to be clear, if a proper investment was made would be easy to create a system that works. But even the most basic operational system would cost quite a bit.

I think you’d have to see this operation to get a better “feel” of it—it’s been a pretty rag-tag, “backwoods” kind of track in the past and was shut down. It sits not far away from the owner’s house and garage in a decent plot of land. A handful of old lights strung on poles—it was pretty dark the night I was there and wasn’t near enough light for the drivers. (But I understand that a few volunteers got together last week and added several new ones…little by little) Nothing about it fancy or high-dollar. (Yet… here’s hoping )
Add to that I understand the folks that were running it suddenly departed this past weekend. The races went on without much trouble with the help of a few seasoned volunteers. I believe the owner has enlisted the help of a couple of his professional friends so it’ll be interesting to see where it leads now…

 

One place I worked had a truck horn as the alert signal for start time, break time, lunch, second brake, 15 minutes before end of shift cleanup horn, quitting horn and in the case of an emergency evacuation there was a push button one could press three times to signal to all the need to evacuate the building. My concern with that was that in a noisy shop the horn wasn't always heard by all workers. Three short blasts could go unnoticed. I presented my argument for an automated system that when activates begins blowing the horn in an intermittent pattern and continues to blow until some safety person or fire department (or other qualified entity) shuts it off. It was a simple system consisting of a 12V transformer, single rectifier, automotive turn signal module, automotive lamp and a relay. When switched on 12V rectified powered the lamp and the module. When the lamp lit it also activated a relay. The relay contacts closed and opened a parallel circuit connected to the pushbutton. So anyone who saw a reasonable emergency to evacuate the building could simply activate the switch and then leave the building. The horn would continue to blow until as mentioned above, someone qualified shuts it off when it is determined that either the emergency has passed or there was no emergency.

It was cheap and effective. But the point is that there was good reason for such a system. Even better would have been an automatic fire detection system. But sometimes cheap people don't want to spend lots of money just to keep people safe. It sounds to me like the operators of this track don't exactly have safety high enough on their agenda to make it a priority for a full course caution lamp system. (or full course Race Stop).

You have a few choices: 1) You can find a better place to race but that might cost you more money. 2) you can keep racing there accepting the risks. 3) You can propose a full course warning system and pay for it yourself - or take up a collection from those who race with you. There may be other options as well. But in the end there's little you can do about someone else's property.