Dumbest Red Cross flag placement in the History of Supercross

They should hv a flagger in the corner b4 the jump.  But there’s more than enough time to see it where the flag was. What is there speed ? 25 mph there.  I saw a modified stock car race in Ny. 35 900 hp cars. Hit the corner at 135 mph rougher than a national. Toward the exit a yellow lt comes on. The leader had pressure & still wo sliding to off the throttle. In .0001 seconds. I was impressed that he saw it because he was almost past the light. A slower class of cars kept rolling & 1 went through the wall. To give u an idea of how rough it was. They put that class last after too many wrecks. 

I don’t believe one single docked Rider looked at that red cross flag, and thought yeah, I’m gonna ignore that….let alone Jason Anderson doing it two laps in a row. Obviously it was easy to miss when holding it still next to a waving white or checkered flag. 

There should have been yellow flags leading up to the last corner....but Anderson probably still would have jumped it 😂

So am I understanding this correctly? 

Freise is down in the the middle of the finish line double, and they want everyone to not jump the double.

Wouldn’t that be more dangerous, everyone blindly singling and possibly landing on him and whoever is tending to him? 

Not even going to touch on the placement, but it didn’t really affect anything for Jett. He finished with 26 pts for 8th overall. Mookie was 7th overall with 24 pts. Jett doesn’t get docked race 2, he has 24 pts but loses the tiebreaker. 

Welcome to AMA racing where they are stuck in the 70's 

Eli and most of the other riders.  

The point of the cross flag is safety, can we agree on that? The fact that 6 riders failed to see the flag is an issue. 25% failure rate of that system is not good for the safety of a downed rider. 

It does create an issue that is one of those things we really don’t think about until it happens. A Red Cross the finish line flagger has to display while at the same time displaying the white flag and the checkers. I think the obvious adjustment from here on is to have an additional flagger at the base of the jump to display all other flags except the green, white, and checkered flag. 

What do you expect?  I am one that will say, Jett broke a rule, a costly one at that.....  However, the ELITE force that is the AMA probably found this guy running the finish flags at the local dry cleaners folding laundry in the back, offered him a shirt, 2 free hot dogs, an 80 bucks for his nights work.  The very  thought of this rule making force that is the AMA, having the clout to rule our Pro Series races sickens me.  If they are such sticklers to our sport, it's rules and guidelines, you would think they would have a solid staff of trained professional refs to make all calls. PERIOD.

Most of their workers have fulltime jobs in various fields, however they can show up at any event that is AMA sanctioned on their weekend off, and become rulebook badasses.  These guys and gals putting out penalties to our sports best, will probably be back to work on Monday either changing some dudes oil, or answering the phone at the local water office.....  The AMA being Elite is a complete joke.

Jett, and a few others broke a rule, no getting away from that.  However, one would think a flag of that importance would have a bit more precense than the flag we raise on our table at a Mom n Pop eating joint when we want a refill on our chips and salsa.  MAKE IT KNOWN....LIGHTS, FIREBALLS, ANYTHING.  There is enough distractions with Vince on the track for these guys to be uneasy about, make it known an important flag you need to be aware of.  If it was Jett alone, fine.  But it wasn't.  Can't call this a rookie mistake this time.  This one got some Vets as well.....

AMA is not going to pass up an opportunity to stick it to JA21, they really like bending him over 

yet once again Eli saw it and rolled the jump just fine under the exact same conditions … so not sure about your rationale. 

Some say there fatigued.  Have a  20 min cardio test with a heart monitor. With a flag test. If the rider fails he’s allowed to test 1 more time. If he fails both he doesn’t get a license.  Do these riders drive threw stop lights to when there tired, I,m mean come on. A Indy car can see a flag at 238 mph. 

I'm with you dude, I keep thinking of excuses and then come back to "Well, Eli saw it both laps and rode accordingly..."

I can totally see how a guy could miss it in the heat of racing or they'd already committed to the finish line jump by the time they processed it, but neither are excuses.

It sucks, but (for once) I've gotta side with the AMA/Feld/whoever.

Very easy to see, unless you're racing supercross, going through a turn, dealing with ruts.

That's because he took the outside line.

You can't have a red cross flag that you can't see unless you are not racing, or taking the other line. 

Agreed. No rider sees the flag from behind the finish line at an elevated view zoomed in from an angle. Look at his helmet. Looking down and cocked to his left a pinch. Bet his eyes were in the direction too. 22% of the riders couldn’t see the flag. That percentage goes up if you count Anderson’s 2nd offense to 27%. Poor placement in a non obvious area. Not good for rider safety measures.

As I stated in the race thread.

We have green lights on the leaders bike, surely they can afford a red light on each bike that illuminates in the area, then the rider is anticipating the flag.

Part of racing. And all disciplines of racing. 
 

no excuse there.  Finish line is always a spot for flags of all colors in road - dirt - water

I would like to see the difference of line between those who saw it and those who didn’t. I don’t think a single one of the riders who were penalized saw the flag and I bet they all took the inside line.

Like someone else said in an earlier post, why wasn’t there a yellow flag prior? It’s a done deal, I just hope they figure something out to stop dumb shit like this from happening again.

Eli saw it because he’d settled for 2nd and was cruising home. Jett was on the gas from the inside, and Webb, Sexton and co were battling for position.

Putting the ‘no jump’ flag after the takeoff of the jump you’re not supposed to jump is dumb, but they have to enforce the penalty.

The bottom line is that slowing down when you're already committed to a jump is dangerous, even at the far slower speed I ride.  It's how you end up going over the bars.  Doing that over the finish line jump could cause very, very serious injury or worse.

That flag belonged at the beginning of the prior turn, or not until after the landing of the finish line jump.

Just my $.02.

i don't think the incident with barcia can be linked to any shady stuff thats just 1st lap carnage. barcia with friese (obviously not hurt from before) on the inside both comming in hot & jett cutting down like that. 

what i dont really get about this is what hell happend to friese on that jump? you see him next to jett when the white flag is out and jett even makes a gesture to thank for letting him by. did friese came up short? no replay of that one, not even one single angle. nor did we get any information if he's ok whatsoever, but everyone stutters if his name is mentioned. wouldn't it had been possible the get the hell out of the finish line double if he was kinda ok? dude had a lap time and some mechanics to help the situation. 

some weird stuff happend in st. louis but thinking of paid actors kinda sh*t is taken a lil far away. or isn't it? damn. 

It didnt happen during the race.  Should be no penalty to the five riders. It's no different if you're going thru the tunnel on the way back to the truck and someone waves a Red Cross flag.  Or if it's being waved at you 30 ft after the finish line after the checker.   The other point is five professional motocrossers miss the red cross flag.  Is it more likely that there's a problem with those five professional motocrossers or is it more likely that there's a problem with the Red Cross flag?  AMA are a bunch of fuckin amateurs.

I could see, considering the timing/position of the flag, that it looked like a white flag in the riders peripheral vision. At least no one was on the track this week during the race. They're trying, and to be honest they are doing a way better job than some of the local tracks near me.

I am going with they knew about how long they were out there and probably simply thought it was the white flag at a quick glimpse of where the typical white flag is and non typical Red Cross flag on the finish line. It being at or near the white flag lap was the problem. Sorry, but the Jett’s had plenty time to see it being pointed, done with his turn and rut, directly at it and had he shut it down just then he had time to hit the brakes and safely roll the jump as others did. 

So the danger just somehow magically goes away after the checkered flag waves? 

I’ve been docked for jumping on a flag that I never saw. Same scenario, flagger on top of a jump, when your eyes are on your line. 
 

Why not have a flagger standing ground level in the corner, where you can actually see them. I see this as lazyness on the AMA’s part. Get your ass to ground level where everyone can see you, not just some guys. 

Who would ever expect to see a flag, at the flagging tower……

Jumping a Red Cross flag is generally rider mistake or a rider trying to gain advantage over the field, if you isolate Jetts incident he looked back to see the gap between him and Eli in the last corner saw the gap was big enough for no potential overtaking and clears the finish line, so he was not trying to gain and advantage, so he missed it like the other riders did.

What pisses me off is that the safety of a downed rider was clearly not that important for that flagger, he made no attempt to warn the riders, just a static flag on the top of the finish jump line, he could ran down the face of jump where there was no ruts and sit on the inside of the corner of the jump warning the riders, it was a piss poor effort, we've seen flaggers in the past run onto the whoops making sure downed rider doesn't get hit for example.

The rules are the rules docking was correct call for all riders, I just hope they improve this, if that was a life or death situation and a low effort like that cost someone life that would be terrible.

Maybe they in the future they can implement a red light on under a visor or handle bars or a watch that vibrates when in the red flag zone if it's too hard to flag.