Marshal Down

it’s what you never want to hear. motorsport always was and always will be dangerous. in some ways it is part of the appeal. injuries to drivers happen and can be expected from time to time. incidents in pit lane, especially during endurance events, can also happen. but to have a marshal hurt while trackside, trying to help another driver, is so rare that when it does happen it’s quite a shock to all of us.

our day started with the most important message of all - working trackside at night is fucking dangerous.  there is no training for working at night trackside. we all know how to handle incidents, recover vehicles and drivers, but at night it is a whole new ballgame. hand signals become light signals. a simple push to free a car becomes a one man snatch in pitch black. the safety message we always push at the start of a day on the bank becomes your motto. you can not underestimate how dangerous this is.

so after only a few hours of night running we all took a deep breath when the call “marshal down” echoed over the radio.

a car had gone in to the gravel at maggots. that’s a fast entry corner and one of the most dangerous to work in while the track is live. the team had apparently gone to the aid of the car to try and push it free. when that failed, they all retreated to safety to allow the IO and one other to snatch it with a JCB. while they were doing that, another car came off the track at the same spot, apparently as a result of oil on the circuit. it sideswiped one marshal and knocked the IO off their feet. The IO was shaken but not injured, the other marshal suffered a double break to a lower leg.

at an event like a 24hr you have to be so much more aware of what is going on. working with a team you know so well and trust implicitly is a massive help. organising the Oulton Wanderers to take over Luffield was a fantastic idea and it paid dividends when the team was required to take action. tiredness, fatigue, complacency after long periods of clear racing can all add to the dangers. every lap is just as dangerous as the last. keeping that in mind for the entire event, day or night, will help you come home in one piece. but it can not guarantee it.

i’m sure an investigation will take place in to what happened on Saturday night. i’d expect some lessons can be learned from it too. most importantly is the fact that although injured, nothing worse happened. i’m sure everyone involved will replay it over and over in their minds. the most important thing about incidents like this is people will learn from them. and that people are still here to be able to learn form them.

hope the recovery is a swift and uncomplicated one.

Marshalling & Fishing

Marshalling is a lot like fishing.

You spend countless hours in the cold / wet / wind / blazing sun. You can get days where nothing happens & others where the action is non-stop. It can be frustrating and exhilarating at the same time.

Last weekend was a perfect example. Sunday was spent at Oulton Park on Shell Hairpin. To say i’ve had a quiet season would be an understatement. I’ve had just 3 mechanical pulloffs in about 22 days on the bank, not one incident involving contact. Although i only got involved in the work to deal with one car in the gravel, the team had 4 cars in the gravel in total and plenty of excellent racing and overtaking during the day. It was the first time in ages i can honestly say that more than just the company on the bank was keeping me entertained.

Monday was a long day. I knew it would be, the timetable was an utter joke and was never going to work. The only thing that would give was our lunch break. So we are on post all day with no break from 8am to 6:30pm. Throw in rain showers and 15C & the weather alone is enough to make you wonder why. But the converse side to that is the ingredients for lots of action. Historics, oil, rain, cold track, a decent corner (Lodge) – it should have been a busy day. The early signs were good with the 1st session getting cars off at 3 of the 4 “quiet” posts (Clay Hill, Warwick Bridge & Hill Top) resulting in 2 red flags. But that was it. Everything was tee’d up for lots of action and all we got was one driver in a Hillman Imp who forgot to brake on the last lap of practice. 

We were fully prepared to snare that 50lb pike and got nothing more than a pile of weeds.

I’m not saying i want to see huge crashes all the time, far from it. But when the conditions are right and nothing happens there is an amount of disappointment. Especially when its only the 2nd time in the entire year you have been asked to be IO – the practice is vital to gain confidence in your abilities to lead a team and make the right calls. To top that other people in the team needed a decent incident to allow the XPC to assess them and pass their final hurdle to upgrade. Its really hard to get all the admin requirements together for assessments, yet when they are & the drivers stay on the black stuff, it’s an opportunity wasted.

I’ve now got just 2 days left of the season. It has been a somewhat flat, disappointing one and i don’t want to leave 2011 like this because i might not want to come back. Hoping for a belting end to the season to make up for the days of boredom & disappointment, 750MC rarely let me down…

Quick Update on year so far

26 Mar 2011 Oulton Park IO

22 Apr 2011 Anglesey PC

23 Apr 2011 Anglesey Flag

30 Apr 2011 Snetterton IO

7 May 2011 Oulton Park Incident

21 May 2011 Cadwell Park flag

22 May 2011 Cadwell Park flag

28 May 2011 Croft flag

29 May 2011 Croft flag

2 Jul 2011 Anglesey IO

8 Jul 2011 Silverstone Incident

9 Jul 2011 Silverstone Incident

10 Jul 2011 Silverstone Incident

16 Jul 2011 Cholmondeley flag

17 Jul 2011 Cholmondeley flag

so far this year i can not remember attending a single incident. i'm starting to forget what it feels like to deal with something which is worrying 'cos you never know when the next big one is around the corner...

CPoP 2011 - Things Must Change

CPoP should be a fantastic event. The idea of bringing the Goodwood Festival of Speed oop narf should work well, but it doesn't. This was the 4th year, i have marshalled every single one, yet too little improves each year and it's very easy to get bored.

As a marshal you don't expect much, but some basics wouldn't go amiss. To list just a few of the issues and complaints from various people over the weekend;

• camping in with all the punters, over a mile away from sign on

• only after intervention from Fazz did a shuttle bus get put on from the campsite

• for day trippers (like me) the car park was almost as far on other side of the estate but again only after complaints was a bus put on

• no shelter for people or bags on post. a cheapo gazeebo would have done, like a lot of the car clubs had up.

• no vouchers for food or drink. at £2.50 for about 200ml of coffee it was a joke

• only 8 people each day won something on the raffle. club meetings at anglesey do better than that

• not even a small gift like an event sticker or pin badge which were on sale.

• key attractions such as the McLaren MP4-12C, '94 & '03 Jordan F1 cars, ex-Schumacher Benneton, Ford Escort Cosworth, Ferrari 308, Ferrari 458 GT and many others not making an appearance.

• rally stage being curtailed due to conditions, but despite many runners dropping out of the sprint stage the rally cars were not asked to fill in the numbers.

By far the biggest issue tho is what you get attending the event. Each year various parts have improved or new additions like this years rally stage, but it isn't growing enough to remain a draw. The vehicles participating on the sprint course have changed little in 4 years. Nice although it is, the Maserati Birdcage brought by the Minshaw's has been there every year. As have a lot of other cars and especially the bikes. There are nowhere near enough of them, not enough variety and you get to see each one at least 8 times over the weekend. And where are the celbrity drivers bringing in the punters, doing autographs and mingling with fans like at FoS? I think Derek Bell made an appearance on Friday (Bentley are title sponsors & his employer) and Tom Sykes on a bike. That was it.

FoS you can spend an entire weekend at and still not see everything. And all for one ticket price which includes all the various paddocks. CPoP were charging £20 in on gate and an extra tenner if you wanted to see the paddock, all 6 small tents of it. If i was a punter i'd never go back, i'd spend the small fortune in fuel and do FoS instead.

At the 1st event as a marshal you were made to feel special. Now there is nothing special about it at all. I've never felt more undervalued at a race meeting than i did at CPoP this year. Sure the weather was shit on Sunday and making life difficult but i was dressed right and stayed warm & dry despite no shelter other than my umbrella. But i get that most of the year at meetings all around the UK, at least those meetings have enough variety to keep me interested. I resorted to punishing Ady & Andy with my own commentary in the unique style of the Goons crossed with Jar Jar Binks on Sunday. Sorry for that guys but i hope it kept everyone entertained!

Unless CPoP get at least double the number of vehicles participating next year then i doubt i'll bother again. Maybe get convinced to do a single day, but the shine of a new exciting event has well & truely worn off. The only way you can survive events like that is with a great bunch of marshals to work with, so many thanks to Faz, Ady, Andy, Steve and all the others that had to endure the weekend too. Next stop, CSCC at Anglesey