I've noticed the same issues as well last night. Weapon pads are sometimes having "rave parties". lol. I've crashed into a few others at the start line too.
Also have you noticed that some ships seem to get too much boost off the line compared to their ship stats? I played a few races the other day and there was another good pilot in the room using Icarus. The field was small with only about 3 racers including me and he would routinely beat me off the line with Icarus (Fury) if he was in 1st position and I was in 2nd using AG Sys (Fury). If I was in 1st and the other guy in 2nd I would only manage a very tiny lead at the start of the race. It was as if his Icarus ship had the nearly the same about of thrust as AG sys. I'm very good at getting off the line and still can't understand how and why this was happening so often. In over 3 yrs playing this game I don't think I ever recalled that happening before. Weird.