The ATBA-UK does everything it can to make the BoarderX races safe, fun and fair, and most people enjoy them without too many issues. But, it can be frustrating if your race doesn’t happen how you thought it would and you think that whatever happened wasn’t fair. You could be left feeling dissatisfied/angry/homicidal, and we don’t want that. The ATBA-UK has a number of things in place to make races safer and fairer, and although with such limited resources we can’t do as much as we would like, we do have marshals on the side of the track and rules in place for dealing some of the situations that show up in racing. The best thing you can do for yourself is to know the rules. Let’s take a look at the rules around Red Flags and Reruns.

Red Flags

What does a Red Flag mean?

Marshals have two flags; a yellow and a red. The yellow flag means ‘obstruction ahead, proceed with caution’, or ‘watch out, there’s a rider down but he/she is getting back up and carrying on with the race’. The Red Flag means stop. Do it safely, but do it as soon as you can. A red flag usually means an injured rider is on the track and other riders need to stop so they don’t ride into the downed rider or the first aider.

Its important to remember that marshals control the section of the track between themselves and the marshal uphill of them. If you have already ridden past the marshal before the flag is raised, carry on and finish the race. Also, it isn’t the marshals job to decide if any unfair advantage has been gained by a rider, it’s the lucky ATBA-UK race officials who have to do that.

What to do if there is a red flag

If a marshal ahead of you raises a Red Flag you should stop immediately as safely as you can. Watch out for any riders behind you who might not have seen the Red Flag. Once you have stopped, get yourself ready to go again when the Red Flag is dropped (but make sure you don’t do anything that could be seen as gaining an unfair advantage such as hopping ahead of another stopped rider or uphill to the top of a roller). When the Red Flag drops, the race is on again and you should get riding and get yourself across the finish line.

Riders who willfully disobey a Red Flag can be disqualified. It’s not clever and it’s not cool.

Reruns

What is a ‘rerun’?

A rerun is where the results of a race are ignored and the same race is run again. We use reruns as a way of countering ‘unfair advantage’. So, if a rider lost their position in a race because they had to avoid a buffalo that had wondered onto the track, they would be able to ask for a rerun as the others riders could be said to have an unfair advantage. But if a rider lost their position in a race because they fell off, or another rider accidentally collided with them, they wouldn’t be able to ask for a rerun as none of the riders in that race had an unfair advantage.

When you can ask for a rerun?

If you think another rider has gained an unfair advantage because of something they did or something outside of anyone’s control, you can ask for a rerun. An example might be if a rider left the track, and then joined it again ahead of other riders they were previously behind. Unfair advantage = Rerun. If something happens and you think your race should be rerun, firstly finish your race (in case the decision is made not to rerun). Once you have crossed the finish line, immediately speak to the official who recorded the result of your race. Politely explain the situation and why you think the race should be rerun. They’ll make a decision as quickly as they can and if they decide the race should be rerun, they’ll ask all of the riders to go back to the top of the hill.

Always improving

As always, the competitions can only happen if people volunteer to help run them. So if you, or someone you know, comes to the comps but doesn’t compete being a marshal or race official is a great way to help. And, the more often a person works as a marshal, the better they’ll get at it, which makes the racing safer.

If you have any suggestions to improve the competitions, or want to talk about how the comps are run or your race in particular, we are always happy to chat with you, either after the comp or via email, facebook, etc.