The world of Flagging & Communications is littered with legends as honorable as Brian Redman’s cat or that Don Drennan was born as a 30-year-old man holding a double yellow flag – and some of those legends are even true. A few weeks back, a nearly forgotten group of young men came back to life with a social media post and a search for answers.

A gentleman by the name of Dan Do’bsan posted on a Facebook page asking about the origin of a cartoon sticker that was placed on his car at Road Atlanta around 2000 or 2001 during an SCCA® event. His co-driver had pulled off course with a mechanical failure in Turn 8, and when the car returned to the pits, the sticker was there. Twenty-three years later, the sticker remains on the IT car, but the meaning behind it has been lost.

Or was it?

Lost in the history books of what was either “just a few years back” or “a long time ago” in the late 1900s, a group of young men in the Atlanta area were anxious to play with race cars, keep drivers safe, stay up late, drink beer, and make memories – and the order they did any of those things in remains up for debate.

Enjoying the thrill of F&C (or in some cases, too broke to drive cars), the group could be found at SCCA and other pro races, holding flags and responding to incidents on the track. They took their responsibilities seriously; but they also took the lack of responsibility for most other parts of their life less seriously.

If a driver had an incident on track and pulled to the corner, rest assured this group of young men would be on the scene quickly. And yes, if said driver had an incident in the afternoon instead of first thing in the morning, it might be even quicker than that.

So what’s with the sticker and the legend?

This group of young men called themselves “Team Underdog,” and it was not unusual for a race car to be “tagged” with a sticker before it was sent back to the paddock on a tow truck. Some appreciated it; others appreciated the gesture slightly less than it was intended.

Only once, though, was the Team Underdog crew confronted in any serious way. When a professional race car returned to the paddock carrying extra weight, said team manager under the stress of the situation missed the humor. Team Underdog representatives calmly pointed out that, as corner marshals, they had arrived on foot while the professional driver had arrived at their station in a race car. Perhaps if the team manager was upset about the situation, he was upset at the wrong person?

Sadly, no one knows what happened to that group of young flaggers from the olden days. Some have claimed that a handful chased their dreams of #funwithcars, becoming autocross National Champions and road racing contenders. One of the wildest rumors claims that a baby-faced ginger grew up to become SCCA’s Senior Director of Rally/Solo and Experiential Programs, but that seems nearly impossible…

While most of those youngsters left the life of race car tagging behind, those unnamed members of Team Underdog remember the days fondly and the nights less. They will annually raise a glass, wherever they are, while searching for the next group of young disrupters who take the worker position seriously and want to introduce a level of fun to this generation of racers.

Who knows – at this weekend’s March 8-10, 2024, Hoosier Racing Tire SCCA Super Tour at Road Atlanta, the next group of friends to take over a corner may be out there. The only question is, will they bring stickers?

Keep an eye out for those Flagging & Communications specialists at this weekend’s Hoosier Super Tour at Road Atlanta by following along at the track or at home at SCCA.com/live.

You can also watch the action via the live web stream on SCCA’s Road Racing Facebook page and SCCA’s YouTube channel. Check the event schedule and then tune in – much like with those Team Underdog stickers, it’s free!