Quote:
Originally Posted by fishguy
Jon, the reason I wrote the 2 types of flags are command and informational flags is that was a great way it was explained to me , and so i pass it along verbatum.
the difference is, a command flag is just that...........it commands you to do something, such as a black flag, yellow flag(waving, stationary, double), red flag, meat ball flag.
informational flags are just that, they give the drivers on course information, and are open to interpretation for the driver. flags like, the surface hazzard flag(its a warning, not a comand to do something in an action), the blue/with yellow, informs of a faster car coming, but is not a command to let it pass, just check your mirros and beware, though i will allow the pass when i see that flag.
this way it makes it easy for drivers to understand that there are actions that are associated with some flags, and track awareness that are associated with others.
I do admit to not doing HPDE very long. I had racing experience prior to getting into cars, and it was really boring just mindlessly driving around on the track and not racing(for me). NASA out here is very good with their program, another grassroots local club who i wont name out of respect for the owner, (not SCCA), is just horrible.
they are racing in HPDE, I offered to instruct , but when i saw what was going on out on the track, never made myself available........no way was it safe.
|
The good news? The good news is that you and I have the exact same opinion of which specific flags are command flags and which are informational!
Actually, to say we have the same "opinion" is probably a poor choice of words. The flags should not be open to interpretation. They all describe something very specific, and no one should really have an "opinion" of what they mean.
Hey, can I ask where you're located, i.e., which tracks you run on, or who you ran HPDE with? I'm wondering if my Northern California experience is an anamoly. I have four tracks within 3.5 hours of myself, and it's possible that my region simply has a more "mature" approach to HPDE because our track culture is bigger and longer-lived. And by mature I mean that the NorCal region might have more institutional knowledge passed along from advanced driver to newbie, from longstanding event organizers to new organziers, from veteran corner worker to newbie corner worker, etc.
Also, if we're talking about the newbie run groups, then, yeah, I'm sure they're missing flag commands left and right!
As for NASA...
Ironically, the NorCal NASA HPDE program developed a bad reputation for dumbassism over the years, and only in the last few years has it seemed to improve. I have never run with norcal NASA because of the horror stories, but as I query others about NASA, the old-timers say things are better... notwithstanding the carnage at Sears Point last weekend.
At any rate, I am wondering if the fact that NASA HPDE "feeds" directly into NASA racing causes some particular problems. (For those who don't know, NASA HPDE and racing are held together on the same day, and there is an institutionalized matriculation from the newbie HPDE group to the racing group.)
On one side, I would imagine that NASA HPDErs are acutely aware of what the flags mean, right from their beginning group experiences. Why? Because the flags are so incredibly fundemental to racing safety --
as well as racing policies and penalties.
On the other side, NASA group 4 has the reputation for being a defacto race group, and when those guys run the equivalent of Group 4 in non-NASA, non-racing events, they might emerge as the worst offenders in terms of aggression/driving-over-one's-head/bad HPDE etiquette.