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…