A Racing Mind

STEPHANIE WALLCRAFT | TRQ CONTRIBUTOR |

Without marshals, there is no motorsport.

Plenty of things in this world can be automated and replaced, but in the high-stakes world of racetrack safety, a human presence will always be required.

Marshals carry many roles on their shoulders: observers, communicators, referees, first responders. Every single situation they’re faced with is unique in some way, and they call on years or even decades of experience to respond fearlessly while making split-second decisions that keep those around them safe and regularly save lives.

What’s more, they do it with little expectation of reward. Racing drivers carry the highest risk in the sport, to be sure, but they do what they do for glory, adrenaline, competitive desire, and if they’re lucky, perhaps an athlete’s salary. Members of pit crews do what they do to hone their engineering expertise, to play a key role in a team environment, and if they’re lucky, to call their passion for automotive performance a full- or part-time job.

Marshals are the next closest participants to the on-track action. They’re almost always volunteers, and they do what they do to keep the sport they love alive, gain lowercost access to races, and if they’re lucky, get handed free sandwiches and apples each day for lunch.

And yet, we’re sometimes reminded that the sacrifices made by marshals can be just as great as for racing’s other participants. The most recent reminder, as this story is published, took place during a classics event at Brands Hatch circuit in the United Kingdom in late July. Two cars collided on the start-finish straight, and one of them became airborne and struck a marshal’s post, claiming the life of a volunteer marshal. But racing resumed the next day. Why? Because the rest of the British Automobile Racing Club’s volunteer marshals on duty that weekend returned trackside so that it could happen.

As of this writing, we still don’t even know the late marshal’s name. But we know the names of some of the others who were lost in similar circumstances. Three especially high-profile incidents in Canadian racing history come to mind. Without rehashing the tragic events, we can remember them by their names: Gary Avrin of Calgary (Molson Indy Toronto, 1996); JeanPatrick Hein of Montreal (Molson Indy Vancouver, 1990); Mark Robinson of Montreal (Canadian Grand Prix, 2013).

Every marshal who signs up for the job knows the risks involved. And every one does it anyway out of sheer passion for the sport and knowledge that the show couldn’t go on without them.

They also quickly find themselves part of a tight-knit community of like-minded racing enthusiasts, who spend many of their summer weekends together keeping the racing going by day and enjoying camaraderie and fireside chats in the evenings. It becomes their version of camping and cottaging, except instead of the sound of paddles slicing through lakes, their days are filled with the cacophony of high-revving engines.

Next time you’re trackside, be sure to thank your marshals, and perhaps consider offering them something more in gratitude. It’s thanks to them that the rest of us can go to the races at all, and they ask for very little in return. But they sure as heck deserve a lot more than a couple of soggy sandwiches.

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