Castle Combe yellow flags and safety cars

[CombeMarshal]

Originally Posted by Hamness

I am by no means an expert on the use of safety cars etc. but would the proceedings over the weekend have anything to do with the fact, as shown in the programme, that all the visiting championships had their own nominated "clerks of the course" whilst the local series maintained the usual official. Just a thought. Who actually makes the decision to launch the safety car ?

The Observer on post does, but the call to the S/C comes from Race Control, if it's asked for they will get it, same goes for Red Flag.
Obviously it may differ if it can be seen from Race Control

The FPA by the Start of the pit wall, I'm sure there were stationary yellows when no marshals were on track, waved when they were.

Why can't you have hind sight before the event!

[Nighthawk]

slagging off Observers. Lee would never do that

[CombeMarshal]

Thanks Andy!

[garybirch]

Originally Posted by CombeMarshal

The FPA by the Start of the pit wall, I'm sure there were stationary yellows when no marshals were on track, waved when they were.

Yep, there were stationary yellows out because I was flagging at Camp. It wasn't long after the marshals had finished moving it before it was hit either.

[gachjoel]

must read all posts before posting.
i`m going back to sleep.

[Marshal]

Originally Posted by CombeMarshal

I Believe it was only about 3 1/2 mins, only 3 laps.
BUT the drivers were obviously not slowing for one stationary yellow, so what is you suggestion for slowing them down, why not be constructive rather than just waiting till after the event, why not say something at the time?????
It seemed like something serious would happen if they couldn't make the cars slow down (like they should)

At no stage was a stationary yellow out (read it again, I'm not talking about the FPA in the wall at Camp). It was waved upgraded to double waved. The drivers didn't slow down as to be honest, there was no need for them to do so.

Which is the point - the only times I've ever waved double yellows was when a Fiesta hit the front of post 11 at Thruxton (which I was standing on), and the car ended up in the middle of the track, with the driver not getting out. We were also waving a white as the rescue unit behind the post had scrambled and was in the standoff position in front of the car, and a red as we thought it'd be a good idea to stop the session about then. And fr the Marcel Albers incident also at Thruxtion, when I went to the inquest.

And the drivers slowed down in both cases.

[Stuart Hill]

Originally Posted by Marshal

The drivers didn't slow down as to be honest, there was no need for them to do so.

If any marshal is waving a Yellow Flag, then there is more than enough reason for all drivers to slow down.
If not, then why do any Flag Marshals bother to wave any flags?????

[Dutch chap]

Originally Posted by Stuart Hill

If any marshal is waving a Yellow Flag, then there is more than enough reason for all drivers to slow down.
If not, then why do any Flag Marshals bother to wave any flags?????

As a marshal I always try to use a flag to give extra info to a driver and I'd like to see drivers responding to a yellow by visable actions, like slowing down a bit, taking a wider line etc..

As a driver I've seen to many unneccesary yellows (or doubled when one flag would have been enough, waved when stationary would have done the job).

If all flagging was done in the correct way, there wouldn't be any discussion.

[gachjoel]

Going off coombe,but staying on flags.
Didn`t really want to start a thread,but its something that came up on the weekend,this is really so i know what the official line is..
On the green flag lap,if you have to display a red/yellow.
Would you show both or just the red/yellow.
Personally i think its the later.

[Zider Drinker]

Originally Posted by gachjoel

Going off coombe,but staying on flags.
Didn`t really want to start a thread,but its something that came up on the weekend,this is really so i know what the official line is..
On the green flag lap,if you have to display a red/yellow.
Would you show both or just the red/yellow.
Personally i think its the later.

I take it by red/yellow you mean the oil flag (slippery surface/debris flag *delete as appropriate), I was always taught, that you can show the oil flag on a green flag lap, instead of the green, to show that there was oil/cement dust in your sector from the pevious session. As the green still indicates your sectors clear, where as showing the oil flag, they're going slower and have a better view to see where the cement dust is.

Personally, I'll keep the oil flag out for the green flag lap and the 1st racing lap (unless they did more than 1 green flag lap due to weather etc...)

[Stoowert]

Originally Posted by Marshal

All interesting stuff, and I absolutely agree with Jim W about the safety car regs. Those he described were used by F3/GT up till a few years ago, then it was decided (as I recall) to standardise on one set of safety car regs - and they chose the wrong ones!

Still the real reson I decided to make one of my rare appearances on here was some of the worst use of yelow flags I've ever seen, at Bobbies on the Saturday. Here's the scenario. FPA car clips the tyres on the way in, breaks front suspension and parks in the corn about 5 feet in (that's about 10-15 yards off the track and pretty well out of the way for those who aren't familiar), driver hops out and is eventually persuaded to walk a bit further back into the field. Correct flag signal, stationary yellow for a lap, then a hazard board. Job done. Signal given, double waved yellow for the rest of the session (5 mins??)... Just ludicrous, what have you got left to warn drivers if something serious happened, like a car on (or in fact anywhere near) the track. And as there was nothing there, the drivers ignored the flags, and frankly I couldn't blame them. If we as a whole don't stop overusing yellows, no driver is going to take a blind bit of notice of them, and people are going to get badly hurt.

I was the Observer/Post Chief at Bobbies on Saturday. I think I should make one or two things clear:-
1. I asked for a Safety Car for the incident, but as there was only 2 mins to go, could we cover it with double waved yellows? This agreed to reluctantly as I believe the use of double waved yellows is grossly overused (Mainly at Brands as cover for snatch vehicles)
2. This was only the second time I've observed at Combe and I couldn't tell how close the car was to the track. Lack of perspective, as the ground falls away from the track.
3. Could another car hit the stranded car? He got there...
4. I only had one Flag Marshal, who is in their second season of track marshalling.
5. The phone (Dail 222 or 223 for Race Control! Unbelieveable!) is very hard to hear, as it's very close to the track, so all my conversations with Race Control were done in verbal shorthand.
6. If a landline had been in place, we all could have contributed, including the Observer on "J" who may have had a better view of the car's proximity to the track.

[gachjoel]

Zider,
yeah it was the oil flag,not sure what to call it these days,its got so many meaning.
Thats what i thought.
Buts thanx for that n thanks for letting me pop in with my question

[Marshal]

Originally Posted by Stoowert

I was the Observer/Post Chief at Bobbies on Saturday. I think I should make one or two things clear:-
1. I asked for a Safety Car for the incident, but as there was only 2 mins to go, could we cover it with double waved yellows? This agreed to reluctantly as I believe the use of double waved yellows is grossly overused (Mainly at Brands as cover for snatch vehicles)
2. This was only the second time I've observed at Combe and I couldn't tell how close the car was to the track. Lack of perspective, as the ground falls away from the track.
3. Could another car hit the stranded car? He got there...
4. I only had one Flag Marshal, who is in their second season of track marshalling.
5. The phone (Dail 222 or 223 for Race Control! Unbelieveable!) is very hard to hear, as it's very close to the track, so all my conversations with Race Control were done in verbal shorthand.
6. If a landline had been in place, we all could have contributed, including the Observer on "J" who may have had a better view of the car's proximity to the track.

Interesting, as I know the observer on Westway did call race control to suggest the flags be withdrawn, but the message didn't get through? And that kind of covers points 2, 5 and 6. Glad you agree on point 1... As for point 4, I thought they're blueing was good but a bit of over use of the yellows, but that seems to be the current norm.

Point 3, well, if that's the criteria you use, we'll have double yellows out for any incident we currently use a hazard board, so I'd say that's a bit of a red herring.

My main concern was as I stated earlier, if something else had happened, leaving a car on the track, what can you upgrade to?

Cheers,

Jon

[Stoowert]

Jon, I take your point, 100%. However I was presented with the "Double Waved Yellows and lump it" and a flag marshal I couldn't rely on to act correctly (Lack of experience. I thought they were a bit "trigger-happy" on yellows, mainly because they had to face the traffic for the blue flag, and safety, therefore reacted by instinct on hearing tyre-squeal etc.) (Stick to the plot, Stoo!) Anyway, I was given Hobson's choice.
I know for a fact that it is the snatch operator that insisted on double waved yellows to cover him at Brands. If we MUST have extra cover (If you can't see a damn great 4WD or Manatou, you wont see a flag!) why not a SINGLE waved yellow and a waved white flag? Will some drivers think we are surrendering?
As for the infamous point 3, I only mentioned that as a reason for the continued flagging, not a reason for doubles.

Am I right in my assumption that double waved yellows are only used at FIA events?

[Grandslammer]

Originally Posted by Stoowert

I thought they were a bit "trigger-happy" on yellows, mainly because they had to face the traffic for the blue flag, and safety...

I was always taught that if you're flagging on your own,first priority is the yellow flag,blue being disregarded for the most part,(although some blueing is usually workable on the straights)
As for the safety aspect of watching the Flaggie's back,if there isn't sufficient protection,then that should be worked out with the Course Marshals who 'should' be watching the oncoming traffic

[Stoowert]

Originally Posted by Grandslammer

I was always taught that if you're flagging on your own,first priority is the yellow flag,blue being disregarded for the most part,(although some blueing is usually workable on the straights)
As for the safety aspect of watching the Flaggie's back,if there isn't sufficient protection,then that should be worked out with the Course Marshals who 'should' be watching the oncoming traffic

All good principals and I would agree 100% ... in an ideal world. However, as I said above, the flag marshal had to put their safety and well being first. We had 4 course marshals on our post but they were positioned at points were incidents were more likely to happen. This was either side of the post, not close enough to be "eyes & ears". Besides, it would raise the issue of "grouping". 4 of us together would've been dangerous, potentially

We can go on about this for pages, but trust me (I'm a marshal!) we did what we did, making the best of what we had to deal with at the time. It's good to use this forum to discuss these issues in the cold light of day.

[Richard Sneader]

Hi Stoowert,
Just touching on Brands snatch, I have asked for a review into live snatching at Brands from the flags to the damage the vehicles make in the gravel making it dangerous for cars to enter the gravel amongst other snatch issues at Brands. I agree double waved yellows is an issue.
Rich S.
Hope you enjoyed your trip to Coombe, Havnt't been there for a while since I moved from that part of the world but there were always a nice bunch down there.

[Marshal]

Originally Posted by Stoowert

We can go on about this for pages, but trust me (I'm a marshal!) we did what we did, making the best of what we had to deal with at the time. It's good to use this forum to discuss these issues in the cold light of day.

Agreed. Glad to take some positive points out - and find some agreement on the double yellow issues. Still some questions to race control where (as I understand it) they suggested upgrade to double yellow, next post on (with a better view) suggest a down grade, message doesn't get through.