2015 Rulebook Suggestions

[The GECCO]

Blue Flags in ROR [/COLOR]- I've brought the blue flag up before and got some heat that this was a bad idea because many riders aren't experienced enough to safely get out of the way. Fair enough, but in ROR every rider should be experienced enough to see where the lap traffic is and try to stay out of the way. I've seen some close calls, and a couple bad accidents, due to lap traffic in a heated ROR race.

Blue flags are a bad idea. The safest way for a pass to happen is it the person getting passed never sees it coming. The problem with the blue flag is that no matter how "good" or "bad" the lapped rider is, there's always the potential for a problem when someone intentionally goes off line. I watched Eric Bostrom (leading) get pushed off the track at PPIR by a rider who was shown the blue flag and moved over....right to where Bostrom was already committed to make the pass. If there was no flag, the pass would have been incident free. Traffic is a part of racing.

The other problem is deciding who earns the privilege of the blue flag? Obviously lappers being passed by the leader would get it, but what about when 2nd place comes through? Or 3rd? or 10th? Why should some riders get an "assist" with traffic and others not?

It should never be anyone's job to get out of the way. As the overtaking rider, it's your responsibility to make a safe and appropriate pass, whether it's a lapper or for position. If you catch someone mid-corner and get held up, that's racing.

Lastly, as much as I love the workers, virtually none of them are even close to being experienced enough to know when to display the flag, and we don't have the ability to have a central "control" person advising them when to display it.

If this is purely an RoR thing, perhaps the best way to solve it is to lower the threshold to 107% and make it a RULE rather than a recommendation. The reason I say 107% is that if the RoR winner runs 14 laps and the lapper runs 13, that's roughly a 7% difference. Obviously that goes out the window for a track as short as PPIR, but it's a place to start.