Yellow Flag Be Damned

7 passes under the yellow are shown on the results.......that's not how it's done.

Drivers Drivers Drivers........what can I, as a volunteer, say to drive the point home?

Would you like to chose which invaluable volunteer gets hurt?

"But we don't want anyone hurt" you say.

Well, that's not how it looks from where I am standing.
At the rate you are going it's just a matter of time!!!

As turn workers, we try to be fair about the passing under yellow. If you are committed to a pass, and the yellow comes out (single,waving,double doesn't matter), sometimes it would be more dangerous to back out of it than complete it......We see that and don't call it in. We try and use our best judgement.......where is yours?

You have to clean up your act, and yes I'm a little ticked right now. This is the 2nd race weekend in a row with this issue.

Like I said, it's just a matter of time!!!

Let's see what happens at ORP.

Lynn Rimmer
ICSCC Race Officials Division Director
 
With the on again off again nature of the flags in the videos posted, I can see where the confusion was in Seattle. Hopefully there won't be a driver hurt by those sort of mistakes either.

Hopefully, in the future, it will be easy for the drivers to interpret the flags and everyone will be paying closer attention after the last few weekends.

Maybe everyone (drivers and workers included) now have the dust knocked off after a couple races after a long, cold, dark and wet winter. :)
 
Stephen, the cars that were coming in 3 wide row after row at my turn, had already been through 2 double yellows.
If the yellows were on again off again, then I'm sure the Stewards wouldn't have found fault if there was proof that there was no yellow up at the point of the pass.

Yes, I will give you that there was a bit of confusion for a minute as to what the flag status was to be, and until you have been in race control with a bunch of people trying to talk at the same time it's hard to appreciate what our poor Race Control people go through.
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that a mistake didn't happen, but 7 passes did.

As for a driver being hurt due to a flagging mistake, yes it could happen and would be bloody awful. But roll cage, belts, etc as versus a flimsy little piece of nylon in a wooden shack.....no contest.
We had 2 turns this weekend that were ready to run and abondon station, we had Portland's Safety truck, a sitting duck at the first race. This is the same truck that got hit by a race car, and bruised and battered the Safety worker in the jummp seat in the back, on impact, and caused over $7,000.00 in damage to a big truck.
Hmmmmmmm
 
I'm with Lynn on this one.

I was in Drivers Services, monitoring the radio, and my jaw dropped when I heard Turn Workers reporting that, not only were drivers NOT SLOWING DOWN, they were still passing, until Control had to tell them to stop reporting each incident and instead write them down, so he could focus on the driver/worker safety. I was appalled.

Yes, there was one incident of miscommunication with the flags. There were MULTIPLE incidents of driver misbehavior.

Dudes. You seriously need to stop with the defensiveness and take a good hard look at what you've been doing out there and think about and talk about and apply how you can improve it.

Lives could be at stake.
 
Points or Safety

Good Post Lynn,

First I think we need to continue the discussion on this board about safety and not get distracted by discussions on points for DNF! Common guys, that is what is getting us in this mess in the first place!

It is my firm belief that we as a group have to get serious about keeping our workers and our drivers safe, and I fully expect the stewards are taking the lead here. Thanks Tom and your assistants for your service!

I think that until we start respecting the Yellow flags, the race control is just going to have to black flag or red flag events, because if we don't slow down, continue to pass under YF, someone is going to get hurt, then were will we be?

Why do we (as drivers) not slow down for yellows? Well we might loose a valuable point or place in the race, Wow really? What a stupid reason to endanger someones life.

Lets all do a reset on racing, we do it to have fun, win or loose. In the grand scheme of life it doesn't amount to a hill of beans if anyone gets hurt because of an avoidable action on our part. (knowing that racing is dangerous yes) But not if and when a yellow flag comes out!
 
Lynn – “Yellow Flags be Damned”

Mark – “Why do we (as drivers) not slow down for yellows? Well we might loose a valuable point or place in the race, Wow really? What a stupid reason to endanger someones life.”

I feel compelled to respond to the implications in those two statements.

First, let me apologize to all of the turn workers, safety crew members, and my fellow drivers. I screwed up and passed two cars under the double yellow flag at the turn 3 complex at Pacific last Sunday. I have been racing long enough to know better and there is no excuse. I blew it and will work hard to make certain it does not happen again. I don’t want to endanger anyone.

Second, permit me to respond to the assumption that drivers passing under yellow are doing so in order to gain a spot or two by consciously choosing to simply ignore the yellow flag. I cannot speak for the others that are in Sunday’s group of seven, but I can emphatically state that I was not intentionally passing under yellow with the hopes of gaining a position or two. Racing to move up, yes. Taking advantage of a yellow flag, certainly not. It was an error on my part driven by some confusion, a tight pack, and my failure to check the turn stations no matter what’s going on around me. I simply didn’t see the flags at 3a and was looking to my left at 3b to make sure I left some room for Mark. Yes, I know I should have looked up at the 3b station, but I didn’t. If I knew that I had passed under yellow, I would have given the positions back. That does not make the situation any better, and I will pay my fine and accept the lost lap. I deserve both. And, I have apologized to the two drivers I passed.

We have enough heat going around right now about aggressive driving. It’s an important discussion. But, let’s be careful in making broad statements about the intentions of all drivers. Sometimes people simply make mistakes. I know they can be dangerous mistakes. But I submit a mistake is significantly different than an intentional act that puts others in harm’s way. That’s something I would never do and I’m certain the vast majority of drivers in our conference would state the same.

I’m working hard at improving and have learned from last weekend. I’ll be more focused on flag stations in the future – particularly at 3a, 3b and 4. With any luck, so will everyone else. Please remember, not everyone who makes an error is ignoring this most important fact: racing must first be safe, then fun.

Thanks again to everyone in white who make our weekends possible and work so hard to keep us safe. As a driver, I'll work harder in the future to keep you safe too.
 
Frank, I was trying to figure out why people don't slow down for yellows. I think everyone agrees that passing under yellow is NEVER done intentionally sorry if that's the message you got, I was not making that point at all, if someone were doing that I don't know about it and I would hope that wasn't the message I was putting out.

Why do we as drivers not slow down for yellows, Simple question, think I have the simple answer. If there are other reasons other than not wanting to loose pace with the car in front let me know.
 
In my experience, passes under yellow are usually because the driver didn't see the flag and sometimes because they were attempting to complete a pass before a station and failed. I can't imagine anyone doing it on purpose. Regardless, it appears that the actions of "The 7" were a combination of a very confused situation in 3A/B on the restart and drivers simply more concerned with the cars around them than the flag stations.

A bigger issue seems to be the situation under full-course cautions, where drivers are told both to "hurry up" to catch up to the pace car and to "slow down" for the incident. Saying things like "get the car under you" and "drive at a speed where you have complete control" mean different things to different people. Maybe we should say, when in the area of the incident during a full-course caution, that drivers should be in 2nd gear (or less) and no higher than the middle of their rev band? (That might be too specific to closed-wheel cars, but you get the idea.) In other words, something very specific and without room for interpretation.
 
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