Image: Foremost Media.

Confusion surrounding sanctions handed down to red-plate holder Regan Duffy and three other MX1 riders days after Canberra’s second round has been explained, where the penalties were later downgraded following clarification of ProMX’s position on post-race reviews enabled by having a broadcast package.

Duffy was understood to have jumped on a red-cross flag in the final moto of the day, which was noted by an official after rewatching the race the evening after the event.

The incident was investigated by race control, who upon reviewing the footage available and after consulting the teenager, imposed a three-position penalty on Duffy, which would’ve stripped him of his P3 podium finish.

Once more footage became available, it’s understood Race Control discovered three more instances of other riders jumping on a red-cross flag in a separate race. Those riders haven’t been named, however Duffy had already publicly commented on the incident.

Following discussions with the teams and riders involved, it’s been made clear the sanctions – which weren’t disclosed to MotoOnline.com.au – were downgraded due to participants being unaware they could be penalised through a post-race review of the broadcast footage. ProMX is moving to clarify its position that riders are subject to further investigation and sanctions should incidents be discovered by officials post-event.

“With the advantage of TV, we’re actually in a position now where we can review footage,” ProMX race director Mark Hancock told MotoOnline.com.au. “I can’t penalise anyone as a race director, but what I can do is initiate investigations. At about 11 o’clock on Sunday night, I was watching the replay of the races – because I don’t get to see any racing – and I noted that Regan had jumped that jump. So there was an investigation to find out what the situation was.

“Regan was contacted by Race Control, and he outright said he did it – we went through that and Race Control implemented a penalty. We didn’t have availability to footage of other races, which we didn’t get until Wednesday that week – when I looked at that footage, there was actually three more in a separate race.

“The bottom line is when looked at this and discussed it with all the teams, going through with them and the riders involved – it wasn’t clear – at this stage we haven’t told them that we can use this footage. So they haven’t been informed that this footage is available to us and that we can actually penalise on it.

“Out of that, we’ve had very constructive discussions with the three teams involved, all three professional riders, and all three team managers. We’ve agreed that we’re going to further review the circumstances surrounding that event, but put in constructive processes that we can actually review it, and that it’s clear that that is the position.

“Rather than have different penalties or anything like that, what we did is downgrade his – we didn’t remove it – he was still penalised. We downgraded the penalties for all riders concerned, and we’ve agreed as a rider group and a race control group to make it better for all concerned and to clarify what it will be in the future.”

Duffy, who insisted he would never intentionally jump on a medic flag, indicated he witnessed the other riders jump on the red-cross flag in an earlier moto before doing the same thing himself in moto three.

He indicated the position of the flagger made it difficult to see in the heat of a race, which was reciprocated amongst the others rider and was also contributing factor in the sanctions being downgraded.

“In the first moto I was lucky enough to catch it out of the corner of my eye, and I saw a couple of other guys jumping and I thought that’s no good, they’re going to get in trouble for that,” Duffy explained to MotoOnline.com.au.

“Sure enough, in the third moto, it happened on the same jump – it was quite rough and I was taking the left-hand side, and I didn’t even see it to be honest. They called me two days after the event and told me they saw footage of me jumping, and said they were going to have to give me a penalty.

“The footage came out and they realised there were multiple other people who jumped on the flag – I was led to believe in their investigation that they came to the conclusion [the flagger] was in a bit of a hard spot to see. All the riders who jumped on it said the same thing – we would never do it deliberately or to make up time, we literally didn’t see it.

“A couple of days [after the penalty] is when I heard from them – I was just in touch with my team and trying to figure out what was going on. I saw other riders had done the same thing, so I thought what’s going on here. I just waited to see what would happen – I was happy to take it on the chin because I did jump on the medic flag, there’s no denying that – mistake or not, it’s illegal. I was just lucky they decided to withdraw the penalty.”

The KTM Racing Team rider still maintains his championship lead ahead of Gillman’s third round on 30 May, holding a seven-point buffer over defending champion Todd Waters (Husqvarna Racing Team).