why bother calculating loads and then taking an average? why do we not use the game's internal timer?????????????????????????????????????????????

Timing is not calculated by the average, timing is loadless RTA, so that the only time that counts towards the leaderboard is racing and menu time. Internal time is not accurate when you factor in penalties and tuning/repair time.

isn't that the point of the game? to be penalised for crashing?

there is a reason tuning doesn't count towards igt... this is ridiculous.

This is the difference between speedrunning and time attack.

literally, one is penalised for how long to get from menu to starting moving.

it's actually just penalising load times and i think that's pretty obvious.

Im not a mod for this game, only a runner, but I can understand if it was Hardware-based load times and not hardware-based. These ones are not.

Yes, the point of "The Game" is to complete with no penalties, but speedrunning is an external challenge.

This would be called any% in speedrunning terms, (The act of finishing as quick as possible, Glitches, and exploits are all fair use.

Happy running! :D