Last Month the Japanese try to retrive this mod a little bit more. They played in the at 2pm CET. At the moment the gametracker,com Server Monitorring is off. Hope soon they turn it on. The ranking seems to work.
The purpose of this is not to stop shortcutters, but on the contrary, to allow them. The only problem I have is that they use the shortcuts to get to the end and cap the flag for the goodies, taking all the reward away from the racers.
The ways I mentioned were all setting up for the final flag, however as some of you mentioned, it would be good to also have it so that each flag releases the next so they also have to be capped in order. It must be in a way that does not delay you in the race though.