TMX SAYS: Marshal law
By TMX Archives on 22nd Jul 15
So youve spent thousands and thousands of pounds on a bike, some race kit, a motorhome, ankle, knee, wrist and neck braces and some of those fancy goggles with roll-offs on that your best friend is willing to carry to the start line for you in a rucksack along with an energy drink of your choice and possibly even one of those energy gel sachets that all the pro guys use.
You're an athlete, absolutely committed to winning and 100 per cent primed. You're ready to race but wait one moment...apparently there aren't enough marshals and racing is delayed until some more people volunteer. Dagnamit!
Back in the day it used to be that unless you supplied your own marshal for an event then you couldn't ride and the line ‘NO MARSHAL NO RIDE' – always written in capitals – was fairly common place in the TMX regs section.
Somewhere along the line that all changed though and we're now in a situation that most events are run with ‘volunteers' who receive anything from a free lunch up to £40 for spending their day trackside with a pair of flags.
Aside from the free food or envelope of readies it's a fairly thankless task and one that only a minority are willing to do. That means events all over the country – from club motocross races right up to the Maxxis – seem to struggle finding suitable people to take the job on.
Like all jobs there seems to be a massive difference between those that are motivated to be there and do a good job, those that are highly-motivated but don't have a clue what they're doing, those that aren't all that motivated but do a good job regardless and those that have just found themselves stuck somewhere and don't care what it is that they're meant to be doing although they'll take the money (or free sandwiches) anyway.
To prove my point I saw all types in action last weekend at Foxhill from proper trained marshals like MX Training Events UK's head honcho Darren Flaum to guys that had no idea how to or when to operate a flag. That's not good enough and I don't just mean at a British championship event either – fully trained flaggers should be the standard at every track in the country.
Obviously, there'd be some cost involved in making this happen but in a sport that sees so much financial investment in enjoyment then surely we can find some to spare.
Those of you who follow the news may have seen that the inquest into Bradley Hooper's death happened last week.
A verdict of accidental death was returned by coroner Graham Short who according to BBC reports was critical of the way the track was run and the way marshals were deployed and as a result would be making recommendations to several organisations.
Although those recommendations aren't known just yet I'm fairly sure that it wouldn't take a genius to work them out – marshal training, marshal position and marshal focus will no doubt be three areas that come under close scrutiny.
Improvements there should help make our sport safer although the very nature of racing motorbikes off-road means it's impossible to eliminate all of the risk...
