Thank you www.jaguar-racing.com

[Stephen Green]

Jaguar-Racing.com have run an article on their website www.jaguar-racing.com about the safety in motorsport and the part marshals play. Within the article I have been able to make a good plug for new marshals and for the BMMC. The article is as follows and can be found on their website if you wish to view it with pictures:


As Michael Schumacher climbed onto the podium after winning the 2001 Australian Grand Prix, an official broke the news to him that a marshal had been killed after being hit by flying debris from a crash earlier in the race.Only five grands prix on from Monza 2000, where Marshal Paolo Ghislimberti had died after being hit by a wheel, the same fate had befallen Australian volunteer Graham Beveridge. There would be no champagne on the podium for the first time since Ayrton Senna was killed at Imola in 1994.Safety standards since that dark day at Imola back in 1994 have improved immeasurably for drivers and spectators alike but there’s still no denying that the job of a marshal is a dangerous one. Stephen Green is testimony to that. Stephen is the man who ran onto the circuit at Silverstone to tackle religious fanatic Cornelius Horan, who invaded the circuit and ran up Hangar Straight towards Formula One cars approaching speeds of 200mph. One of the cars that Horan ran up Hangar Straight towards belonged to Mark Webber. And the Australian’s in no doubt that, had Green not intervened to wrestle the intruder away, something extremely serious could have happened.“As a racing driver you prepare yourself for a lot of different circumstances on race day but never for something like that,” said Webber. “It’s totally unfair on the drivers. Of course, the consequences would be far worse for him if he was hit, and the marshal did a good job in getting him off the circuit as quickly as possible.”Green’s bravery gained him the Alexander Forbes/MSA Marshal of the Year award and the BARC Browning Medal for bravery beyond the call of duty. “Incidents like that of last year happen very rarely (thank goodness) and I have tried to use the publicity to recruit new marshals into motorsport,” Green told jaguar-racing.com. “Incidentally, the scariest moment of the incident was running onto the track just before Antonio Pizzonia came hurtling through Chapple.”Whilst Green actively himself put his own safety on the line for the wellbeing of others, the plight of Beveridge serves notice that marshals face danger even when positioned in seemingly innocuous positions.Beveridge was killed when hit by the flying rear wheel of Jacques Villeneuve’s BAR, which had been ripped off as it hit a hole in the debris fencing at the side of the track. If Villeneuve was lucky to escape serious injury, Beveridge was extremely unfortunate. The BAR’s wheel, which measures just 38cm wide, had flown through a 40cm hole in the debris fencing and hit him square in the chest.Thankfully, tragedies that befell Beveridge and Ghislimberti before him are few and far between and the FIA had since moved to reduce marshals’ exposure has resulted in the implementation of automatic speed limiting devices in yellow flag situations and collision warning devices which would help drivers in wet conditions.As Silverstone proved, however, motorsport will always remain a dangerous and unpredictable sport. But it’s the risk that volunteer marshals, such as Stephen, are willing to take in order to play a vitally important role in the sport they love.The British Grand Prix weekend forms a small part of the hectic schedule of race meetings attended by UK marshals. From April through to November there are race meetings being held across the country and this puts a strain on the marshalling resources available to provide the high level of cover we have come to expect in motorsport.If you’re interested in finding out more about trackside marshalling, log on to the British Motorsport Marshals Club (BMMC) at www.marshals.co.uk The website gives all the information a prospective new marshal would require to get started in this line of motorsport.

May I offer my thanks to www.jaguar-racing.com for running the article and their support of British Marshals.