MARSHALS IN TRAINING AT BRANDS

Over 170 marshals attended the BRSCC South Eastern Centre Marshals’ Training days at Brands Hatch over the weekend, as they brushed away the cobwebs and prepared for the new season.

Marshals new & old were put through their paces with sessions for flagging, recovery and fire training. As a team building exercise there was a Pit Stop Challenge on Saturday, which involved teams of six marshals pushing a car through a short slalom, removal of a wheel and then more pushing. Adding to the degree of difficulty was the fact that the driver was blindfolded! The winners of the Pit Stop Challenge were Team 9 consisting of John Pacitti, Ben Martin, Stuart Ellies, Phil Fawcett & Edward Woods.

Thanks go to Gary Ikin from D&G Recovery who demonstrated various recovery techniques and Dave Bartrum, the boss of BTCC team Motorbase Performance, who ended the weekend with a very interesting talk. Dave also donated five marshals' packs of overalls, hats etc, which were very gratefully received by the five names pulled out of a hat in a prize draw. Thanks also go to Martin Purnell and his team of Incident Officers who conducted the fire training. Rally driver Andy Elcomb also entertained everyone on Sunday with a fantastic description of his second place finish in the London to Cape Town Rally. He would have won if he hadn't stopped to tow out a fellow competitor. He only missed out on victory by 28 seconds – after 6,000 miles of rallying!

There were also three awards presented; Martyn Doulton was named ‘Marshal of the Year, Chris Burnam ‘Trainee of the Year’, and Carl Streeter ‘Specialist of the Year’. Congratulations to all!

The Club is reliant on many individuals who generously gave up their free time to make the Training Weekend work, so our thanks go to Don Basins, Philip Steward, Neil Stretton, Alisdair Heads, Roger Allnut, Richard Sneader, Bev Franklin, Chris Johnson, Derek Stanley, Mike & Judith Hibbins, Mildred Wiltshire and BRSCC South Eastern Centre Chief Marshal Annie Rothberg.

Finally, thanks are also due to Andy Lyle for facilitating everything at Brands Hatch and Mandy Scott and her catering team.
If you are interested in becoming a marshal then you can find the contact details of the Chief Marshal for your local BRSCC Centre here; http://www.brscc.co.uk/Marshalling