Posts
2649
Joined
9/16/2009
Location
Portland, OR, USA
Edited Date/Time
3/23/2016 1:33pm
In light of this most recent flag-gate (see all the threads) I cannot wrap my head around the flagging situation. From what I can tell, most (some) of these flaggers are simply fans of the sport and volunteer their time to flag for a race. How the riders, and teams don't demand a professional flagging crew that travels to the races is beyond me. Not even talking into account about the safety aspect (which is huge in itself) there is wayyyyyy too much money and stakes on the line for some dude who just wants a free ticket to the race to effect the results. This weekends example with Ryan's thing had implications that are probably in excess of $200,000-$300,000. Could you imagine if this happens and someone loses a championship due to something like this? The ramifications could be in the $millions. It just doesn't make sense for this situation to continue in what should be a professional sport.
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For the most part the flaggers do a pretty good job. Have you ever flagged? Probably not. There is a lot going on, it's extremely loud and you are watching for issues basically out of four eyes/angles even though you only have two.
The guys running the red cross flags are AMA/FELD..... not your local fan of the sport flagger. To be honest, there has been more questionable calls with red flags, restarts, etc then with your basic yellow flag. The flaggers are fine... the problem is that AMA/FELD flaggers are so inconsistent it's a joke. How many times are we going to restart a race because a guy jumped the gate and no gate malfunctions?? Numerous times this season they have thrown the red cross flags maybe a bit early, or held them to long after a rider is outside the track completely.... but in other situations didn't thrown them when they could/should have.
It's the inconsistencies that are frustrating and that doesn't change by having "professional flaggers".
makes no sense with this topic since it was the "paid" official that waves the important flags. typical monday quarterback post with no valid facts or experience on the subject.
i don't have the answer, but we need to start thinking outside the box.
Why not create a professional light system and have one person work the controllers? I work for a top lighting manufacturer nowadays ( relax I'm not trying to sell anything because we don't make what's needed). It's very easy to create panel lights with color changing LEDs in them and run the wires all back to a central point. Then, put everything on a relay with the parts of the track marked so they don't mistakenly throw the wrong color in the wrong section. LEDs last generally up to 50,000 hours so Feld's only investment is up front cost and an installation at each race. It's simple. Red is Red Cross, yellow is just as it always has been, blue is as well, and green is track is clear.
You need four per straight away, entering and exiting on both sides. This eliminates all of the guess work and all of the flaggers. You just need one guy going to all of the races and maybe a second guy in case there's a problem with a wire getting cut. If you run everything in parallel, even if one side of a section goes out all the others will still function properly.
-Jesse
Kidding of course
Pit Row
It's wrong. But thanks for sharing.
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