Has anyone evey seen a valid reason to use a passing flag? I realize that on a velodome that there may have been some call for it, but Electrathons are no longer held on the mini-tracks. When I do a pre-race talk, I never talk about the flag anymore and personally feel it just adds to the confusion (I can not count the times I have been told by a student I was black flagging that the reason they would not stop is that they did not understand what a black flag ment).
So I am curious if anyone still uses it and if there is a valid reason not to eliminate it fron the flag section of the rulebook.
I still use the passing flag occasionally and think it should be kept in the book. There have been races where it was not needed, but I would rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it. One instance that comes to mind was a race where a brand new team showed up with a car that proved to be considerably slower than the rest of the field (geared wrong). Several times during that race the new driver was shown the passing flag to let him know he was being overtaken. After the race, the driver thanked the flagman and commented he was "too busy watching traffic to look at the rear-view mirrors".
At the pre-race driver's meeting I always explain the meaning of every flag and how/why they are used. It's hard to imagine, but there are people (especially students) who have never seen any kind of race and have absolutely no idea what the flags mean...
