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Always be ahead of the incident and use hand/arm motions to direct so riders have time to adjust.
The reason you allow passing on just a yellow is that otherwise, if a bike is down or broken along the track, on a long straight or hill, and the rider needs time to get restarted, or can't get started, as long as the yellow is out, no one could pass in that whole section. That's why WOG flags and medical flags mean absolute things, and yellow advises to exercise caution. It's the last bit that's more of a problem than the passing -- how do we get the riders to exercise more caution?
In this case, the bike fell and stayed in the middle of the track, early in the race, at a blind and fast spot that was hard to direct. If this were Saturday morning and we could have a do-over I would have called Colorado with the suggestion of making that a WOG obstacle because if the blind nature of the hill's crest, even if it wasn't really a big jump or double like we normally assign the WOG flags to. But that's hindsight being 20/20...
DC
Racer X
i've flagged pro events. I woulda done exactly as nick did. I will push myself out in effort to make the guys see how important their line is. The riders self preservation should kick in and realize colliding with me would = DNF.
Flagger also needs to get some animation of how dangerous it is...just simply flapping it doesn't work.
props to nick for doing what was right...on the spot. and others who think Davey isn't trying to make this better, you guys really suck.
The Shop
That is even more true when you are talking about a rider dealing with disappointment from not qualifying, facing a drive home, and feeling the affects of trying to qualify.
Some of the best flaggers I have seen in 30 years in the sport as a rider and promoter have never thrown a leg over a motorcycle. The story family at LL's come to mind, along with many others.
So many of you are so critical of flaggers all the time, and it is almost cliche on moto boards to say that if you have never flagged you should just stfu,
I will say if you have never put up with the heat/dust/mud/rain/noise/wind/boredom/heart stopping situations/and getting bitched at/about by people that are so happy to tell you that you screwed up no matter what you do, why not give it a shot. I promise you it will change your perspective.
Having flagged a number of Nationals and one SX I will tell you from my experience that the riders pay little attention to yellow flags. They will take a hand signal if they see it, perhaps. They are committed to a line and unless you are way back from the crash site it won't do a lot of good. I thought it was just luck that more riders didn't pile up going over that jump.
Nick Wey needs to stay off the track. By the time he got there the problem was over.
It never looks like ap is trying to keep people from hitting his bike. As good a guy as he might be, he most likely was concerned more about getting back to the bike so he could get back going.
If the flaggers were in the track directing the riders to go to their left it would only make that harder for ap, and actually might have put him at more risk.
Maybe the solution should be to have more "wheels on the ground flags" and use them more often
I agree with Davey, in hindsight, that would have been a good place for a WOG flag.
Pit Row
And he was wearing protective gear.
I guess AP knows what most of us know. The riders have very little regard for a yellow flag unless they are the one for whom it is waving
One possible solution is if you had one flagger on each side of every blind obstacle, then in the event that the flaggers wanted the riders to go to the oncoming rider's right for example then the flagger on the oncoming rider's left wood run "up track" along side the course waving their flag in a certain fashion letting the Riders know to move themselves in the direction of the opposite flagger who would be waving their flag in a different fashion. If this or similar system was understood and recognized it might be effective. Maybe the flaggers had a certain color light in the end of the flag stick bright enough to see that indicated say Red for blocked side of track vs, Green for clear side of track. They each flip a switch, have comms with each other, and i think I see slight improvements in safety already. Time needs to be spent here.
Now on to my cover letter for an employment opportunity. Lol!
I could make this work better than the current system and have a lifetime of experience dodging riders coming at me after crashing so I have given this plenty of thought. Id say not enough thought can be given to this and if MX Sports would like a guy to apply himself in this area I would be willing to consider. We can sit down at Loretta's this year and discuss ideas on a plan going forward specific to the National tracks while providing assistance to local tracks to help protect the amatuer members of our sport as well. I know there are a lot of us with years of racing behind us, but Id love to be involved in something like this. Like one poster said, we get stuck in one thought pattern or tied up in many details, and a fresh 3rd person perspective could be good.
They don't even get paid!! I wouldn't risk getting injured to step out in front of the whole pack, especially when there is no pay and no insurance.
Put the blame where it belongs....with the cheap-ass promoter. The flaggers are typically just autograph hounds or simply love the sport. The get 10 minutes of training before the races start.
The real problem is that we don't see the real problem....we just want to blame flaggers, lappers, etc. It is so sad to see.
It's all about money (or saving money in this case).
Anything that you can share about any changes that have been made going into this weekend?
At what point would it be enough? Would $50 make eliminate mistakes? Would it take $100?
Experience, training, commitment. Those ingredients cannot be obtained by handing out a slip of legal tender.
That said, I have never flagged for motocross so it could be different.
We have a flagger safety meeting Saturday morning and go over all the situations they may encounter. But it's never perfect. And if the series had to fly 50 flaggers to 12 rounds as professional flaggers, well......someone has to pay for that.
AP's crash was a perfect scenario of very little going right....fast, blind fallaway with a rider visible on the inside of the turn while flaggers waved from the outside. Just glad nobody got seriously hurt.
Post a reply to: Those flaggers don't know how to flag