Thursday 7 May 2020

Rally - Marshal's Training



The show must go on ... When motor sport resumes, as it surely will, things will be different. The trouble is, we don't know how different. The resumption of rallying may well require a bit more mental ingenuity than racing. It's one thing to run a  motor race behind 'closed doors' at a circuit, but stage rallying is likely to tax imaginative agility more than 'arena' based sporting activities.

One thing won't change though, the need for volunteers and trained marshals. Perhaps this Covid19 business has done us a wee bit of a favour. We've all got a bit more time on our hands to undertake some on-line training. If you haven't registered with Motorsport UK as a Marshal and/or want to get trained up there are a number of options opening up amongst clubs themselves and the governing body.

Perhaps the easiest way to get involved is through the Scottish Association of Motor Sport Clubs (SAMSC) who are running a series of on-line Saturday morning training seminars. You've missed last month's first lesson, but the next one is this Saturday (9th May) with a another six or so planned. And if demand exceeds capacity, they will likely introduce more.

We're awfy lucky up here in that one of the UK's top motor sports trainers, Rupert Hine, lives and works in Scotland and is a member of SAMSC, and he's a nice bloke too! Rupert has been instrumental in designing and delivering a variety of courses across many varied disciplines.

For more information check it out here:


And for the auld codgers who say they've been marshalling for umpteen years and don't need training and won't sign up to the Motorsport UK scheme, well you've got nothing else to do meantime, so why not give it a try?

Who knows where a career in marshalling can take you? The pictures were taken at a Marshal's Training Day way back in 2003 somewhere near Inverness and if you look very carefully you may well see some weel kent faces, including a couple of blokes behind two of the North's favourite rallies and another who went on to greater things as a 'High Heid Yin' at Wales Rally GB.

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