Black and Yellows, a good idea?

[AndyF]

The Black and Yellow flags came under scrutiny following the tragic accident at Mallory Park, but having been at Brands on Saturday, have seen both sides of the arguement. The Alfa Romeo Race was put under the Black&Yellows and I was shocked by the way in which about a quarter of the field ignored them for at least half a lap, and when they did stop overtaking it was hardly run at 50mph!! Meanwhile in the Sports 2000 race, the leading car slowed to around 30mph, and the field cruised around in-line - in this case they worked. Also well done to the T-car drivers, and despite only being aged between 14 and 17, when the red flags were shown, they all backed off very quickly into Paddock and toured in. It puts the Alfa drivers to shame - I hope they were penalised.

[Craig]

A number of competitors on the Sunday should have been told to load up and bugger off home - some of the driving standards were nothing short of disgraceful

[Slowcoach]

Those Legend racers are all mad , I've never seen anything like it - there were cars going off left ,right and centre !! My wife was absolutely hooked ,although she doesnt want me to get one !
Back to the flag issue , the yellow and black was brought out twice for the final Legend race and it seemed to work well - perhaps all the nutters had already crashed out .
Two questions though ..... 1) If my memory serves me correctly didnt the previous discussion thread say it was only displayed at the start/finish line because they were at every post at BH and....
2) What qualifications are needed by the safety car driver to allow him to drive it ?

[Flagman]

Slowcoach - Answers to your questions
1) Go and read the other thread - I'm not typing that lot in again...

2) The pace car driver has to have a current racing licence of equivalent, or higher, grade to that required to compete in the race in question.

Perhaps the T-cars obeyed the rules as they have all been through the ARDS course recently - the Alfa drivers probbaly have never had to do an ARDS course and probably never bother to read the upgrades to the Blue Book - lets face it - they are only FF drivers with roofs (brain in bucket job before leaving the pit lane) - That should stir things up a bit....

[Dan Friel]

Alfa racers... load of mad blokes..

Anyway, B/Y process should work, it's not complicated - as stated in other thread.

Just needs a bit of common sense and everyone to have read the Blue Book.. if this doesn't happen, it's about time someone at the MSA throws the book at the drivers...

[Stephen Green]

Originally posted by Slowcoach
Those Legend racers are all mad , I've never seen anything like it - there were cars going off left ,right and centre !! My wife was absolutely hooked ,although she doesnt want me to get one !
Back to the flag issue , the yellow and black was brought out twice for the final Legend race and it seemed to work well - perhaps all the nutters had already crashed out .
Two questions though ..... 1) If my memory serves me correctly didnt the previous discussion thread say it was only displayed at the start/finish line because they were at every post at BH and....
2) What qualifications are needed by the safety car driver to allow him to drive it ?

To answer your question about the black and yellow flags. The flag is initially shown at the start and finish line, and then each marshals post shows the flag going in the direction of racing until they are displayed at each post around the circuit. At the end of the yellow and black flag session, a waved green flag is show at the start line, and the black and yellows are withdrawn.

The flag is used to slow the cars down to a sensible speed while the marshals go trackside to clear debris from the track or to remove cars that are in a dangerous position.

As a marshal myself, I feel the flag is a fantastic idea. However, we DO report drivers who fail to slow down when the flag is shown as we are not prepared to put our lives at risk if drivers do not heed the flags. In normal circumstances we are able to move the debris within a lap or two and this allows the drivers to get on with their racing, rather than have to stop the race or practice with a red flag. I think you will agree the black and yellow is a more suitable option?

Stephen Green
Observer Post 6
Brands Hatch.