Written by CW Armbrust
Photographs available on the Flickr group

Advanced Flag School 2010

It has been a good morning. You have been turning some decent qualifying times, they have been right on the edge of your personal best. You set up to enter turn 3, your line is perfect then whump, thump, the whole world takes on an odd tilt and spins around you. There seems to be no controling of things. The next thing you know is all motion has stopped. Realization sets in you are sitting on the grass next to the tire wall pointed the wrong way. The car is sitting at a slightly odd angle and doesn’t seem to want to move.

Someone dressed in white appears next to you, leans in and asks; “Are you OK?” The person goes on to tell you; “You lost a wheel, let’s get you out and up on the bank.” As you are getting out you notice the white clad apparition is holding a fire extinguisher and carefully looking over your car.

How do these folks in white know what to do? It takes training and dedication. One of the things that happens sometime around the last week or two of winter before the start of the racing season each year is a day long Advanced Flag School. F&C folks, EV volunteers, and a few team members from other specialties join the class for updates, review, refresher, and briefing on plans for the upcoming year. In addition to the classroom work, every other year the class receives instruction on first responder car fire suppression. The first priority is to aid the driver in a safe exit from a potential burning car then to minimize potential fire damage. All this while keeping an eye on nearby high speed traffic and getting needed help to the scene.

The 2010 WDCR Advanced Flag School was no exception to effort to keep the group informed and up to speed. Greg McDermott (Flag Marshal for the WDC Region) moderated the class.

The classroom efforts included Terry Carraway (of SRF driving fame) presenting an excellent class on health and safety relating to the dangers of heat exposure and methods to deal with it.

Toree Holmes, our very own Professional Firefighter from DC, stepped up to walk the class through instruction on fire extinguishers and their use. Toree followed up the classroom portion of instruction with the out door open air carbque behind turn 10. Summit Point Motor Sports Park donated two cars to practice our rescue methods and burn for fire suppression practice. This was the chance for those attending to put what they learned in the classroom into practice, as well as a refresher for the experienced hands.

We are ready for the race season ahead. Let’s go to MARRS together.