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Flagger suggestions and solutions?
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Needs to be fixed. Coops crash happened right in front of us. Flagger was useless. Mookie almost hit his bike. And coop was visibly pissed.
Paid professional flaggers are the way to go.
If this guy (who made the video) knew anything about flagging he would know why the flagger was holding the stationary yellow. This flagger actually knew what he was doing and held the stationary yellow in the section before the waving yellows as they are sopposed to.
For sure there are things that were done poorly or can be improved, but if I was going to release a video on the topic I would at least ask google about the stuff I don't understand.
Did you notice that when he did get the yellow flag out on Webbs crash the rider still didn't even slow down and almost hit him anyway. The yellow flag doesn't mean a damn thing at the nationals. 🤔
the rules saying you can pass, jump and dont have to slow down for a yellow means incidents like this, and Jason Andersons incident at millville will continue to happen,
the answer is to use more red cross flags, but when this was done a few years ago, there was riders bitching at that as well, (hunter was pissed he got penalised fro jumping when he didnt think the red cross needed to be out,
MX is the only track where we expect people to stand on a full open race track,
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The yellow flag won't mean something until they have it where you have to roll the jump, like MXGP i believe, which is what the red cross is for here. The red cross needs to be used for now in order to prevent these situations this season.
Paying any event staff helps which I thought they would be already doing for their time and motivation.
I don’t know what a professional flagger is but if they haven’t done so already they should come together with a training or agreement on what they should do in each circumstance.
I wouldn’t want to be responsible for keeping multiple flags so I say put some guys on the track just for blue flags for lappers so the others can focus just on crashes and accidents of the majority pack.
There should be a debate about if a flagger goes to help a down rider or not like with Chance’s crash. He was at the edge of the track and the flagger got kind of confused if he should block him from oncoming traffic or assist with pulling the bike off.
It doesn’t seem clear exactly how close these flaggers are supposed to be and then how much closer do they go if someone crashes? There are track markers but riders often use the edges of the track. I wouldn’t want to just jump out into oncoming traffic or on a downhill. A lot of the track is noisy with blind turns and faces and just waving a yellow flag at someone doesn’t seem to accomplish much. They should use one hand to wave and the other to point which side but even then there’s bike and rider taking up the track on either side or both plus the middle so then what do you wave?
Spectators occasionally try and be good samaritans to help in a crash but they should get some kind of notice entering the facility not to do that because they can easily get hit and hurt trying to help when the track crew is responsible for making sure it is safe to approach riders and what action to do…moving someone with a broken spine could be paralyzing if they rush unnecessarily and without the right medical attention. Places like Southwick have fences but not every track blocks things off.
Helmets could obstruct some peripheral vision but flaggers wear them in supercross that can prevent injury. As far as getting landed on Anderson had a neckbrace when he got hit but most riders don’t use one.
Fist pump a flagger national holiday August 24th.
Also, another thing, I feel that the AMA flaggers for mx should carry the duty of waving the yellow flag, not volunteers. Volunteers should be knowledgeable enough to separate a leader from a lapper and use the blue flag.
Sounds pretty straight forward, if someone is down then roll until they are off the track. Don’t crash into them.
I see a lot of yellow flags waving when there isn’t even anyone there on the track anymore that could slow people up for no reason.
A volunteer flagger makes me wonder if they have a beer in the other hand.
the problem is they don’t have an official traveling team of flaggers tht are licensed & certified, the way field & MX sports operates with this volunteer shit is the equivalent of the nfl or nba picking fans out the stands to ref a pro game , but nowadays this a bigger issue across the board , refs in the nba suck , the nfl refs sucks , moto we got flaggers don’t kno wht they’re doing & endangering others riders & MLB umpires sometimes are blind as shit
Other sports are slapstick. They say you can’t foul Michael Jordan. All these up-fakes…do you really think pro basketball players get fooled that often? No. Free throws give the players a chance to rest and be sissies about getting hit “you fouled me”. NFL hits are amusing for some and who cares if it’s a 10 yard penalty for holding or decapitation and a snack/commercial break.
How many flaggers is that and that’s not cheap transport to get them to all those rounds plus hotel and meals. Mike Larocco’s mom isn’t booking anymore.
They showed the new safety system on the broadcast.. transponders will trigger lights somehow...
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I haven’t look too deep to see how many is out there on a good portion of the track but ima really keep an eye out & see whts going on , but don’t let these promoters fool yal , they got the budget to get a legit certified series long team of flaggers even if they have a team A or a team B to alternate races / cities , PRO SX & MX ain’t tht damn poor of a sport now
NFL’s problem with the holding calls is tht its too inconsistent & they pick n choose who they want to call it on it
That’s true, they may not need to fly, ride along in the box truck, or semi next to Big B. Just pick 20-30 big fans from each city without a CORI or child molester background and they are trainable to wave a flag for a day with a morning 1/2 hour standard training. How about a little box to station them to stand in like the tower so they don’t get hit and know where to stand?
The ref just likes to turn on his mic to get everyone’s attention so they don’t get bored or pass out from too much beer and he gets to grab his arm and be the boss for a 10 yard penalty. “Look at me I got a touchdown”. Thanks for motorcycles.
Pit Row
You are spot on. I find it completely nuts how leaniant the yellow flag rules are in American racing.
Sure the flaggers are horrible, but that can be said about the yellow flag rule as well.
It is time to quote the movie Starman.
“What does green mean?”
“Go.”
”What does red mean?”
”Stop.”
“What does yellow mean?”
”Go very fast.”
The whole “what if a rider is down and unconscious in front of me” conversation happened during the flaggers meeting at Thunder Valley this year and the AMA was adamant about us not stepping onto the track and not interfering with a downed rider. “Use your best judgment and common sense” is what we were told.
There are obviously many reasons why they don’t want you touching a downed rider as a flagger but one point they did make and something I don’t believe anyone has mentioned is what if said downed rider has a back or neck injury? You moving them a certain way could potentially make that injury worse.
I don’t know if this helps at all as OP was asking for solutions but I just wanted to clarify that the AMA did speak about it at the flaggers meeting (at Thunder Valley at least). In my honest opinion after flagging at local and national events for the past several years, the sport needs a decently sized paid crew to travel to the races and we definitely need to invest in technology to improve safety and awareness for the riders. Lights on the handlebars indicating there is an incident ahead or that you’re a lapped rider and you should get out of the way, mandatory airbag chest protection for every rider, one way ear communication so race control can tell specific things to specific riders, flashing lights on the blind and more dangerous obstacles. Redundancy is the name of the game here and the more ways we can help a rider be safe on the track the better.
A flagger should not leave their position IMO. Their sole purpose is to help protect the downed rider as well as riders still circulating. Astar med teams are the ones to assist and get the rider help. The whole yellow flag in AMA pro racing is a joke. It really means nothing except “Hey, when you huck this blind jump fyi you might land on a bike”. The first steps aught to be 1. Hire a dedicated professional flagging crew and radio them all up so if a rider is down the EMS crews know immediately. 2. Fix the yellow flag rules or throw the Red Cross more.
How about some pit boards if they have time to write something? Everything happens so fast though. Not sure if they would hear a headset. Most riders wear earplugs.
Each flag station should be manned in pairs. One flagger can stay at the station waving the flag while the other shields the rider with his flag. When the flagger leaves his post to protect the rider, the other riders have no early warning of the incident.
These are some of the best athletes in the world - there are lot of big corporations who make a "profit" and bottom line from their performance. It truly shows what they consider their (riders) worth when u look at the flaggers. they are NOTHING......they are chattel. The OEM's - FELD - MX sports. Take your pic. Yes the riders know there is risk when they swing a leg over the bike.....more needs to be done to look after the talent.
I get heart broken hearing about riders getting injured at practice tracks landing on less skilled riders and crashing or even a mishap at their own track. *There should be some kind of portable cheap jump warning motion sensor lights to use anywhere. People have motion sensors in their garage and porch, why not on the face of a jump?
I am glad there are protocols but it just doesn’t look like it is a formal process from the spectators and we don’t know if it is understood with the riders and flaggers.
A flagged on each side of the jump could point the rider in the right direction or point the flag down to have them roll or stop.
Interesting they can afford to have the Asterisk mobile medical unit travel to rach race but not a crew of trained paid flaggers.
Waving a flag doesn’t sound like a big deal but it helps if they have experience at least at the local national or qualifiers. There’s only 2 guys for the whole sport to stretch and massage out bumps and bruises they say. That’s a lot of therapy overtime. The medical team you would think goes by the book but there are a lot of rider stories and lawsuits out there. Brian Morneau claims moving him was completely unnecessary and he was trying to tell them he was paralyzed at his first race practice session before they carried him off the track. Other guys just get lucky and plowed into like RJ a couple years ago or Brian Manley from T2. I think Ferrandis had his career change for the bad with a preseason crash into a less experienced rider.
The mobile medical I think is only 1 truck unit and I wouldn’t be surprised if even they are some volunteers or trained and taking pay cuts to be helpful to the riders. The whole sport is riding on spare change just like Magoo said in his video everyone should be making more. Hopefully the new playoffs is paying everyone more like they claim. I don’t compare sport salaries but I would be racing pro for myself and probably not a career of money.
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