1 Topic by rnr (edited by rnr 2009-11-22 11:34 PM)

  • rnr
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Topic: Thunderhill black flags

Was it just us or did other people feel that the Thunderhill black flags were inconsistent and/or out of sync? We got called in for 6 black flags which more than we have gotten in our last 4 races put together. It seemed like they were either coming out of nowhere or they were taking their own sweet time to flag you down for events that happened ages ago. When we got flagged at the previous races it was pretty obvious why you were called in even if the contact notifications were not always accurate. At this race I got called for contact twice despite the fact that the only contact I had had all stint was over 10 laps before the black flag.

This is not a criticism of the organisers/judges/staff but an honest question to see if other people were as confused as we were.

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  • Troy
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Re: Thunderhill black flags

I wasn't at Thunderhill but I've seen delayed penalties.

At MSR, our driver went off track, got stuck in the gravel and had to get pulled out by a Track truck.  I was around the penalty box when Jay himself told me our guy went off and got stuck.  After he was pulled out, we didn't get flagged for a while.

I think they hold off on bringing cars in cause the penalty box may be full.

Troy

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Re: Thunderhill black flags

we got pulled in for false Blackflags 3 times yesterday and today . So until we saw a board with our number on it at start /finish we kept or a paintball shot at our winshield .

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  • riu
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Re: Thunderhill black flags

my team got called in for 3 passing under yellows that did not likely happen.

my car was so slow that i can count on one hand how many times i passed a car the entire race. and half of those were because those cars were about to enter the pit or about to break down.

two of my black flags were in sequential laps at the same flagging station. the first one i came in the penalty box and they just warned me and set me out right away. so maybe the flagging station didn't realize i had actually gone in.

  • From: Los Fucking Angeles
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Re: Thunderhill black flags

Shut up

"This is the scene where I get shot," Bronson said. "I have these little squibs that explode to make it look like bullets are hitting." "Fascinating," said Bergman. "I never knew how they did that." "You mean," asked Bronson, "you don't use machine guns in your movies?"
  • From: central ohio
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Re: Thunderhill black flags

sounds like its time to start bringing a whaambulance to these events

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  • sergio
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Re: Thunderhill black flags

I think there's a problem with difficult to read car numbers. At MSRH we had number 83. Another car had 831. Well the number 1 was either painted on or tape, it was thinner than their 8 & 3 numbers. At a distance it looked like 83. I noticed the same problem with a few other cars that had 3 digits. It's like their previous number got taken, so they add a number to their original 2 digit one.

And so what happened to the rule that numbers are suppose to be 12" on black or white background?

  • rnr
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Re: Thunderhill black flags

Actually it makes a lot more sense now. 600 penalties would mean a black flag every 90 seconds while cars come around to start/finish only every 2.5-3 minutes. With likely a large number of backlogged cases it would have taken a long time before the cars were called in by which time the driver no longer remembers the issue.

Like I said before in both flags I did actually have contact but it was long before the flag was thrown (45 min in one case) - I'm just trying to figure out what the delays were.

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  • From: Los Fucking Angeles
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Re: Thunderhill black flags

prime suspect wrote:

sounds like its time to start bringing a whaambulance to these events

I like you.

"This is the scene where I get shot," Bronson said. "I have these little squibs that explode to make it look like bullets are hitting." "Fascinating," said Bergman. "I never knew how they did that." "You mean," asked Bronson, "you don't use machine guns in your movies?"
  • From: Alameda, CA
  • Registered: 2009-05-03
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Re: Thunderhill black flags

My only suggestion to make it better would be to have the start/finish flagstand show the number of the offending car like they did at Reno Fernley.

Waving a flag at a pack of 7 cars bumbling down the front stretch made it difficult to figure out which car they were pointing at

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  • amrx7
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Re: Thunderhill black flags

?? They were showing a number most of the times I saw.  Probably the only times there wasn't a number shown was not being able to keep up with the numbers being called in.

-Andy

  • From: Los Fucking Angeles
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Re: Thunderhill black flags

Westyside wrote:

My only suggestion to make it better would be to have the start/finish flagstand show the number of the offending car like they did at Reno Fernley.

Waving a flag at a pack of 7 cars bumbling down the front stretch made it difficult to figure out which car they were pointing at

That's not a solution to why we had 521 black flags.

If the offending cars would have had giant buzzers and lights go off whenever they committed sin -- including a helicopter dropping a piano on them painted with, "YOU HAVE A BLACK FLAG," there still would have been just as much lousy driving.

"This is the scene where I get shot," Bronson said. "I have these little squibs that explode to make it look like bullets are hitting." "Fascinating," said Bergman. "I never knew how they did that." "You mean," asked Bronson, "you don't use machine guns in your movies?"
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Re: Thunderhill black flags

Careless Air Piano Moving Company, eh?

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Re: Thunderhill black flags

I saw the helicopter overhead. Is that what that was?


KT

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  • From: Saratoga, ca
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Re: Thunderhill black flags

Yes, that is a ridicules amount of Black flag and for each one that was not deserved there are two that were missed.  The flaggers did a great job of trying to keep the peace but there was a lot going on. 
I gave the Intro to Racing class on Friday.  We covered passing, flags and no blocking, but at least 60 people had never been on Thunderhill before and of that about 40 had never been on ANY track before.  They were not on the track driving on Friday.  Remember, to get a license, the discriminator is “will your credit card clear”.  Most of you on this site have a lot of track time but do you remember the fist time you were on a track?  Flags and mirrors take a low priority when it comes to “is the next turn a right or a left".  Even in Open Track instruction, first times are out for 20 minutes and when asked about Flag Stations many say “what flag station” .
There were a number of times during this race that I had to back out and wait a turn or two to pass.
Although there was a good turnout for the class, there seemed to be some more that needed it.  I hope the driver in the Chevolvo just didn’t see me and wasn’t deliberately aiming at me.
I hope to give the class at Sears and we will refine the content, but the experienced drivers will have to cut the new drivers some slack or not complain when they are cut off.  They don't call this Lemons racing for nothing.  You have to pay good money to get cut off.
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  • From: Davis, Ca
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Re: Thunderhill black flags

Maybe the drivers should actually look at the starter stand and corner stations, what a concept!   We had cars that ignored the black flag for HOURS, drove by it at least 25 times, while all along that cars around him that WERE paying attention were coming in thinking it was for them since it was posted over and over.    Often the flag was seen by the next driver.      conversation goes something like this:

           Why am I here?

            You passed under yellow
   
            Buuuut

            and ignored the black flag 20 times

             I've only been on track for two laps!

            Shut off the car and go get the last driver, you'll be here a while.



So, it becomes obvious to us (Jonny, Phil, Dan and me) that some people just aren't watching the corner workers... Its not an intellectual stretch to assume that someone WHO DROVE PAST A BLACK FLAG 20 TIMES, probably didn't see a yellow flag and passed some cars under yellow.  Can't blame the flaggers for that.

   This was not an uncommon scenario...

   Yet there were many drivers who somehow saw the flags and didn't get called in for penalties, imagine that!    Experienced  drivers that I know and weren't penalized all said that the flagging was fantastic, without an exception.   

  No Whining:  look up, the flags are there for everybody to see.

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Re: Thunderhill black flags

I agree, the flagging was quite good.

All of my teammates that came to visit you gave pretty much the same 'What flag?' answer.

You have to give yourself that extra 5% attention to the flag stations ALL THE TIME.

One of our offenders got overloaded with traffic and just tunnel-visioned himself into the penalty box. I think that was a common occurrence for the relative newbies. It rakes a while to get to the point where you can partition your attention.

For example I loved the car set up as loose as it was, just fun to slide around to little effect. But my teammate wanted more understeer, 'cause he was sure he was gonna spin it at any given corner.

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  • From: Huntington Beach, CA
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Re: Thunderhill black flags

As a new guy to Lemons but not to the track, I believe that Jim you did a great job explaining the flags on Friday.
But when Jay Lamm ran the new driver's meeting on Saturday morning, he breezed through the explanation of the flags/rules so quickly that it didn't sink in for anyone. People didn't know what to do under a yellow, many people were slamming on the brakes. White flags turned into a follow the leader behind the fire truck. just mass confusion

Perfect example: It was supposed to be a 1 hour penalty for crossing the track entrance white line but many people were doing it and no one got called for it.

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Re: Thunderhill black flags

We were.nt sure about our one flag of the entire weekend ( thank you very much! ), so I went over to the pit out steward station and asked.

Sure enough- "746" was on the very long list.

I called our driver in over the radio and told him "you're black flagged".

That worked...


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Re: Thunderhill black flags

THATguy wrote:

Perfect example: It was supposed to be a 1 hour penalty for crossing the track entrance white line but many people were doing it and no one got called for it.

I saw two cars in a row do this before the green flag on Saturday morning!


KT

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  • From: Lost Angeles
  • Registered: 2009-04-30
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Re: Thunderhill black flags

They were holding up numbers for flags but I couldn't see them through our foggy lexan (also couldn't see a thing going into 9 just before sunset). Came in once convinced I got flagged and promptly went right back out when I learned it was the car next to me. The flagging was awesome. Bitch as you may about getting flagged incorrectly but you probably deserved it.

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  • dp35
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Re: Thunderhill black flags

Its all fun & games when there's plenty of dirt runoff, but not when there's walls along the track.  Thunderhill is a good beginners track, Infineon is not.  IMO novice drivers should be given more information prior to that race. 

Ignoring or not seeing flags lap after lap shouldn't be tolerated.

  • From: Los Fucking Angeles
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Re: Thunderhill black flags

THATguy wrote:

Perfect example: It was supposed to be a 1 hour penalty for crossing the track entrance white line but many people were doing it and no one got called for it.

MANY were called for it.

I invite all of you to come and work black flag for one hour next race. It will pop your eyes wide open.

"This is the scene where I get shot," Bronson said. "I have these little squibs that explode to make it look like bullets are hitting." "Fascinating," said Bergman. "I never knew how they did that." "You mean," asked Bronson, "you don't use machine guns in your movies?"
  • From: central ohio
  • Registered: 2009-09-19
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Re: Thunderhill black flags

Judge Jonny wrote:
prime suspect wrote:

sounds like its time to start bringing a whaambulance to these events

I like you.

lol  thanks   I hung out with you guys in the penalty box most of the event @ NL     I cannot believe 521 penaltys      that just boggles the mind     I cant believe you and Phil arent in jail right now for mass homicide       that must have been a ROUGH event for you guys     any ideas on why so many ?

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  • Registered: 2009-11-15
  • Posts: 73

Re: Thunderhill black flags

OK, I have a legit question about black flags for passing under yellow.
On several occasions, in a hot corner with lots of traffic, I suddenly had easy access to pass cars with drivers in them that did not make an apparent signals. Obviously, this alerted me that there must be a yellow. I safely shot for open space and as quick as I safely could... tucked back behind as many of the cars that I had passed as possible. In most cases, I got back to my spot, but several times, I did not. Considering I never got a black flag, I am assuming this is the way to handle the REAL accidental passes under yellow. Yeah? I know in real racing, the race official tells you where to go when that happens. Was it my effort to get back even when I couldn't that kept me from getting flagged?