Don't spoil it for Moke. He may not have be able to read or see it yet. BA-HA!!

 

All I can ask is: How many laps did that Honda Accord lead?

I swear it was out there more than half the race.

 

It was one of the best races ever! Running the race Friday night is smart. Having it on Sunday when everybody was burned out and ready to go home was dumb. Switching to Saturday was marginally better. But the racing under the lights was INCREDIBLE! It made the spectacle much more visually exciting. And, strangely, you could follow the race better, even on the far straightaway. You could follow the lead pack all the way around the track. The crowd was the biggest I've seen in many years.

The goofy stuff with the red flag and the restart SNAFU aside, this race bodes well for the future. I think they have a winning formula here and I can't wait to see it again next year. I have some photos I'll post tomorrow; nothing spectacular; just a fan's eye view.

I wonder how much Bruce Rossmeyer paid to have his name said by the announcer every 10 minutes: "And the Bruce Rossemeyer Buell..." "the Bruss Rossmeyer Team," the Bruce...you get the idea.

And hoo-frikin-ray, me and the kid could root for an American bike...even with the stupid fairing failure that bike was kicking ass.

 

Now if they can just get the whole pace car and pit thing down,they might have something? What a disaster!

And Ace just dont post it before it airs on speed, no rocket science there? Or just make a new post and put spoiler?

 

Kind of a strange mix of I4s, twins and cars. I've never seen that kind of racing before.

 

Honda has conducted a careful study of the rules, and next year will be entering an outboard-powered lawn mower.

 

Think those Americans who demanded a competitive sportbike with a "proper" engine will go running to the Buell dealer now?

Thought so.

But the excuses will be interesting.

 

Well hopefully they tear down all those top finishing 600's. Those things must be illegally modified. Cheaters!! Then they can be disqualified and Higbee will get the win for Buell.

 

2009 Daytona 200 results
DMG's first public test was convoluted and confusing
By Kevin Duke, Mar. 07, 2009, Photography by Alfonse Palaima

A quote form the above story reads, …’A concerned corner worker threw a red flag, which stopped the race, even though race control didn’t call for it.’…..

I find that an interesting comment, and I am curious which corner worker stopped the Daytona 200 by throwing a red flag, without authority. I bet the Chief of Flags would be interested to know what corner threw the red flag without permission, and for what crash? Please let us know the source of this travesty! What is your source Kevin? This could change (yet again) the results of the 200. You should have notified the tower immediately, not air your observations in this paper. Oh, wait! I bet you didn’t actually see it, did you? You just made this up from someone else’s blog comments, didn’t you?

Cornerworkers in general are not allowed to touch or hold the red flag or have it near their hands because of the permanent race-altering message it portrays to the racers.

The Daytona 200 used two separate frequencies for flag control, and had generally 3 or 4 flaggers at each station. Using the two separate frequencies ensured we had accurate, discrete and redundant flagging information to ensure flag conditions were announced timely, track conditions could be communicated immediately to the racers, and it also kept channel chatter to a minimum.

I can assure you that both frequencies announced red flag conditions within a second of each other, because as I heard the call on my frequency, my other flagger was already reaching for it.

So, do tell Kevin. Was this just hearsay, quoting from unnamed sources that heard something from another person who thought they knew something?

By the way, you might have guessed I was flagging the Daytona 200, and I was stationed at flag station 9 , at the chicane entrance, so you can bet I know what I am talking about. I seriously doubt that Kevin Duke knows what he is talking about. Pretty easy to cobble a story together from ‘internet blogs’ and ‘anonymous sources’ isn’t it?

Please try and vet your sources more thoroughly next time, and not just cut-and-paste your stories together. That worked in college, but not as a professional writer.

Apology to slandered Daytona 200 cornerworkers NOT accepted!

 

2009 Daytona 200 results
DMG's first public test was convoluted and confusing
By Kevin Duke, Mar. 07, 2009, Photography by Alfonse Palaima

A quote form the above story reads, …'A concerned corner worker threw a red flag, which stopped the race, even though race control didn't call for it.'…..

I find that an interesting comment, and I am curious which corner worker stopped the Daytona 200 by throwing a red flag, without authority. I bet the Chief of Flags would be interested to know what corner threw the red flag without permission, and for what crash? Please let us know the source of this travesty! What is your source Kevin? This could change (yet again) the results of the 200. You should have notified the tower immediately, not air your observations in this paper. Oh, wait! I bet you didn't actually see it, did you? You just made this up from someone else's blog comments, didn't you?

Cornerworkers in general are not allowed to touch or hold the red flag or have it near their hands because of the permanent race-altering message it portrays to the racers.

The Daytona 200 used two separate frequencies for flag control, and had generally 3 or 4 flaggers at each station. Using the two separate frequencies ensured we had accurate, discrete and redundant flagging information to ensure flag conditions were announced timely, track conditions could be communicated immediately to the racers, and it also kept channel chatter to a minimum.

I can assure you that both frequencies announced red flag conditions within a second of each other, because as I heard the call on my frequency, my other flagger was already reaching for it.

So, do tell Kevin. Was this just hearsay, quoting from unnamed sources that heard something from another person who thought they knew something?

By the way, you might have guessed I was flagging the Daytona 200, and I was stationed at flag station 9 , at the chicane entrance, so you can bet I know what I am talking about. I seriously doubt that Kevin Duke knows what he is talking about. Pretty easy to cobble a story together from 'internet blogs' and 'anonymous sources' isn't it?

Please try and vet your sources more thoroughly next time, and not just cut-and-paste your stories together. That worked in college, but not as a professional writer.

Apology to slandered Daytona 200 cornerworkers NOT accepted!

A trustworthy, non-partisan industry person told me that Fraser and Edmondson were furious that a red flag was thrown without them calling for it. Are you saying this is untrue?

 

DMG said that it was a rouge cornerworker- Not MO. As hard as your job may be in race conditions it is absolutely possible that this happened.
I won't work Daytona, but have worked Barber and Rd Atl in the past. My buddies Wookie and Rabbit both work several races a year- including last year in Daytona- which I attended as media. Rabbit wouldn't show for Daytona this year because he said the situation with control was such that he didn't believe that the crew could perform with the same professionalism as they do on other tracks. It was like he knew that something bad or stupid would happen during the race. Guess he was right.

 

It was not my intention to disparage a cornerworker. As someone who has raced and helped organize races, I am fully aware they are the unsung heroes of racing. The issue, it seems to me, as you allow, is one centered around command and control.

What I wrote was indeed a simplification of what happened, based upon a firsthand account of what transpired in race control. Anyone who was at Daytona that night is well aware that there was much confusion during the race, and I filed my story that night based on preliminary reports.

It's strange, though, that even with two radio channels and a trained network of cornerworkers, it's not entirely clear who exactly called for the red flag. Do you know?

 

Can't help you there. The people that worked the radios from the tower are all on record. We know who is on the air, but you have to know that they also can be at the mercy of the sanctioning body (CCS-WERA/AHMRA/AMA) in rules interpretation and in making many of these judgement calls, so they can possibly become in reality just a relay point. I don't know who made the decision. But I haven't yet found evidence of a flagger making that decision, which was my original issue.

And of course there are many 'nets' making calls to the tower, like crash pickup, EMT, fire, pit in/pit out. Good luck trying to reconstruct those few minutes. I am sure it was bedlam up there when the lights went out in Daytona.

I cannot tell you what transpired in the tower during those few minutes, only what was said on our net. Although the tower depends on our reports to make decisions on the 'workability' of a given situation, those of us on the field are not privy to the off-air comments that may be ongoing in the tower, the rules being reviewed, and the people involved in reaching a decision to stop a race.

I still feel an injustice was handed out to the field workers. I haven't yet seen any evidence that they committed an error.

 

According to an interview with AMA Pro Racing's VP for Marketing and Communications, Ollie Dean, he says: "A red flag was called by the corner worker supervisor when a rider made contact with another rider in the area of the back straight of the circuit near the entrance to the chicane."