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I remember in the late 80's I think it was ?? my brother went down off the start at Washougal, he was up in 2nd or 3rd place and someone hit him from behind, well yeah there were 37 more riders behind him coming, just unfortunate.
S
Motocross Is a dangerous sport
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my info is there as well. I'll send it out via usps regular mail. I bring a few with me to the Millville Nat each year, so maybe I'll see you there.
I mean i've been in the part were you can't avoid running over another rider
blind jumps are just a bit dangerous in those cases
hope smth can be done to avoid this accidents and riders not keep droping off the championship with injuries
c ya
This post started as a discussion on alternative ways that rider safety could be improved. There's been a few good suggestions. It turned into the same old "Flaggers suck!" post that appears every time a rider gets hit. Having been in the flagger shoes, I can tell you that flaggers at pro events may be volunteers, but they dedicated folks who take the job very serious. They are watched by the AMA officials, and if you are not paying attention, or are slow to react, you get replaced on the spot. Money is not going to improve the quality of flaggers. Pay is no substitute for passion.
That crash was the worst thing I have seen in a long time. Get well soon Mike
i would also love to see a camera angle from the back side top of a truss that shows some of the more interesting downhill sections... akin to the top of backboard cameras in the nba.
other than the ama rule prohibiting its usage, why do the riders not have some type of audible race control system - ie, rider down in turn 3, the riders hear from an AMA official over the official race control audio that someone is down... again, a "receive-only" system that is only capable of ama broadcast messages...
Good idea... not practical for the local track but very practical in SX/MX.
It's a one-way voice from race control, for line-ups etc. that would work very well for a lot of situations.
A light wont help like it could be if its used with the same rules as a flag is now. It would have to be just like supercross where if you jump the jump while the lights on you start getting docked positions!
These lights are not expensive, are very easy to operate, can be turned on quicker than a flagger can get to the spot of the crash to wave the flag, and one day they will save someone.
The lights must be placed far enough down the track so that the rider has time to see it and get off the gas. It can't be just on the face of the jump, like supercross. MX is such a faster speed and more time is needed to get off the gas safely. Each jump would be different on how far back the light should be, but it would be extremely easy to figure out where to put them.
Why would you not use the lights? I think its worth it. Maybe it will help, maybe it won't, but it definitely wont hurt!
To the rest of you:
1 LAST TIME AND i'M DONE HERE....THE LAST TWO HITS COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED.....maybe you guys need some crash82 flaggers.
Pit Row
Lights would be good...Audio would be best and would reach all "required" riders at the same time.
Take the flag and give their ass a panic button, or in addition to the flag..
Simple you could have one would be flagger standing in a position to see for example 3 turns and 3 jumps and whoop section and his or her switchboard would be labled as such.
When the fagger sees a rider go down boom, hit the switch and automatically the lights for the section which comes before the downed rider would activate to notify the riders ahead of time. It is not rocket scientry
Lets not get carried away now because I am not talking about those sissy Nascar yellow flags that shut down a whole race track, just a simple notification system that keeps riders away from not only downed riders, but also the flagpersons
In the MA case, I doubt much would have helped though, maybe a little
Assuming your right, fine, it wouldn't have worked in this ONE crash... Your not seeing the big picture though.
Are you really going to argue that these lights wouldn't help one day?
You Fail.
S
Here are two views of the area where Mike crashed...
The crash started at the bottom of the hill before the next jump, so you get an idea of the kind of speed they were carrying down the hill...and also the visibility. The riders had pretty much no view of what was on the other side of the jump.
This was from the restart, so you get an idea how the riders were spaced out by the time they got there on the first lap. Mike landed a little further down the track, and to the right of where James is in this shot.
I think the idea of radios is interesting, particularly on starts...but it'd have to be controlled by someone with full view of that area. Also, how much area do you cover? The first and second turns are on top of the hill. If you hear, "Slow down..." what does that mean? Where? How would riders figure out which section you're talking about?
Also, red flags at the Nationals only happen at the finish line. It takes time to make a decision to red flag a start. In Mike's case, they were starting to line up flaggers to protect him and the medical staff in case the riders came around again, but the call for the red flag came before the riders got to the finish line at the end of the first lap.
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