Question for all drivers (esp for Legend/FF)

[mcintyremarshal]

Hi,

I'm just back from masrshalling McIntyre/Scotsman after the SMRC/DDMC meeting today.

We had a couple of incidents today which left the track significantly blocked, first instance a FF with broken suspension and during the final Legend race, the sponge bale (what's it called?) was knocked onto the track.

In both cases, from my line of sight, these looked to be right on racing line after just after the corner where you drift across to the rumble strip.

Due to the position of the car/bale we were all concerned that the racing traffic would not see the hazard in enough time to take avoiding action.

To try and help I jumped up on the tyre wall, where I thought would be in the drivers line of sight and started gesturing a 'slow down' signal.

I know we also had waved yellow flags out instantly, and FF were red flagged and Legends were covered with a safety car. It was the interim period between requesting the red/safety car and it being deployed that was of more concern to me.

Can I ask for the drivers perpective of this? Does an waving orange blobby thing make you think there's something major going on? Or, does it actually make the situation worse by focussing your attention from the track? Is it causing more of a hazard if some drivers react and others maybe don't see it?

Any feedback would be really appreciated.

Thanks

[Dave]

No where in the blue book does it say about a orange blobby thing. ;D

In my view, if your driving round the track, you have time to look at the marshals at the side, work out what they mean by jumping about wildly, then your not driving fast enough.

[XR2 Baz]

I find that seeing the flags is doing well, TBH that doesn't always happen if you're racing close with someone so spotting someone jumping up and down isn't likely to happen...and this is from someone who marshalled for years so has a fair appreciation of what's going on outside the car.

I find that a good flag person can do a really good job of emphasising the danger. A car spun and land at the apex of Leslie's in testing yesterday, the marshal on Duffus was waving extraordinarily furiously so I slowed a bit more and when I got over the hill thought "ahh, that's why he looks like a maniac with a flag".

Baz

[emicen]

Kate Beckinsale could be doing naked star jumps next to the marshalls, unless she had a flag in her hands, I wouldn't notice.

[flagmonkey]

Jul 25, 2010 22:00:15 GMT XR2 Baz said:

I find that a good flag person can do a really good job of emphasising the danger. A car spun and land at the apex of Leslie's in testing yesterday, the marshal on Duffus was waving extraordinarily furiously so I slowed a bit more and when I got over the hill thought "ahh, that's why he looks like a maniac with a flag".

Quite an interesting thread. You are right that the way in which a flag is displayed can have an effect on how (some) drivers react. I think that some would require nothing less than very long flagpoles in order to hit them over the head with yellows for them to even begin to react.

It was covered at our training day in March this year that a vigorously waved flag can hopefully impart the message that impending doom awaits them round a corner.

It amuses me to see marshals jumping around or doing pantomime pointing ("It's in front of you") in the hope that drivers will react.

Interestingly when marshalling the Karussell at Nurburgring this year we were issued with home-made reflective orange arrows to direct drivers to the high line or the low line as changing lines in avoidance on that particular corner carries with it the risk of launching you well into the trees....some did try

[mcintyremarshal]

So, the general concensus seems to be that drivers are tuned into flag points round the track and any additional gesturing just wouldn't be noticed.

Very understandable as I appreciate that drivers already have enough to be looking out for.

Thanks to all who have taken the time to reply. I'll keep looking back at this thread so if anyone else would like to add their opinion I will read it!

Cheers

(oh and I wasn't 'jumping around' BTW, that would just look silly )

[marshalette]

Good question, Gillian - we saw your issues from the Chicane yesterday and could see you 'jumping up and down'!! Given the positions of the stranded car and dunted recticell/foam/sponge (whatever you want to call it!), I'm amazed no one hit anything - so maybe jumping around does actually work

I sometimes attempt the additional hand-signals/waving as well, but I do wonder if it looks more like I'm doing the motions to Agadoo! We try to help you drivers out as much as we can, obviously, and it's great if you can pay attention, though it's understandable if you don't always see us.

Talking of what you don't have time to look for when racing, a certain driver (who shall remain nameless) did two 'racing' laps under waved yellows when there were two other cars and two marshals (yours truly being one) at the entrance to Clark's a couple of meetings ago - can't help thinking that if someone can't see that little lot in the gravel trap then they should perhaps rethink the race driving thing!! As long as you're not doing that, then us marshals will be happy bunnies.

[Mike Strong]

Any extra 'help' is always appreciated.

The two most important posts from a driver's point of view are the ones at Duffus and the chicane, as these corners are completely blind.

The problem with the mandatory waved yellow is it doesn't differentiate between, for example, a car safely parked up against the tyre wall half way between the chicane and Clark; or the exit of the chicane completely blocked with a dozen cars.

Unless we see some frantic agadoo action then we're (rightly or wrongly) going to assume it's the former case rather than the latter.

[aland]

perhaps we should have signs like they have on the motorways, okay being club motorsport these would have to be done on a budget. yellow background with black lettering 8' by 4' boards held by 2 fat blokes so they dont end up in kirkaldy

SLOW DOON SOME C**T's AFF (with static yellow)

F***ING SLOW DOON NOO (with waved yellow)

;D ;D ;D

then again as a certain driver missed the chequered flag yesterday, or perhaps he just wanted to do an extra lap of honour to wave to the marshals i dunno

[foxymarshal]

With regards to the driver taking the flag twice
He was in the middle of an overtake on a back marker ( who was at the pit lane wall side)
Please remember the flag is not waved from the Gantry at the start finish but at the pitlane entrance

[Blair]

Got to agree with the consensus that generally all I see are the flag colours, to be honest sometimes there seems to be about 20 marshals per post (or thats what it looks like) that I probably wouldn't notice even if one of you jumped about.

I almost missed a chequered before it only dawned on me when the other car I was side by side with slowed down quite a bit compared to me. Ok there is the last lap board too, but like yesterday I was too busy trying to get 3rd in Race 2 I didn't even know we were on the last lap.

[marshalette]

OMG, Blair, how much do we wish we had 20 marshals per post!?! haha! It was actually quite busy at Chicane yesterday - there was a track team of eight, which was pretty good going - we even had folk up at the far end of the catch fencing, which normally only happens for BTCC and GTs...

And, Mike, I'm glad that agadoo is popular - maybe we'll all do it from now on - but the lovely people in the tower will need to play the right music for us

[dagman16]

Oh Lisa, you shouldn't have mentioned the tower playing Agadoo!! They'll do it!

Going back to the original point of this thread, the only times I have tried to get the "major incident ahead" over to folk (over and above Derek's excellent flag monkeying!) has been at my usual home, the chicane, by moving out from our hidey hole, (even further than Charlie Perkins....) and do a sort of "praying to Allah" gesture to try to get them to slow...

I should say the ones that tend to slow less, if at all, have been the major visiting series. F3s were terrible. Even with a car facing the wrong way on the edge of the circuit, they didn't slow till we tried to gesture the danger.. same at the GTs this year when we had 2 Ferraris stuck on the edge of the gravel trap on the Saturday.

I would say you guys on here are pretty good about the flags... and Mike does make the point that blind crests, as at the chicane, make it a bit more difficult.

What are the rules about using double waved yellows in the case of a more dangerous situation?

Blair, you must have triple vision if it looks like 20 marshals on post!!
I have seen us at the chicane a few years ago with just 2 track marshals! Now, with my Helen's recruitment campaign, we seem to be awash with orange!

Cheers
David (back at the chicane in August)

[Racemania]

Hi Macintyremarshal, It’s a bit different for Legends as we have raceceivers and although the clerk of the course is extremely frugal about giving out information they did tell us about the bale thingy at Macintyre so forewarned we were looking out for the incident so I did see the yellow flags and an orange bouncing person.

Hopefully once the officials get use to using raceceiver we will get a lot more useful information as they do with National Legends where they start by telling what wrecks have to be cleared from the track before we start. They then control the rolling start and once racing any offs are told to us where they are as well as if they will be coming back on track or left there for the entire race. Any infringements notified as they happen and finally when leaders start their last lap. I know most drivers in the Nationals prefer lots of information as they get tuned into the clerk’s accent whereas when they only speak occasionally they’ve probably finished speaking by the time you notice someone is saying something to you.

Hopefully by the end of the year things should be up to speed and if the system is expanded to all the other classes there will be no excuses for passing under yellow flags and hopefully no need for flag marshals to do naked star jumps.

Ali

[dagman16]

Well, I doubt Gillian was naked but there's an idea.....!!

Ali, do you sometimes get the odd message like "OK... so Fernando is faster than you..." followed by...."Good lad, just stick with it now... sorry.." !!

David "Smedley"