clubstylus

Stuart and I marshalled the post 13 90 degree left on Saturday 7th Nov' . Quite good fun in the morning with all the two wheel drive cars , particularly the Escort M2's who's drivers were really committed. One Citroen got it wrong on entry and ended up on top of a 20 ft long 18 inch diam' log which was primarily there to keep cars from diving into the very deep ditch flowing with water A little hazel bush on the ditch side of the log , just stopped him going more than 45 degrees into the ditch. We had no radio man and cars were still coming full chat. Slowed them a bit on entry by waving crossed arms but it was very lucky no car colided with it because it was exactly where front wheel drive cars needed to place themselves to negotiate the corner
Found out later that I shouldn't have pulled him out but did --- he changed a front wheel then roared off with various body bits flapping some. The drivers door A frame was bent but the door shut anyway
Spectators gave us a lot of hassle standing in bloody dangerous positions so nearly lost my voice bellowing at them Adults plus kids on the outside of corner entry and exit ---- mental PLUS IT WAS GETTING DARK BY THEN . Then some stupid female road along the stage on her mountain bike to get to a spectator position with a very bright RED flashing light still going when cars were approaching the corner As you can imagine , I comunicated to her that it should be off --- in my best vocabulary --- even then she didn't turn it off untill I shouted --- NOW

We were not the only one's to get big shunts on our patch so there were over 3 hours before the 2nd run through which was pretty boring. I don't do it simply for my own enjoyment though , so giving some time back , to a club that provides marshals for me , every time I compete seems a good thing to do

rob! i was marshalling on junc 14, 15 and 16 just up from you. if i had known, i would have walked down to see you! you may have even seen my other half and possibly moby, the guy who came to llandow with me. they actually did wander down to your junction to see the car on the log. what did you think of the armed forces land rovers? pretty quick for a big chunk of metal arent they!

They are yes , that is when you remind yourself of their weight and power unit but still bloody boring when you've seen the M2 Escorts fully committed
What spoiled it for me was the many hours spent doing nowt in between waiting for the next batch

yeah it made it into a really long day! about an hour of cars then a 2 hour wait until the next lot. still, there aren't that many loos surface rally's in the south of the country so its a good one to go and see.

I've been marshalling it for 4 years and until last year we were very busy all day other than one gap at lunch for up to two hours , competitor numbers must have dropped

it didn't help having a nasty accident on one of the stages earlier in the day. the air ambulance was called but had to go to something even more important but we had to wait a long time for that.