Britcar24Hr 2011

At last the day arrived, van packed up and ready to go, we’re off to the annual 24 hour race at Silverstone. The Britcar24hr has been going for some 6 years now and get bigger and better by the year. This year’s entrants list was a very good mix of high end endurance racers and “bloke on the street” racers, There were the usual suspects, Sean and Michael Mc Inereney in a F430 this year instead of the Mosler MT900 also in his F430 was last years winner Witt Gamski, along side these guys would race the Aquila CR1 of Nigel Mustill and the Topcat Racing/ Runnymede Homes Mosler.
There were also plenty of Astons, BMW’s,Ginetta’s, Porsche’s everything right down to MG ZR’s.

Signed-on Friday morning and I was allocated to Club outer post, now this is one of the better post, large gravel trap and the cars are trying to line up for the sprint to abbey so there was plenty of exciting racing and quite a bit to do marshalling wise. The Friday programme was a good mix really, starting with Smart cars, then Caterhams, Monoposto, Porsche Cup racing and of course Britcar practice and Day qualifying. Plenty to do I said! We had Cateerhams off, the Smart cars are particularly scary to watch going round club corner but they managed to stay upright, well all but one who rolled going out of abbey.
Day qualifying for the Britcar was pretty much a formality, then a 2 hours break before the Britcar night quail session.

During this 2 hour break I had the chance to meet “mien host” the blogmeister James Foster. Top bloke we had a good chat about motorsport, blogging,etc etc. Time for night quailifing, this is not a timed session as in the laps aren’t time, this is about the drivers getting used to driving at night. This is where the thrills n spills comes in to marshalling and you also need to be very aware of your surroundings, more of this later.

Saturday, and the sun is shining, it’s gonna be a hot one. The cars are out on track at 9am. We have to go through the races on the programme before the main event at 4:30 but there a good buzz around the track, not many incidents during the support races. 3pm all the build up starts, we’ve got the army helicopters doing their thing the Red Devils parachute team landing on the grid and handing over the start flag, pit walks, grid walks. This is proper club racing where you can get right up close n personal with the cars and drivers. 4:30 and we’re off, the race starts pretty much as we were all expecting with the Aquila storming into the distance, but this is endurance racing and the Aquila proved a tad fragile last year. Would it be any more robust this year, could it win? All was well, the odd misdemeanor here and there cars in gravel and the like but the race settled down to a good pace and rhythm.

Then at about 9:30pm we had a safety car deployment, nothing unusual there in the Britcar we always get a good dose of safety cars. This was different, seems a car had gone off into the gravel on the outside of Becketts and while the marshals are trying to get a line on it to tow it out another car has ploughed in and in the process took out one of the marshals,this is unfortunately on of the risks and why printed on every motorsport event ticket are the words “Motorsport is Dangerous” make no mistake these things can and will happen, fortunately the marshal concerned was in very god hands and a big “thank you” should go out to all the medical support teams, the Marshal in question was taken to Northants Hospital with a suspected broken leg.
I’m always aware of spectators saying how safer Motorsport is nowadays and that it’s brilliant that we’ve not had a death in the sport since the loss of my personal hero Ayrton Senna, but this is not quite true, we have had deaths in motorsport, marshals, competitors in lower classes and club racing. Motorsport IS dangerous always be very aware of that.

Sunday dawn broke and the cars were still ploughing round albeit a slightly reduced grid, Aqulia had fallen by the wayside during the night and was now some 48 laps down on the leaders, up front were the 2 F430’s and Both Moslers, this was pretty much the case until the Strata21 Moslers demise then Witt Gamski retired the 430 with a cracked manifold, this left the 430 of Sean McInerney and the Runnymede Mosler battling it out until the Runnymede car had a stuck throttle linkage and went straight into the tyre wall at Brooklands leaving the Mc Inerney team to take the win, and most deserved it was they have supported and run in this race with mixed results for a good while and they did deserve this win.

Racing over it was time to pack up and head home, but what a fantastic weekends racing, and I got to meet the LEGEND that is James Foster, AKA jimmyb-84. A real good guy, and 110% motorsport nut.

Bootneck.

Endurance Racing at it’s Best

The next stop on my marshalling career was a little one day meeting at
Brands Hatch to marshal for the Aston Martin Owners Club, it was a
great day not too many entrants though but to see Pre-war cars giving
it the beans round Paddock Hill bend was something to behold. There
were some good battles on the little Indy track and mainly they kept the
cars on the “ black stuff” so nothing too tricky to deal with as far as
marshalling was concerned. I did get to do some more “flagging” and got
some good comments about the way I approached it so I think I’m going
the right way. Your always watching the more experienced marshals and
chatting to get tips, to gain that all important experienced in order to get
up-graded.

Le Mans series 1000kms at Silverstone, I’d been waiting for this meeting
for ages, my passion is F1 but a very very close 2nd is Endurance racing.
The entrants list for this weekend was fantastic. The big boys were there
with the Peugeot’s and Audi’s but also Aston's ,Osellas, Ferrari 430’s
458’sNissans 911’s the lot, a right who’s who’s of Endurance cars.

I arrived on the Thursday evening and got my tent set up, then off
to “the White Horse” in Silverstone village to see who’s about, it’s a great
little pub that supports any kind of racing and its always full of marshals,
teams crew etc on race weekend.
Friday morning up bright and early for sign-on then breakfast then off
to my post. I’d been assigned to Becketts which I was happy with, we
thought there maybe a good chance we’d be busy as this is a tricky piece
of track, quite easy to get wrong if you mess up the exit of “maggots” to
previous bend, but most if not all the drivers on Friday seemed to have
it sorted and we didn't have to much to do, but the treat of the day was
watching the Le Mans Audi’s take Becketts flat, that’s certainly gotta
take some bottle.
After racing Friday night I had a wander down to the Paddock and a close
up look at the machinery, I also managed to meet Allan McNish and grab
an autograph and had my picture taken with the racing legend that is
Dave Richards.

Saturday morning, up early sign-on, I’ve been assigned to the Pit Lane.
Which will be a 1st for me. When I get their there is a certain amount of
waiting about then we get dropped off for a briefing in the new “Wing” at
Silverstone. The briefing is by a Frenchman, who speaks very little
English!! Well it is the Le Mans series so I suppose it was only to be
expected, anyway I happen to understand quite a lot of French so we got
through that ok really.

Then to our posts, I was basically to watch the
cars as they come in for their “pit stops” and ensure that only 2 pit crew
worked on the cars at any one time and that the re-fuelling rig was being
used correctly and that the crew were recording “fuel used” to Race
Control and a myriad of other little bits n pieces. But what a fantastic
place to be, in the pit lane for an endurance race, its noisy its frantic and
the smell of fuel and rubber that every petrol head craves is in
abundance. Truly as one of the CRS Racing pit crew said “living the
dream” It was a great days racing, F3 Euro series, Classic Endurance
racing and to finish off an hour of the current Le Mans cars going
through their paces in practice for the main event on Sunday.
I was not marshalling on Sunday, as out of 3 days off I’m more than happy
to give 2 days up but I NEED 1 day to myself just to spectator and in my
own way “live the dream” Racing doesn't get much better than this, great
track, great cars, fantastic crowd, and decent weather for the most part.

Next stop the Bricar24hr. Wish me luck, endurance racing here I come
…Again.

When Racing was Dangerous, and Sex was safe.

Historic F1 Meeting, Brands Hatch,

This is one of my favourite meetings now, having been to the Grand Prix at Silverstone many times and thoroughly enjoyed the experience times were a changing.

I found out about this meeting about 18months ago, as it happened I could not make the GP in 2010 for one reason or another but was determined to get some sort of F1 viewing in that year, then I saw the advert for the Historic F1 meet, so off I went and had a brilliant time. Seeing all the old cars from my youth, the Brabhams, Tyrells, Saudia Williams and Walter Wolf Racing cars fly round the track bought the memories flooding back, this had to be an annual thing from then on.

So when I started my marshalling career this was the first meeting I volunteered for, I did a couple of other meets first that you may have read about already, but this is the one I was waiting for. To make it even better my brother and my son started their marshalling careers at this meet to.

We only marshalled on the Friday and Saturday as we wanted to enjoy the racing on the Sunday, but it was well worth it. The sight of these beautiful old cars during practice and quail was fantastic, the noise, the smell, everything you ever remembered it was there and to add to the spectacle you can even get into the garages and paddocks and see these wonderful machines up close n personal. Also on the cards were Formula Ford, Formula 2, Formula 5000, and the first ever dedicated e-Type Jag race to celebrate the 50 anniversary of the marque.

Marshalling was a joy, the drivers were just out to enjoy the meeting, it’s all about enjoying the atmosphere and the company, we had a couple of incidents to deal with as they day went on but nothing to dramatic. Blue flags a plenty on the Friday as the lower formulas sorted out the”pecking order” and quite a few “offs” as they wrestled with the tyres on the full GP circuit.
The added bonus as always is that marshalling your really close to the action, and when needed you CAN make the difference.
Historic F1, I certainly recommend it.

Next up the LMS 1000km at Silverstone Sept 9th/10th.
I’ll let you know how it goes soon.

Marshalling. Variety's the spice, n all that. Part 2

In the fine traditions of this blog, marshalling encompasses all forms of motorsport, with this in mind I took myself off to marshal at " modified live". Now this is not really my thing, a bunch of acne ridden 20 some things with 1,000,000. decibels coming from the boot of their Vauxhall corsa. Wrong wrong wrong!!! The day in question was at cloudy an overcast day at Brands Hatch the programme said there would be a couple of practice sessions and then a quali session for the "Fiesta Cup", these kids are 14/15 year olds and they really go for it, a couple of small incidents and making sure the track was clean but not too much to do for these guys.
Then came the drifters, I don't mean the '60's Motown blokes these guys seem to like driving sideways as fast as possible, like I said earlier not really my thing, but you've got to be nothing but impressed by what they do. The track was cold the weather cloudy and these guys are still smoking their tyres "big time" and that's one thing we all go racing for right, the smell of burning rubber.
As far as the marshalling went it was a pretty quiet day, that's the great thing about being a motorsport marshal, you can get to see all manner of motorsport events that you would not necessarily pay to go and see, but for a little effort and a bit of spare time you might just find something you like or never know about and fancy getting involved in.
Next up was the "Historic F1" meeting but I'll leave that for next time.

All the best petrolheads.

Marshaling, and how I started. Part 1

After the best part of 35 years following motorsport of one form or another I was sat musing one day trying to work out another angle to get involved in. I participated albeit at a very basic level running an old Vauxhall Firenza in some lowly local rallies. I’ve stood for hours getting cold, wet n hungry in Hafren forest waiting for the Metro 6R4’s and the like to come passed in the good old days of the RAC Rally, and like so many I’ve spent weekends at various tracks around the country just loving the smell of the fuel and rubber and the noise. But now I was itching to do something else, then it occurred to me, let’s go marshaling. How hard can it be? The answers in two parts, firstly its not very hard at all, all I did was get in touch with some guys at the BMMC (British Motorsport Marshals Club) and they very kindly and enthusiastically pointed me in the right direction

After paying my dues ,£20 annual membership and registering with the MSA I was off. A quick trip to AWS to get my overalls, and gloves, £56 and I was away. All I had to do now was volunteer for a race meeting and I was in. That’s the easy part.

My first meeting was the F3/GT meeting at Brands Hatch, and I was put in very capable hands. It’s one thing to watch these guys week in week out from the comfort of your own home but to actually be there is something totally different. Like a good boy I’d read to booklets that had been send to me and thought I’d be ok, but when the cars were actually on track and you have to think on your feet so to speak and count and work out which car is where at any given time( it’s not the done thing to Blue flag the leader) There’s just so much to think about that 9 hours on post flew by and next thing I know the Post Chief is handing my book all signed and saying well done, see you tomorrow. Day One over. It’s a great buzz to that close to the action, and to assist when needed. These guys give up their time, their weekends, family and a lot of personal expense to be part of this wonderful sport we all follow.

I survived my 1st day and I’ll let you know what happens as I go through my marshalling career.

Natural Born Racer.