Liverpool Motor Club

The Need for Speed - by LMC Chief Marshal, Bill Gray

I was chatting to one of the Marshals at Oulton Park about what marshalling I’d done. I showed him my yellow “Experience Speed Event Marshal” badge. Very few people, including the Incident Officer had seen a Speed Event badge, which got me thinking about why Marshals don’t know about this type of event.
The first thing to be clear about is what is a Hillclimb or a Sprint. Hillclimbs are not the small two-seater car being bounced up a muddy track on the side of a hill, that is Trialling. I’m talking about Speed Hillclimbs and Sprints, which are based on Tarmac with the aim being to travel up the course from a standing start in the shortest possible time. The difference between a Hillclimb and a Sprint is that Sprint courses don’t go up hill (simple really).
Hillclimbs and Sprints have been around since the early days of motorsport in the UK and has remained amateur sport even at the National Championship levels. As a result it covers a whole range of cars, from the road-going Mini, to specialist single-seaters with 600+ horsepower and all the aerodynamics aids of an F1 car.
In the North West’s Sprint venues are Aintree, Anglesey, Three Sisters. For Hillclimbs we have to travel a little further to venues such as Loton Park, Harewood and Scammonden. There are two national Championships, one for each discipline, which visit all the major venues in the season, whilst the regional championships will visit local venues up to three times.
So what is so different about marshalling at Speed Events compared to Circuits, at Speed Events the number of marshals per post is smaller, normally two. The role of Observer, Flag Marshal, IO, Telephonist and Incident Marshal are usually split between the pair of marshals on each post. Rescue and Medical crews are in attendance, should they be required, as well as the Clerks and MSA Stewards to “manage” the event.
At Aintree and Loton Park signing-on starts from about 7:30 and the Chief Marshal allocates posts. There is normally a free entry to the Marshal’s raffle and some clubs pay an amount towards expenses. At non-permanent venues such as Aintree there is usually some setting up to do on the morning of the event, but at Loton there is usually time for a free coffee or tea before the Marshals briefing, by the Chief Marshal, Course Controller, Chief Clerk and the Medical Officer. The Doc’s usual summing goes along the lines of “ if a car goes off and hits something solid, and you think to yourself “I wouldn’t have like to have been in that car” neither would the driver, so send for us straight away”. With those wise words ringing in our ears we head for our post and check equipment, set out extinguishers and complete radio checks to Course Control
The Clerk and Stewards then drive the track and once happy will open the course to competitors.
The start line is “manned” by two marshals who position the car in the timing beam; the timekeeper then releases the car onto the course with a green light. At the end of the course another timing beam is broken by the car to record the elapsed time. The object of the exercise is to get through the course in the shortest time.
When the first car is part way up the course a second car is released, this means if there is an incident, posts below have to show a red flag and stop the oncoming car for a rerun. If a red flag is shown the flag marshal will also blow a whistle to attract the next post, all the way back to the start line. Once the incident is dealt with the red flag is withdrawn back down the hill, and play can start all over again. At Loton cars run in batches of about twenty cars and wait at the top of the hill to return in convoy to the paddock, at about a tenth of the speed they went up the hill. This means having a second set of “paddock” marshals at the top of the hill to allow cars back down the hill at the end of each session, some single-seaters will need a push to the top of the hill, to coast back down the hill. On circuits such as Aintree the car can drive back to the paddock at the end of the run, so cars can start without interruption.
There are normally two practice runs in the morning and then two “timed” runs after lunch. In national events there will also be a Top Twelve run off, to establish the FTD. This means that during the course of the day there will be 600 runs up the hill. At Aintree in June last year our record was 700 starts and still finished at 5:30pm.
In the lunch interval between the practice and timed runs, some clubs provide officials and marshals with sandwiches, crisps and soft drinks, which gives everyone a chance to get together and swap stories from the days event.
Once back on the track, the competitors will give their all to reach the class win and perhaps the top twelve run off. The range of cars used starts with road going saloons, through Westfield’s and Caterhams (always a good scrap), Clubman’s single-seaters such as the Mallock’s, on to the bike engined single-seaters and then come the racing cars made by well known makers such Pilbeam and Gould. The top runners are using V6 engines from Opel (ex DTM) or V8’s from Judd.
At the first meeting at Loton Park this year Adam Fleetwood drove the1475 yard course in 45.6 seconds, an average speed of 66.6 miles/hour, from a standing start. This broke his own hill record first time out this year.
The sight of these cars at speed in a track little wider than the car demonstrates, in my view, the pinnacle of car control. Similar cars will reach 170mph through the flying finish at Aintree.
But there are the more unusual cars as well, the Vauxhall Astra Estate, Audi Quattro’s, Ferrari’s and even a Gould Puma. This is a one off built for the former Chairman of XTrac, based on a Ford Puma but running a 2.1 litre turbocharged engine putting out 600bhp through a specially built 4 wheel drive system, and it is road registered in Jersey.

If you’re interested, further details are available on www.top12runoff.co.uk or http://www.britishsprint.org/ , or even better, why not contact Geoff Maine or Bill Gray via the contacts page if you would like to marshal at one of LMC’s friendly events.

Thanks to Andy Hawkins, John Harden and John Loudon for supplying the pictures above

---

Marshals are required for all of the following events during 2008

• 22nd/23rd March: Hillclimb practice days - Loton Park
• 5th/6th April: National B Weekend - Loton Park
• 26th April: Aintree Spring Sprint - Aintree - contact Bill Gray for more details
• 17th/18th May: Two one day National B Hillclimbs - Loton Park
• 31st May: Trackday - Aintree - contact Bill Gray for more details
• 7th/8th June: British Championship Hillclimb - Loton Park
• 30th June: Aintree Summer Sprint - Aintree - contact Bill Gray for more details.
• 12th/13th July: Two one day National B Hillclimbs - Loton Park
• 26th/27th July: LMC/HDLCC Hillclimb - Loton Park - contact Bill Gray for more details
• 9th/10th August: Midland Championship plus Porsches, Loton Park
• 6th September: Autumn Sprint - Aintree - contact Bill Gray for more details.
• 13th/14th September: British & Midland Championships - Loton Park
• 4th October: Trackday - Aintree - contact Bill Gray for more details

---

Officials/marshals at all of the events at Aintree and Loton Park will not only receive a contribution towards their travel expenses but free food and drink will also be provided during the lunch break.
For more information on any of the above events please contact our Chief Marshal Bill Gray via the contacts page.