Race Track Signal Lights

 I know this is a fair bit off topic but in the interest of safety, I've decided to post these comments.

There always seems to be a shortage of volunteers to work track-side as marshals at events. In some instances there have been some desperate measures employed, including pulling spectators out of the stands in order the meet the requisite number of workers the sanctioning body requires for the event.

To augment existing flagging stations (or in lieu of unmanned flagging stations), there are a couple solutions I have uncovered. In keeping with my Volkswagen and Cadillac comparison paradigm, I'm going to discuss 2 different offerings. I have no doubt there are more on the market, but these are the two that I've found and studied.

Clearwater Lights appears to be primarily an aftermarket motorcycle light manufacturer and the race track warning light system they offer is somewhat of a side business, albeit a very important one from our perspective. I categorize them as the Volkswagen solution. I'll cover them in more detail next.

RaceAmerica offers a more intelligent (and expensive) solution. Their track safety lights are part of a comprehensive range of products for motorsport and competitive racing applications. I categorize them as the Cadillac solution. They'll be covered in more detail soon but in the time since I initially looked into them, they've upped their product offering to perhaps be more competitive with the Clearwater Lights solutions.

I had seen the Clearwater light system in use at AMA Pro racing events several years ago and they seemed to work well. I have never seen the RaceAmerica system in use.

The nice thing (from my point of view) was how the RaceAmerica software integrated with the MyLaps Orbits software so that when we change the flag status in Orbits, the electronic flags track-side would also display the same flag (red, green, yellow, checkered). This 'magic' is all accomplished through the RMonitor protocol that Orbits uses. The Rmonitor protocol is quite extensive and I've studied it in depth. At one point I wanted to write an application that utilized the data provided by Rmonitor so I actually created Regular Expression (RegEx) statements to parse the Rmonitor data but I abandoned the project. It was still a useful exercise from a developer's perspective, though. I became intimately familiar with creating Regular Expressions. Enough of that.

When I contacted Clearwater Lights and mentioned to them how integration with Orbits (IMHO) would be a significant improvement to their product offering I was met with, how shall I put it, reluctance. They thought it would require an inordinate investment for a limited return. I understand their business perspective and I even sent them a copy of the Rmonitor protocol to pass along to their developer but the idea fell flat with them. Quite disappointing.