Amateur racing flagging

Do amateur races ask parents to do the flagging? 
 

here in the uk that is commonplace. Although getting increasingly difficult to get them to do it. 
Theres nobody better to do the flagging than a parent who cares about the riders. 

I think if you gave two free race classes and had a way to rotate people, that would work. I would for sure flag if I new it was free and someone would tag in before my motos.

I’ve been flagging local stuff. We get $100 and two free food vouchers. Some of the volunteers are in the same boat as me (used to race, can’t afford it anymore) but sometimes we get more inexperienced people to help out. The promoters are usually good about placing the inexperienced people in less busy sections but they can only deal with what they’re given. One weekend only 3 of us showed up so the promoters and a couple of parents stepped up to help. I personally think technology is the answer (lights on the track and handlebars, in ear communication from the organizers to the riders letting them know when there is a caution flag) but we are many years away from that being an affordable/viable option for a local track. 

My buddy and I have recently became the leaders of our local district.  I can tell you that getting anyone to volunteer is next to impossible.  You get plenty of "let me know what I can do to help" but when it actually comes time to help you get nothing.  It would be a great answer to the problem if parents/riders took turns flagging between their races.  In todays self centered world it just ain't happening...

Then there is the money problem, everyone complains about gate and race fees already.   I have seen Flaggers paid from $40 to $100 bucks a day plus lunch.  It all adds up quickly.   Even at the higher paid events finding caring active people to work these days is next to impossible.   

Don't even get me started on common sense, or the lack there of these days....

Our series uses flagging stands for the flaggers and a remote control for the next jump in line of sight with lights and sirens if a rider goes down there. The sirens are loud enough that you can hear across the track and have support folks that can buzz up on a sxs to assist when needed.

We're new to the series this year so not sure what they pay or if volunteers, but I've thought about helping when my kids get old enough to be alone during the race day except their races that I would need to be at the gate for.

On the mini track, all parents are encouraged to spread out and help. Seems to work good.

lol i was at a regional this weekend & saturday during morning "practice" they are announcing over the intercom that they need more flaggers! I was like that does not sound good.

My $.02 is they need to be educated on flagging basics, doesn't matter if they're motivated by money or the safety of their own kids or just want to help.  A body holding a flag doesn't work if they don't know where to look, where to stand, how to make sure they're seen by the riders without getting in harms way, don't leave your spot to help a rider get off the ground, head on a swivel yada yada. And leave your *!&@^#% phone in your back pack.  It's a very important job, kids that don't race or are just there to make a couple bucks probably don't realize how important the job actually is.      

Here in the PNW both Woodland MX and PiR have a regular crew (many work both tracks) that do a pretty good job week in and week out, in all weather. Washougal is usually pretty good too. Medics are on quads/UTVs and get there quickly from my experience (more than once for both me and my son). Last big crash  for us the flagger was on point, medic got there quickly, and the track crew fixed the kicker that bit my son (broken arm). I rarely have a complaint about flaggers here. 95% of them know what they are doing and do it well.

I'd flag, but honestly with my rider doing 4-6 motos a day it's impossible. His job is to ride and perform, and mine is to do the wrench work, gate prep, and observations/coaching. Chews up my entire day and I'm as tired as he is at the end.

Sleepy hollow I assume?

How many of ya'll are riding tracks that have caution lights?

Do they help?

Caution Z is the only way to go.  we use them at all our races and our indoor.  they work well. one on each side of the track offs and you can't miss them.

Quality switches.  Lights second to none.  We have 9 sets of 2.

When placed correctly and used correctly they are better then a flagger, because you can turn on the light and help the down rider if need be much quicker......  We have used these for years an Eric is the owner and works well with many different ideas for usage.

https://www.cautionz.com/

True. Remember flagging a Canadian national 30+ years ago.  Blind jump. Racer went down, broke leg. I was flagging, actually on track making sure racers moved to one side of the jump. Blocking any rider whom might land on this down rider. However I couldn’t leave my post, as no one else came to help the rider. Seemed like forever before anyone came to help the rider. However no rider came close to hitting him. ✅ Good flaggers are mandatory. Save riders lives.👍 Or maybe we should just quit racing,😂 Not deal with this BS. 🤬

There’s a simple solution. People are picked at random per round. If you can’t do it get someone to do it for you. There’s usually people that will help out as was my case once. I rewarded the person with a thank you bottle of Rum. If you have no excuse and don’t want to do it then fuck off. 
In Oz it seems if you have a manufacturers team shirt your to important to help.

Some of our series you have to supply a helper be that on corner marshal duty tech inspection or lap scoring or watering. Having the riders guardians do these tasks helps keep costs down

Have you seen the AMA and flaggers at the pro level good Lord. 

If MxSports wants to host qualifiers at these tracks they should have to provide professional flagging or equipment to do lights. Or maybe money for the promoters to pay some decent people 

I've seen alot of close calls and avoidable accidents because the lackey flagging is asleep or in another world. 

There is a local track/Club that you can go ride at if You are a member, and to become a member You have to Work X amount of races per year minimum and accumulate X amount of hours before You become a full member and get whatever that involves. I think that You still have to work as a full member . I remember flaggers getting $100 and free food/drinks for local races almost 20 years ago now. I guess You could look at it as doing a service , helping racers and having a good seat to watch from. But to do it well, You are not going to be watching much more than Your section of the track. 

I wonder if rotating the flaggers around the track as the day goes on would help keep them more alert and able to focus?  Locally that is not done. It would keep things more interesting and  I think it could help them stay more alert. Maybe every moto have each flagger move to the next station. Or every couple moto's.  

How about somebody puts together a training video or website that people can go onto and watch the videos and take the test to become a certified flagger . The AMA or MX sports would be in the position to do something like that.  Even if its not a certification , just a video that tracks could have flaggers watch before they go out.  Its been a longtime since I have seen the meetings they have with flaggers so I have no idea what they are doing for training these days. 

A mix of lights and people on the track until some sort of on bike or in helmet warning system is developed seems like a good idea too.  As long as the lights are visible enough. 

I've been in more than a few crashes that could have been avoided if there were better flagging. Been run over by almost the entire pack before 2 turns into a race. Lucky for me, I was down in a hole so it wasn't as bad as I was runover. I can still picture it. seeing a front tire ,pipe ,cases ,rear tire, and repeat . I must have been in the top 5 , and the flagger was doing nothing until the entire pack was past and or picking up our bikes. Sometimes a bad flagger might be worse than no flagger. 

I worked at a few tracks, flagging, staging, start gate, announcing  you name it.  I can say its a thankless job and some parents at the track think you are scum of the earth.  I wasnt in it for the $25 at the end of the night.  I did it because my son would practice for free and that was fine for me.  I was paying two mortgages and sets of utilities so i was happy to trade flagging duties for track time.  I think the first thing to change would be maybe a little recognition for those who are out there flagging.  Will that make all the bad flagging go away? no, but it might encourage others to take up the duty and open their eyes to how difficult it can be. Instead everyone bitches and complains about the flaggers (sometimes its deserved) so its no mystery why tracks have a hard time finding flaggers. 

I’ve flagged a lot of events for $10 an hour and a couple of meals. It’s not easy to remain focused from dusk to dawn. 

Definitely, I had guys I raced with walk up to me with a smirk asking why I was doing it like I needed the money? Parents bitching at me for what a guy on a skid steer on the other side of the track is doing? 

If you’re relying on flaggers to keep you safe. It ain’t gonna happen. You chose to participate or encourage your kid to participate in a very dangerous hobby. Shits gonna go sideways once in a while and injuries are in your future no matter what you do. No bike, no bike related injuries. That’s how you avoid it 

Maybe part of the problem is unrealistic expectations.

You are saying you fell in the second corner after the start, and you blame flaggers because you got run over.

Really?

Lights wouldn't have made a difference.

In helmet warning system would probably not have made a difference.

and yet some flagger standing on the side of the track waving a yellow flag would miraculously have kept you safe in the middle of the pack?

I promoted races for 20 years. over 400 race events and about the same for organized practice days, so I can say this with some experience. Many of the best flaggers I had never raced, and many never rode.

in many cases, riders made worse flaggers. Distracted watching friends and would not stay put and flag because they were too concerned helping the down rider get going again. Doing the thing where people at the races flag, or have a friend flag for them might work occasionally for a club, but how many functioning clubs are there anymore? making sure the person flagging is trained and attentive would be a real concern.

to staff my crew, I ran help wanted ads for part time help wanted. I would schedule new flaggers on practice days so they could come out and get a feel for it. the day would be split into morning and afternoon groups, with a training session going over a printed sheet of instructions. I would have an experienced flagger over seeing them when they were placed.

It gave them a chance to see what was involved and showed me who could be on time and follow instructions. I had non racers that worked more than 10 years that I found this way.

I like that technology is evolving with systems like Wardy mentioned. However, even with that there is still going to be human error. switches will not get thrown when they should and will get activated when they shouldn't.

If racers are really serious about making racing safer the most important thing to do is easy. Start paying attention to the flags little more.

I did this for about 15 years and used a very similar approach as yours JustMX, and it seemed to work pretty well for us.

Everyone had a radio/headset, and we could communicate with each other which gave everyone an extra set or two of eyes. That sometimes became annoying because of useless radio traffic, but I was usually able to control that.

We dabbled with the light system, and had some success, but it came with it's problems and limitations. It was only feasible on the small night track, and it only worked with an extra person manning the lights.

It's also important to train your flaggers to wave your flag with a level of importance. If you see me dangling a yellow like I'm drying my skivvies, well there's no imminent danger, probably someone tipped over downstream. However, if I'm flailing that thing like a windmill in a tornado, you can be damned sure something is blocking the track after the obstacle. Riders get used to your "style".

To your "Thankless" point, all I can say is "No shit!"   

Oh, and remember, the white flag is a courtesy flag, mostly for the people watching. If I'm busy with the red cross flag, you might not get a white flag when you come around, so get over it. If you need to know what lap you're on, find a buddy with a pit board.                                                   

At the track where I work we use a combination of caution lights and flaggers which seems to work pretty well.

It is definitely a struggle to find reliable folks that will be at every round so the lights help to fill in on certain areas of the track.

We also have 3-4 referee's on quads roaming the track along with an EMT team in a mule that can assist in problem areas.

It's one of the hardest parts of running regular races.

Like racing reaction times flaggers need to have lightning fast reaction times too. Faster they can wave the flag the faster riders can see them.

I was using my opinion of an incident to express the opinion that it would be a great service to the sport for some sort of flagger training program so that flaggers knew what to do and what not to do.

I think that the flagger could have warned me , so I would not have crashed into the leaders that were down. And I also think that he could have stopped more people from jumping into the pile up if he started to wave the flag at some point . 

The crash happened about 800 ish feet into the race, just before the third corner. It was a combined Open AB and 30 +  class  so racers of all skills. I came around the second corner and had a clear view of the jump with the pileup , about 160 ish feet from the corner. Only a rider beside or behind me insight. So I thought to myself I must have gotten a really bad start since I don't see anybody. After I took off I found the leaders. Down in the middle and on the backside of the jump.  The flagger never even unwrapped the flag to start flagging. They red flagged the moto and replaced the flagger. OTHER riders and a track official were clearly upset with the flagger.

My posts are always so long I was trying to avoid making it any longer with details that may distract from my point. The point being that Flaggers needed better training as of the last time I saw the training they were getting. And I am not blaming anybody when I say that somebody should offer a training video or course. Just saying that MX sports or  the AMA are in the position to be able to provide a video and also have the liability insurance that a maker of that type of certification would want to have. And or they would stand a better chance of being able to get said coverage. And be in the best position to provide solid information. Again, I am not saying that MX sports or AMA are doing anything wrong by NOT offering something. For all I know they do have something now. 

As a track owner wouldn't it be great to have a video You could play to help train new flaggers, and a test they could take online or at the track to qualify? So You could have flaggers that were better qualified flag in areas that could benefit from it. 

In the Kansas moto championship and Jeeps cycle club, We have a designated crew that we know is going to be there for any event we have. the head flagger is also an EMT and they all have headsets. They do get paid and fed. 

    I don't think anybody thinks that flaggers or anything will make motocross 100% safe. But its nice to think that they would wave the flag if there is a pileup bad enough to cause the race to be stopped. I thought  this thread was about how to have better flagging at local races?  

My opinion of the bad flagger I talked about in my example was formed from seeing what a good flagger does. And a few people are getting hung up on me calling out a flagger that was fired by the track. And glossing over the part that I was saying that some sort of standard flagger training would be helpful to tracks. Having videos and or some online test could help find better flaggers . 

There are a million rider coaches out there doing HOW to corner , jump, scrub , etc. videos. How many flagger training videos are out there? I looked at found a few for riders. One for flaggers on a go kart track.  I know its hard to find people to flag at all. But providing some help training flaggers seems like a missed opportunity. 

I have seen similar crashes to the one I was in avoided by having a good flagger ( somebody wave the flag a few seconds after a rider goes down). Same track and section. I was not injured in the crash but others were.