INSIDE THE SUPERBIKE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
There were as many TV cameras as spectators at Miller Motorsports Park May 29-June 1. They were beaming back every detail of motorcycle racing's AMA National Championships and FIM's Superbike World Championships. The best riders in the world, from Spain and Turkey and all over Europe had come to Tooele, Utah, for this event.
Adventure Sports Weekly editor Wina Sturgeon covered the race as a "flagger," one of a group of highly trained volunteers who communicate to racers with squares of cloth that are essentially IM's, a rectangle of color that instantly tells a rider going nearly 200 miles an hour what is happening on the track ahead.
"Corner" working is a world of its own, unknown to most race fans. Volunteers learn the basics in a class where every part of a race is explained. But the only place to really learn how to be a flagger or a track worker, the ones who drag downed bikes off the course and sweep up the gravel and debris, is on the track, when there are cars or motorcycles racing by.
The AMA is American. The FIM is the international organization for the sport of motorcycle racing. The superbikes are brightly colored, sleek machines that bring the fastest racers millions of dollars a year. Superbike racing is huge in Europe and the Near East; winning riders are bigger there than NASCAR stars are in the United States.
The first thing you do is check your flags. Actually, no. The first thing you do is find out if the track is hot or cold. If it's hot, there are vehicles on the track. One of the first things you learn is: never turn your back on a hot track. Turn around for a nanosecond to look at the crowd and a bike skidding at you in excess of 150 miles an hour makes it a very bad day.
Then you check your flags. Place the red one carefully out of reach, so that grabbing it must be a deliberate act. The red flag stops a race immediately, hold it up and it's all over. That's why corner workers wear white. Moving around, white shows nothing that can confuse a racer if he spots it out of the corner of his eye while going full speed. Then check that you have all the other colors---yellow, debris, meatball, pickle, blue, rain and green
The yellow flag tells the racer there is potential danger ahead. On a corner, or turn, there will be a number of the yellows; the first ones held motionless as a warning, then one waved wildly in large figure eights to say, "it's right here!" Racers are not allowed to pass anyone when the yellow is up. But the flagger (or flag marshall) at the post past the hazard holds up a green flag to say that everything from that point on is okay. Once past the green, racers can pass again.
If there is anything on the track; pieces from a downed bike, spilled oil, gravel, anything at all, the debris flag is held up, yellow with red stripes. It says "traction has been altered." In FIM races, this flag is held up along with the rain flag, white with a diagonal red cross, to tell racers there are drops of rain on this section of track. For AMA races, the rain flag signals that medical is on track. The blue flag tells a racer to hold his line, he is about to be passed. Interference is not a stragety in motor sports.
For FIM races, a black flag is used to tell one specific racer to "pit in," or pull into the pit; his race is over. This is done with a "number board." Inside a bin at every flag marshall post is a piece of black corregated cardboard with velcro on each side, and a stack of smaller pieces of the same kind of carboard with numbers on them. The numbered boards also have velcro, and the racer's number is put together and shown with the black flag. The "meatball" flat is black with a big orange circle in the middle; it tells the racer he's got a mechanical problem and he must immediately leave the track, don't even wait to pit in.
The two black flags aren't used in AMA races; but the "pickle" is used. It's light green with black stripes, and warns racers of spilled oil that may make the track surface slippery.
At the Superbike World Championships, a rider went down and his bike went skidding across the asphalt into the gravel, some 350 pounds of hot machine going 160 miles an hour, directly at corner workers standing in its path. They were alert and quickly out of the way. The corner team went into action as precise as a machine. One flagger immediately had the debris flag out, her partner began waving a yellow. Instantly, stations further back held out motionless yellows. Workers in their fluorescent orange vests had the bike upright while the cloud of dust was still rising, while others swept sprayed gravel off the track, dashing out of the way when a bike was approaching. The rider jumped back on his bike and peeled out, while the flagger captain radioed race control the briefest possible description, "Bike down, rider up, gravel on track, rider continued." Had the racer been injured, it would have been, "Bike down, rider down, medical needed."
For Donna French, who has been a volunteer since the day Miller's track opened three years ago, says, "It's a family affair." Her husband was a corner marshal on another part of the track, her daughter was working on timing up in the race control tower. French has even gone through the technical tests to get certified; she would be welcome to work at any motor race in the nation.
Like any sport that depends on volunteers; from marathons to ski races, working the race gives the best possible view. Those who paid big bucks to watch the three days of racing were in stands that were 50 feet further away. They were not down at track level, watching the action and being part of it.
As the checkered flag came out to signal the end of the race, there was the traditional "flag salute," a communication between racers and corner marshals, who wave every flag except the red. The riders slow down and wave back to them. French says, "They wave to us because they know they couldn't have a race without us."