End of the yellow and black

[Flagman]

Given that the Yellow and Black flag has been abolished for 2004 - if you want to cause chaos and confusion do the following.

At your first meeting of the season, after checking you flags on post, inform your observer that you do not have a Yellow & Black flag.

He is bound to call you all sorts of interesting names and point out that you should know that the flag has been abolished!

When he has calmed down a bit, insist that he informs Race Control that you do not have the Black & Yellow.

When they calm down a bit - point out that the 2004 Blue Book lists the flags that each post should have - the first one on the list being a Yellow & Black quartered flag...

[Stephen Green]

Ooooops. A slight oversight there somewhere!

[Tim Falce]

With the yellow and black flag at last being retired, what will replace it? Would it be a safety car, full course yellows, race stoppage or is it a matter of wait and see what happens on the day?

[JimW]

Falcemob

There have been a number of threads about this over the autumn. Perhaps the fullest is at http://tentenths.com/forum/showthrea...hreadid=35512.

In direct response to your question: probably all of these.

Full course yellows are (for non-oval racing - that is a different game) not what is needed. At the risk of offending drivers: (the tone of the quote is a bit harsh when extracted from its original context)

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A bunch of idiots will behave as such, and a disciplined group of racing drivers will be fine.
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And there is not much more to be said. All this talk of yellows everywhere, waved yellows and double waved yellows (For ***'s sake ) is not sensible. If drivers just did just one half of what the blue book requires there would be little cause for any difficuly.

Get a grip and do as you are told (would be an unkindly and over-brisk way of putting it. )

OK Rant over.

Safety cars were introduced because drivers were not reacting sufficiently well to yellow flags to allow incidents to be dealt with in sufficient safety. The B/Y flag was an attempt to have safety car conditions without a safety car.

Neither of these would be necessary if the yellow flag was obeyed (which would, I fully accept, require marshals not to over-use the flag )

Regards

Jim

[EvilPumpkin]

LOL - wouldn't worry about it - it's still in our green book and we haven't used the wretched thing in about 3 years!

[Stephen Green]

I have merged these two threads as they are linked in an obscure way

Stephen.

[mark ch]

Do seriously think the circuits are going to check the flags to remove the B/Y flag.
Their just going to left to rot in the flag bag or in Donny's case the corner of the blue box or like all the other flags. When was the last time a circuit supplied yellow flag looked yellow, or white flag white and not grey.

[Tim Falce]

I was going to put it in this thread but didn't want to hijack it...ho hum

[Woolley]

Am I alone (I doubt it) in wanting to get back to the old days where we just get out there and deal with the situation?

A conversation with a driver a couple of years ago was a sobering one, and I confess he had a point: "There's no point in slowing down, there's never any marshals out there anyway, just an occasional tractor." I for one find that difficult to argue against. It's possibly why I tend to prefer places like Mallory more these days, and behold, the discipline seems better at those types of circuits. Is this whole thing a chicken and egg type situation?

[Tim Falce]

JimW,
I did try looking for anything on this but missed that thread. I suppose it has all been said before so we will have to wait and see what happens this year. IMHO I don't think much will change and chaos will no doubt still prevail as normal.

[JimW]

Originally posted by Woolley
Am I alone (I doubt it) in wanting to get back to the old days where we just get out there and deal with the situation? . . .

No I'm with you on that. But there is a fine line between situations where there is an assessed and reasonable risk and ones which are "too risky" (to quote an old saying).

If I, as an observer, am to encourage my team to be more willing to make that considered judgement, then I need to be reasonably sure that the coroner would not regard me as reckless of other's safety. That is a bit brutal way of putting things but I have had to do the hospital visiting after two course marshals on my post were hit by a car as they were going to attend to one which had fallen off. As it happened I would have been quite happy to have been with them so my conscience was clear. But I was thinking that from the safety of a marshal's post.

Regards

Jim

[EvilPumpkin]

It's partly chicken and egg and partly numbers.

There's really no point when you only have two ground marshals trying to push out a car that's totally wedged in gravel. You can give it a try, but the simple fact of the matter is that a lot of times, you won't be able to shift it. 4 marshals and you have a much better shot. So why put yourself out in the line of fire when you don't think you can actually do any good.

But 2 marshals - or even one - can be the difference between life and death in the event of a fire or other types of serious incident.

It's just that the days when we could deploy 5-8 marshals into a gravel trap to heave a car back onto the circuit are more or less gone. So trackside visits tend to be based on the level of urgency and the numbers available to deal with the problem.

[Woolley]

Sadly, all very true. I wouldn't suggest ignoring the safety aspects - some situation are just too unsafe however you look at it - and two people ain't going to push a car from the middle of one of Donington's beaches!

I feel, though, that we've gone too far the other way and I've watched people being unwilling to commit when a situation is manageable. Of course, too few newer marshals have had the opportunity to learn these judgement calls.

[mark ch]

and too many series where bad driving ignoring flags is treated as the norm and almost unpunishable.. some series I wouldn't go trackside at all even for a major incident without a race stop or rescue unit vehicles for protection. thinking of SEAT's esp

"A conversation with a driver a couple of years ago was a sobering one, and I confess he had a point: "There's no point in slowing down, there's never any marshals out there anyway, just an occasional tractor." "

If a car hit the tractor who would walk away them that. should make driver think twice.

[EvilPumpkin]

Originally posted by Woolley

I feel, though, that we've gone too far the other way and I've watched people being unwilling to commit when a situation is manageable. Of course, too few newer marshals have had the opportunity to learn these judgement calls.

There is a certain element of that as well - a lot of the problem with newer marshals is that they are far too often in a situation where they have little or no guidance from more experienced marshals - and having been drilled (quite correctly) with "your own safety first", decide that doing nothing is better than acting on their own when unsure of what they're doing.

[Tim Falce]

OK at the suggestion of JimW, here is my perspective on this subject. I am sure I have said it before but here goes.
In the 3 races I have been in where the Y/B has been deployed, 2 of them have resulted in at least 3 drivers being disqualified or seriously told off and penalised for not obeying them properly. On all three occasions there have been two or more trains formed which is exactly what you don't want, and I always seem to be in the back one

Here is a section of a race report I put up on my web site for my last Brands race. It is abit tongue in cheek but you will get my point.

Coming out of Paddock hill the yellow flags were waving for Peter Cleal, who had put his Caterjag into the gravel. On passing the green I overtook a back marker and was just about to pass Peter R*****s in his V12 XJS when the yellow and black flag was displayed. This means that the leader has to slow to around 50mph and the rest of the field catches up and forms a train behind. I have yet to be in a race when this actually happens, and today would be no different. I could see the Silver D-type up ahead slowly pulling away with the rest of the pack and Peter's XJS immediately in front of me slowing to around 40mph.


I knew what would happen next and my frustration was building to the point where I was sitting a couple of feet behind Peter, frantically waving at him to speed up, but at times we were down to 25mph and I think Peter must have thought that it was a very pleasant way to spend a Sunday afternoon, cruising round the Kentish country side, no doubt with the New Seekers playing on his eight track.

This continued, with I'd like to teach the world to sing and Circles blasting out of his woofers and me pulling what little hair I have, out of it's roots for a couple of laps. I then saw that the offending Caterjag would be out of the way by the time we came round next time so I dropped back and waited until we exited Clearways and floored it so I could be level with Peter as we passed the green flag, which is the only time you can start racing again.

The thing is that these flags were mostly ignored/misunderstood by the drivers (in most cases experienced drivers as us novices have had the rules beaten into us by the COC's) I the case I stated it cost me at least 30 seconds on the Dtype in front of me giving me no chance of catching up.
This spoils your race, wastes our money and doesn't give any entertainment to the paying public.

I don't realy know what the answer is as I have only been racing since this flag was introduced so it will be interesting to see what happens this year. Maybe a local yellow will be better if it is safe to work under it, but it is still down to the drivers to play the game.

[275 GTB-4]

Originally posted by falcemob
The thing is that these flags were mostly ignored/misunderstood by the drivers (in most cases experienced drivers as us novices have had the rules beaten into us by the COC's) I the case I stated it cost me at least 30 seconds on the Dtype in front of me giving me no chance of catching up.
This spoils your race, wastes our money and doesn't give any entertainment to the paying public.

I don't realy know what the answer is as I have only been racing since this flag was introduced so it will be interesting to see what happens this year. Maybe a local yellow will be better if it is safe to work under it, but it is still down to the drivers to play the game.

I have seen several similar instances here in Australia (and I'm not saying it is the same in every case) where Race Control screamed instructions to each Flag Point to get the leader to drop back or more often than not get the stragglers to close up prior to going green. Sometimes this has gone on well after the offending obstruction has been removed from the track.

Just another perspective to add to the discussion

[Woolley]

In case I've given the wrong impression, I'm NOT suggesting suddenly everyone starts diving out there, your own and your colleagues safety must be paramount.

I did a day without tractors at Doni 18 months or so ago, and the I/Os briefing was 'we will deal with it unless there's a very good reason why we shouldn't' and armed with that expectation, we did, and safely too. We've got into the habit of 'we'll leave it unless there's a pressing reason to go out' and I think potentially that's more dangerous, because when you do, you haven't learnt the skills. It must be done under experienced supervision, and the marshals' safety must be at the forefront, but it shouldn't prevent us doing what we're there to do. If I want to watch tractors, I'll stand by a farm!

[johnw]

It would be good if, as an errant driver, we could be pushed out of the gravel/mud/wall and continue with our race.

I understand that this could only happen with enough marshals and disciplined driving under yellows. The former is in our hands as we should be striving to make the racing entertaining enough to entice more folks out on the banks.
The latter is entirely in our control, but if it's not working, discipline must be imposed by the observers and organising clubs.

Putting marshals in danger by not slowing sufficiently can be reported as dangerous driving. The penalty for this should be suspension of race licence. I understand that there will always be a debate about how much slowing is appropriate, but if the penalty is severe enough, drivers will soon get the message and slow down to acceptable levels.

Undoubtedly some poor innocent will be suspended unfairly, but for the greater good, we will have to accept it.

John

[EvilPumpkin]

Originally posted by johnw

Putting marshals in danger by not slowing sufficiently can be reported as dangerous driving. The penalty for this should be suspension of race licence. I understand that there will always be a debate about how much slowing is appropriate, but if the penalty is severe enough, drivers will soon get the message and slow down to acceptable levels.

If only that were true. It has been my (bitter) experience that not slowing sufficiently is either not recognised as such (well their times slowed by a 100th of a second on that sector so they did slow) or complaints are simply ignored.

After watching a driver last year nearly kill my entire crew through reckless driving on a damp track when they were working trackside (it was his THIRD time through under clearly waved yellows and he spun) you can imagine I was thrilled to hear that he'd been given "a good talking to".

He certainly was. I went and spoke to him myself.

Something I wound up getting into trouble for incidentally.

[JimW]

Originally posted by EvilPumpkin
. . . you can imagine I was thrilled to hear that he'd been given "a good talking to".

He certainly was. I went and spoke to him myself.

Something I wound up getting into trouble for incidentally.

But I bet I know which experience made a greater impression on him.

Jim

[EvilPumpkin]

Yeah think that's part of why I got into trouble. However, since no matter what I do (or don't do) I'm blamed for something, I've become very philosophical about things. After all, if you're going to get abuse no matter what you do, you may as well do what you want!

[Tim Falce]

However, since no matter what I do (or don't do) I'm blamed for something,

Now you know what it feels like to be a man

[Bob Pearson]

I,m with JohnW, no time is too soon to adopt this policy. Maybe I'd exchange exclusion from the race for licence suspension but in principle I agree. Fines and talking too's do nothing starting from the back of the grid or race exclusion has a nasty habit of sticking in your mind.

[Stephen Green]

Maybe it would help if the C of the C made it a mandatory point in his driver briefing? If at each meeting the rules about yellow flags, pace cars etc etc were reitterated, then I think you would have every right to 'come down hard' on those who transgress. It is like everything in life, it has to be taught