Castle Combe Takes Significant Step Forward?

[b1ackcr0w]

Today, I hope I've seen a significant change for the better in the world of Marshalling.

Castle Combe has never been a bad place to marshal for me. But today was the first day the circuit was operated by the new Castle Combe Racing Club Ltd. Although many of the faces were the same, there seemed to be a sea change in attitude and approach.

The circuit decided to ditch the BRSCC at the end of last year. CCRC was formed to take over the racing operations there from the start of this season. As you might expect, winning over the marshals to the new CCRC way of thinking was a big objective today. And sure enough a fair amount of time was spent doing that.

The important part was how they went about that task. The new club has put as it's core value, one guiding principal. Namely, that from now on the entire operation will ran on the basis that Competitors, Marshals and Spectators are all equally important and, should be treated as such. Ok, that's a nice intention, but the path to hell as they say...

The next bit rocked me a bit though. Both the Chairman of the Club and the Circuit owner then sat down with us and actually talked (to us like adults!) about the basis of the clubs finances, what the risks and pitfalls are, how the business plan intends to fund the changes we've asked for, what sort of time frames we can expect the changes to happen, how they will encourage competitors to be respectful of our efforts and so on. If I'm not mistaken, I think this is exactly what we've hoping for, isn't it? As mature adults, we all know that money doesn't grow on trees and that things don't happen overnight. But we have been basically wanting organising clubs to level with us, talk plainly, to listen to us and to recognise our place in the sport.

I don't think I was the only person who came away from today with the distinct impression that Castle Combe has stolen a big march on the rest of the sport in terms getting to grips with what will actually keep existing marshals marshalling, and bringing new ones into the fold. And rather than the usual "Just trust us, we know better attitude" it was more like, "Here's the plan, we know need your help for it to work, want to join the team?". I thought a telling moment was when they went right through the "Marshalling in Crisis?" presentation that Chris Hobson & George Copeland made to the Motorsports Council (see here http://tentenths.com/forum/showthread.php?t=79658 ), and explained what part CCRC inteded to do about each point.

I really do think this is something that should make other clubs and venues sit up and take notice.

Oh, and by the way, They have had their MSA licence upgraded and can run grids of 42, yes, FORTY TWO saloons there this year. Aparently they already have several full saloon grid entries, so that theory is probably going to become reality.