At round 3 of the 2024 ACU Trial GB Championship held on 18.08.2024 by the Ripon MCC an investigation into the time penalties awarded to rider #101 Luke Walker was conducted.
In the provisional results 9-time penalties were awarded. Following an investigation these time penalties were reduced to 5. This was due to a 5-minute delay in transferring data to the NFC rider’s wristband which would not scan at the section.
The original investigation had included a review of the data logs from all section devices.
Since that original investigation was conducted, a report from the chief observer has been submitted via the club, and upon the request of the Clerk of the Course this new information has been considered.
The Chief Observers report details that a number of other Expert class riders were in fact waiting to enter the section while the scoring assistant was trying to resolve the un-scanned wristband issue. The Chief Observer believes this would have caused those riders to have also been affected by the delay.
Upon review with the series manager today attempts were made to establish if any other riders queuing could be validated by the time logs of the section devices. A conclusion was drawn that is not something that can be validated conclusively from the data string.
As there is some uncertainty as to how other riders may have been affected by the incident the Clerk of the Course has ruled to go back to the originally awarded 9-time penalties.
Every effort has been made to treat this incident fairly and while we do understand this to be more than unfortunate, we feel this can be the only outcome. As a result, the current championship standings now reflect the original result.