Jim Clark rally

[Lousada]

By cancelling stages you only punish all the good guys like the drivers, the volunteers and all the well-behaving spectators. A rally stage is long and only the people at the very corner with the mis-behaving spectators know the reason a rally stage is cancelled. For all the others there is just a big bunch of frustration when they invested all that time and money just to find out at the very last moment the stage is cancelled.

In my opinion they could make the timing less strict. That way they would have time to temporarily stop the stage and send an extra zero car around the stage or something like that. Also a good punishment would be if those spectators found in violation be escorted to the finishline for the remainder of the stage. Always punish the offenders, not the good guys in my opinion.

[MrJan]

By cancelling stages you only punish all the good guys like the drivers, the volunteers and all the well-behaving spectators. A rally stage is long and only the people at the very corner with the mis-behaving spectators know the reason a rally stage is cancelled. For all the others there is just a big bunch of frustration when they invested all that time and money just to find out at the very last moment the stage is cancelled.

Better to cancel the odd stage than to not have a rally at all though, which is what will happen if things continue as they are.

[makinen_fan]

A week ago MSA issued the long awaited Safety review after the fatal accidents from last year. Link is here:
https://www.msauk.org/assets/2015rallyreqs.pdf

I have not read the whole thing, but it seems it requires much more effort from organisers and number of marshals to ensure spectator safety. Neath Valley stages rally which is run in August is already cancelled mainly because of this safety review and the organisers are unable to implement all these in time.
Lets see how this will pan out in the future, but it does not look good for the small events.

[MrJan]

As someone who is involved in organising hillclimbs/sprints we've been told that a low number of marshals will lead to an event being cancelled. The trouble is that people don't want to volunteer, and small clubs like us can't offer payment at a standing rate, so we're desperately trying to come up with ways to get people involved. The best we've got is that we offer a raffle prize at the end of the season (a trackday experience for 1st, £100 for 2nd and £50 for third). Essentially any time someone marshals an event for us they get a 'ticket' to the draw (minimum of two events). The more times they marshal, the more chance of winning the prize. We haven't seen the results yet but hopefully it will be a good way to get more people involved.

I think that speed events are going to see more cases of drivers having to marshal in between their runs, simply to supplement the number of volunteers. Of course that just isn't viable for a rally.

[AndyRAC]

Safety is paramount, but I honestly feel they're using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. I can see lots of events pulling the plug....

[MrJan]

Safety is paramount, but I honestly feel they're using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. I can see lots of events pulling the plug....

Think I've said before that the problem is landowners, since the Jim Clark and the Wyedean most of them want to see the nut being obliterated with dynamite.

The problem is that there is still a bit of an old school feel, until recently my club didn't even email members about upcoming events. One guy that looks after the marshalling for us was bemoaning a different club for having more marshals than us, but of a lower standard. My point to him was that I would far rather have an accident in front of someone inexperienced than to have it in front of no one at all.

[cabaye2]

We have had fake witnesses and even fake experienced rally drivers speaking not only to clearly yellow media but also on some country wide TV stations etc.