Topic: Flagging at Sonoma
Well, just reflecting on our race weekend at Sonoma. First, as always thanks to the Lemons organizers. I know it's no easy task orchestrating the chaos we call races, but these guys do a great job.
I have a couple of issues with the Sonoma race though. First, 188 cars is WAY too many. I don't care what the track regs are. When you're actually STOPPING out on track multiple times per stint, something just ain't right.
The flagging was less than optimal. I'm not one to complain about our fantastic corner workers, but there were several big misses this race. First, on multiple occasions we'd see the double yellow come out at start/finish indicating a full course yellow, and yet we'd see other corner stations, namely the entrance to the chicane and the entrance to the Esses, with NO yellow flag out. Sometimes it would take up to 30 seconds or more for those stations to display yellow. Come on guys, that's what radios are for.
And the one that directly affected our team was the 3A station. This is a massively dangerous corner even with only 30 or 40 cars on track, let alone 188, and yet we had several incidents here due to a lack of warning. Our own race was ruined just seven laps in when I came over the blind crest with no yellow flag at the station and no flashing yellow light system (which is supposed to REDUCE accidents here) only to find a parking lot on exit. I had nowhere to go and rear-ended another driver resulting in a loss of more than 30 laps while we repaired the damage.
I'll be the first to raise my hand when I've been an idiot on track, but this one was totally avoidable. That yellow should have been out and the light system should have been working. Here's the vid...