Red Flag Rule

[Louis Reinartz]

Red flags.......make ya want to scream..at the rules at least.
I am sure this has been discussed before however I would like to see the topic reviewed by the board.
As I understand the rule you can do anything to the bike under the current rule,change riders,tires refuel etc.
What if under red flag conditions the bike was parked on the far side of pit road and no service of any kind could be performed. Keeping things the same and even for all. Regrid the start with postitions from the previous completed lap.
This would keep the drama high,stragies for endurance racing in check and everyone on plan.

As for the team causing said red flag they can only begin repaires after the restart of the race allowing them to gain no advantage on getting back in the race and not having to be timed to get the penalty for causing the red flag.
Just my .02
Thanks to all for a great day of racing!
Louis Reinartz
Heritage Paint & Body Racing

[Eric Kelcher]

Well you have only part of the rule there. The team causing te red flag, if a single incident can be determined, most wait the amount of time it takes for them to get a bikerepaired and reteched. it is spelled out in the rulebook.

The playing field is level for all teams and no undue burden placed on officials to moniter anything but ONE team.

[Brett]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Originally posted by Eric Kelcher:
Well you have only part of the rule there. The team causing te red flag, if a single incident can be determined, must wait the amount of time it takes for them to get a bikerepaired and reteched. it is spelled out in the rulebook</div></div>Eric, I'm glad you think that's what the rules say. We (Austin Racing) were penalized a different way. We were told that we could not restart until X minutes after the green flag was thrown, where X was the amount of time the race was stopped due to the red flag. In our case we had to wait 18 minutes after the green. Total damage to the bike (that needed repairing) was a brake side rearset, a brake side clipon and a brake resevior and lever. 18 minutes to fix that, maybe, maybe not...

No real big deal in our case since at that point we were out of the money, I just want to make sure that everyone understands the rule. I explained the rule to whomever was doing the teching for us in our pit area (sorry I don't remember your name) but was told we had to wait the same time as the race was stopped.

Thanks for listening,

Brett

[Eric Kelcher]

Brett that would have been the time from the red flag to retech. That amount of time waited out after restart. 18 minutes is pretty quick return to pit and repair, retech.

[ysr612]

often just getting the bike back to the pits takes that long.

[Brett]

I see. That makes sense. Putting in recovery time 18 minutes would be pretty tight. The bike was ridable back to the pits, so maybe.... I dunno. Anyway, just wanted everybody to be clear on the rule since what was being said at the track by me and whomever was in my pit seem to both be wrong [img]/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif[/img]

Thanks for clearing that up.

Brett

[Louis Reinartz]

Of course they could be using a timing device they bought at Wal-Mart :p [img]/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/laugh.gif[/img]

[cedestech]

There are 2 sides to the rule application.

The no touchy red flag does make the
race much more tense for some people.

The touchy rule allows people to do things
to the bike that maybe they wouldn't
do during a green. Fix a bit of loose body work,
take a little more time to change those tires,
inspect the bike real well and find that
almost catastophic failure that was about to
take them and you out.

I say leave the touchy rule and aire on
the side of saftey.

[Chuck Ergle]

This was discussed some time ago ad nauseum, and it was decided that we'd stick with the way it's always been done. The bike that causes the red flag is penalized for the time it would have taken them to repair, retech, and reenter the race (this happened to me at Hallett when I was an endurance team owner). Any work can be done during the red flag by any other team.

[Brett]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Originally posted by Eric Kelcher:
Brett that would have been the time from the red flag to retech. That amount of time waited out after restart.</div></div>Hmmm, could I suggest a change to this? Is there any way to remove the recovery portion of the time penalty? A few years ago one of my teammates wrecked on turn 6 and it took a VERY LONG TIME to get the bike back to the pits. It seems a little unfair to add pentaly time based on *where* a person wrecks.

Also consider if there are multiple wrecks but for whatever reason the one (if one can be singled out) that actually caused the red flag is serviced last, again this seems an undue burden for that team.

Perhaps the rule could be modified such that the team who caused the red flag could not start working on their bike until the green flag flies, so once they are done they can re-enter the race immediately. (Apply this ONLY to the team that caused the red flag.) Just trying to remove the "recovery" portion of the penatly since that can be completely out of the teams hands.

Thoughts?

Brett