insider (watch below). “There’s really three main aspects to the rule – did the rider, when he goes off track, did he gain a time or a 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, we 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. And it’s important, I think, for everybody to know, we have a lot of footage behind the scenes, not just the broadcast footage, so we can pull the drone footage, different camera angles.

“We go as far back to see his previous lap, 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 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.

“As race direction reviewed that, when Haiden went off the race track, 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 to no penalty.”

Pelletier said it is a group that ultimately determines the decisions made – including a rider representative that has been introduced in recent seasons – and that improved efficiency is on the agenda as part of that decision-making process. Pala cast a spotlight on the importance of accurately deciding upon and releasing the final results.

“There’s a panel that we created quite a few years ago, we call it race direction,” he commented. “It’s more of a committee based when it comes to infractions or reviewing footage – myself, Tim McAdams, and a rider rep.

“That’s a fairly new position the last few years, and this past weekend, for example, it was Andrew Short. We also have Jeremy Albrecht that comes in from time to time, [and] Christina Denney, so different viewpoints, a lot of good perspectives, and Andrew was certainly a benefit.

“We try to do it as fast as we can, but it’s more important and all the footage we have, all the data points we want to look at, it’s important to get it right, and that takes time to do. 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, view and assess, that takes time and that’s what took so long.”