You're not the only one who hates the Speed name. I heard half the people at VIR call it Speedvision, including the track announcers who stumbled over it a few times. Being at the race I didn't hear Sadowski, but he is a bit over the top about Kurtis, and I agree Kurtis does not warrant the praise or the attention. 'Ski has a bad habit of forecasting what might be happening, but I do appreciate his insights and commentary, just needs to leave out the prognosticating.
I was at turn 4-5 when Yates and Kurtis went down. Yates was actually just reacting to the burning bike a lot faster than the silly marshals. Kurtis's bike is still laying on the track and the marshals were throwing a waving yellow. Kurtis walked away from his bike when the little flames started (he wasn't much worried about himself) and Yates was also nearby. So Yates threw himself on the track trying to get the marshals to call a red flag, which they should have right off the bat anyway since Kurtis's bike was laying just a few feet of the racing line on the track. It took way too long for somebody to show up with a fire extinguisher if you ask me, and no marshals showed up at the bike until the guy with the fire extinquisher. I think Yates even managed to get his bike back on the track by himself, and Kurtis got a ride back from another racer before any marshals made it to him. He'll likely end up with a fine/suspension, but AMA needs to look at perhaps training the marshals for a little quicker action, and place some extinguishers and safety gear a little closer to where they might need it.
For instance the marshals for turn 4 are before the turn, and the marshals for turn 5 are well after. Yet, we saw a number of crashes between turn 4 and 5 and nobody but photographers seemed to be in place right behind the air fence there, ready to respond. Certainly no safety gear there as if it was it could have been to Kurtis's bike rapidly. Instead some guy has to run through the ditch and up the hill from the turn 5 station.
We also saw quite a few guys go off at the kink before turn 3, and at turn 3. Guys going off at the kink had to wait a long time before the marshals stationed on the very outside of the track could get there. I know they can't be real close to the action and in the danger zone, but I think they could have been positioned a little better, especially when they know where the crashers will end up for the most part. Only the flag guys need to be before a turn, the safety workers typically need to be at or through the turn.
