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Post by autospark on May 30, 2011 9:36:18 GMT
Hi Roy,
I have marshalled before, Many years ago, I did a season at Oulton park. Work and personal commitments got in the way, These days its all I can do to manage the 8 - 10 track days I do a year.
But thanks for the offer, I will have a think about it.
Mike
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Post by speedsport on May 30, 2011 9:44:43 GMT
Morning gents. In the cold light of day etc.... let's start again. This is a sort of combined response to your posts with extra info too - so please don't think I'm disagreeing with you. I hear everything that you both say, and I share your frustration totally. I would go as far as saying that Saturday's was the least satisfactory track day we have ever run at Aintree. There are things that we would certainly do differently next time, but there are some things that we just cannot change.
There wasn't really anything that we could have done quicker with the glass on circuit problem. It was a case of getting marshals from other posts across to the location and having them brush up as much of the glass that they could, and then get them back on station so we could resume. If everyone was in a closed car we could probably have stopped brushing slightly earlier, but with open cars participating there is the danger of people suffering eye injuries due to airborne glass particles, even when wearing full face helmets. And there's a greater risk of punctures for those cars on slicks. The Golf in the Fence issue: I have to be careful what I say here because there are going to be repercussions as a result of this incident. Had the car collided with something inside the venue (eg Armco or a Grand National jump), then the car would have been recovered as soon as the occupants were out & safe and the session would have resumed within minutes. On this occasion, the car had demolished several meters of the venue's perimeter fence including reinforced concrete fence posts, meaning that members of the public could gain access to the live circuit from the nearby footpath. We had to salvage what we could of the fence, erect a temporary fence in the gaps and make safe the felled posts. The full scale of the problem was not totally obvious until the car had been removed (and incidentally once back on the circuit, it was driven back under it's own power). Yes, it took far longer than was desirable to complete all this, but going over it again in my mind, I can't see what we could have done to get the job done more quickly with the resources that we had. I don't know why, but in the last 20+ years of car events at Aintree, we had never had a car hit the perimeter fence, yet in the last 3 years we have had 5 such incidents, and every one in a different place. I don't know if it's because "ordinary" cars are getting quicker or if it's people driving beyond their capabilities - or both- but when something goes wrong, cars are traveling much further out of control than they used to. Maybe modern track day tyres are not as effective as the old tyres were on grass.
Calling groups to the line... we call each group immediately after the preceding group has gone out on track so, providing there's no incident, the next group is released as soon as the last car of the earlier group is on the return road (as was happening most of the afternoon). So, the maximum length of time that you would be waiting is 12 minutes (10 minute session plus 2 mins after the chequer). I agree this does take slightly longer if we have to pull someone in. There were also two brief delays to get our noise tester to the far end of the circuit to do drive-by sound tests, and to allow the marshal on the start/finish line to undertake a call of nature - like the other marshals, he'd been standing there all day! (Thanks Roy you did a great job).
Other matters... yes, good idea to let everyone know about this forum. Mind you, people tend only to say something if they feel really strongly about an event- in general apathy rules! So the fact that you have both taken the trouble to let us have your comments means that we need to take notice. And we will.
We couldn't say much when the marshal was hurt back in 2006, because he commenced legal action against the Club and the officials of the event (including me). Over 2 years later (after a great deal of expense and worry) the action was dropped and the cloud hanging over us was lifted. Despite suffering a broken pelvis and some minor injuries, he subsequently recovered, though his recovery was rather protracted. As a direct result of that incident, our insurer's requirements became extremely onerous and we had to change much of the way we run the track days. It often feels as though the insurers are running the events these days, not us. Elf and Safety is in charge - what a minefield!
When I have time, I'll add another post to give everyone a bit more info about what goes into events and we - the marshals and organisers - get out of them, but in the meantime, many thanks for your observations.... we do take what you say seriously and will see what we can do to give you - our customers - a better deal next time.
(Incidentally, of the 16 marshals out there trackside, 8 of them were actually LMC members who are really competitors. Getting marshals for track days is proving increasingly difficult.)
John
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Post by vfj on May 30, 2011 12:12:21 GMT
Great day--thanks for all the work you guys put in, Thanks to the marshals, done a bit myself at bike racing, enjoyed reading the comments on here, keep em comming -roll on June sprint
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Post by speedsport on Jun 1, 2011 15:34:05 GMT
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Post by vanny on Jun 9, 2011 17:45:12 GMT
Getting marshals for track days is proving increasingly difficult. It must be bad when your importing them from the South ;D
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