By Duurt Dijkman – Founder at MsportXtra
Being a marshal is often looked at as an underrated job, which is done mainly by many volunteers. But if they are not around the track, not one race could be run as the marshals are essential for many different reasons and not just for waving a flag or recover a car. I got in touch with a couple who are both working as a marshal at a number of different tracks. Kim Ellis and Rafaël Slechten are followers of my MsportXtra account on Twitter, so asking them for a Q&A was a no-brainer for me. They were kind enough to answer my questions so enjoy an inside look of what it means to be a marshal.
“Marshals are not just for waving flags”
Q1. What made you two become marshals ?
Kim – For me, it was completely by accident. I was a member of a car club, and a friend from the club invited me to a race. At that time, I really wasn’t familiar with much other types of racing beyond NASCAR, IndyCar and F1. Somehow I just assumed he was inviting me to a NASCAR race, and I turned him down. He replied back that it wasn’t NASCAR and he promised I would love it. A few days later, he called and asked if I would like to work at the race. Honestly, I thought I was going to be parking cars or taking tickets or something. Nope, none of that. I marshalled. The first race that I ever attended was also the first race that I ever marshalled and not the least, it was The 2009 12 Hours of Sebring. I instantly fell in love and never stopped.
Rafaël – My wife (Kim) is the perpetrator for me to become a marshal. I have always been a big motorsports fan and made it very shortly into a medical team. When Kim and I became a couple we went to one race (an evening race with in total 14 cars) together at the end of the 2016 season. The next season I started as an intern in our team. Kim was so afraid I would not want to become a marshal because of the boring first introduction into marshalling.
“‘The first race that I ever attended was also the first race that I ever marshalled.”
Q2. Taking a race at Spa-Francorchamps or the Nürburgring, what do you both need to do to prepare for such a long weekend ?
Kim – Oh my, this is definitely a question for Rafaël!! I am the most unprepared person in the world. We have this solved a little bit by putting ‘marshal boxes’ together that contain all the essentials – Marshal suits, earplugs, whistles, flashlights, sunblock, rain gear, boots, and everything else we will need trackside. For longer trips, we have boxes of camping gear all packed and ready to go in the garage. We just take the boxes for the length the trip will be and put them in the camper van. The most difficult thing to prepare for us is usually food. Deciding ahead of time what to cook and doing the shopping.
Rafaël – Actually Kim answered this. After 3 races where we forgot something different each race, I decided it was time to step up the ladder. I came home with 6 boxes and we made standard marshal boxes. Each box contains a certain important part (rain and protection gear / suits, gloves, hats / cooking gear / logistics supplies etcetera) for our trips. Each box has an inventory list and is being – almost completely – managed by me (although Kim helped me to set it up). After every few races we evaluate the content and make the necessary updates. We are now at the point we can load our van with all material in less than 20 minutes. Depending on the event and the length of the event we take between 2 and 7 boxes with us. The most difficult to prepare is which wine and beer to take with us (or Cecemel for some friends).
Q3. What kind of qualifications or certificates do you need to have as a marshal and are there grades for different circuits or racing categories ?
Kim – Yes, and no. There are different specialties, such as a flag marshal and pit marshal (scrutineer is another). I am a flag marshal, so that is what I know the most about. Most sanctioning bodies will require you to have a certain level license before they allow you to travel to races outside of their region. This is simply an insurance issue. In Belgium, the levels of licenses are Stagaire (trainee), C level, B level and A level. Once you progress from a trainee to a C license, you are allowed to travel and marshal anywhere that will accept you. The A and B licenses are for being Post Chief or other positions with a higher level of responsibility.
Rafaël – There is nothing much to add here, Kim summarized it perfectly 🙂
Q4. When marshalling a 24 hour race, you also need to eat and sleep. How are the arrangements for marshals or do you have to get that sorted out yourself ?
Kim – Each team is assigned to a certain post and each post has a chef de poste or a Post Chief. The big boss. He or she will make everyone’s work schedules for the race. Typically in a 24h race weekend, during the days leading up to the race, everyone works all day, every day. Some of the bigger races, like Le Mans, there are plenty of marshals. For those races, we are lucky enough to have shifts for the whole weekend. At other races, many marshals only show up on race day, so in the days leading up to race day, it is a lot of very hard work and long hours. For the actual race, we usually work in shifts. At the Nürburgring 24 Hour race, we work 6 hours on shift and 6 hours off shift, so we work 12 hours of the race. But, there are only 4 of us total on post! Two people working and two people resting. Le Mans is a different animal. We have around 30 or so marshals on our post. We will work 4 hours and have 8 off. In total, we only work 8 hours of the race.
Rafaël – That differs per race. Most racetracks foresee in an area for the marshals to camp. For LeMans and N24, we are lucky enough to be able to camp next to the track. At our local tracks they have a set camp ground for the marshals. We take our camper and set up for that event. Once arrived at the campsite it is up to yourself to sort out food. Luckily there are enough marshals that show you the places you can buy food and drinks. Sometimes you have to search a bit longer to find food outside of normal hours, like when your shift starts at 6 AM and you would like to find some breakfast before going on post.
Q5. With social media being such a large part of motor racing these days, is it helpful for you both when being at a marshal post? Checking live timing or a livestream when something happened somewhere else on track ?
Kim – Technically we are not allowed to use our phones on post, with very good reason. We need to have our eyes on the cars. However, that said, I will often pull up the live timing just before the cars come on track and will check it during intervals when there are no cars coming by. Or someone who is on post, but not on shift, will use it to keep track of the cars and they will keep those of us who are on shift well-informed. Especially in the longer endurance races, the live timing is very useful to track what cars we need to be looking out for when blue flagging! One thing that we will all use social media for is to figure out what happened. Why we are under safety car or red flag or FCY. Twitter and live timing are two of the best and quickest sources of information for us.Rafaël – Yes and No. When on post, we are not supposed to be on our phone, but have attention for the cars and the track. During FCY’s, or so, we quickly check live timing to see who is in the lead. Luckily on the bigger events we most often can follow on the large displays and we are being well informed about what goes on on the track via our radio’s that are in communication with the security. During a longer race, throughout the race we are always updated about the top 5 cars.
Q6. Being a marshal is usually on a volunteering basis, so how hard is it to combine it with professional life since you also have to be at the track from Thursday or Friday on for example ?
Kim – For some people, it is incredibly difficult. A few questions back, I discussed the fact that there are often not enough marshals during the week, and those of us that are there are working very long hours. This is the main reason. Not everyone can get holiday for every race. When I lived and worked in the US, I only got around 10 holiday days per year, so back then it was much more difficult for me than it is now. Now that I live in Belgium, I get over 30 holiday days a year. What a huge difference, huh?! For a race week, you never have to be at the circuit every day, but it certainly is appreciated!Rafaël – It is certainly not easy. I have quite a responsible job and people think they always need me, so even on week days they will app or call me, which is difficult to focus and respond. Besides that, you would like to find a good balance between races, family, friends and rest … ie. this last weekend was the first weekend since early July we slept in and had not to be at a race track or get up early with the kids. Also having family in the US, and our urge to spent time with them makes it sometimes a challenging balance act.
Q7. A more difficult question for you both. Which race, where you were on call, was the most beautiful one as a marshal and why ?
Kim – The day that was the most awesome for us, was one of the worst days of someone else’s life. I won’t go into the details, but it was a very big accident. One that could have turned out much worse, but we were there, and did what we were there to do. There was a big accident and a big fire. We responded and helped a driver who really needed it. Overall, that isn’t a good thing, but that is why we stand trackside. To be ready to help when it is needed. It felt very good to know that night, we truly made a difference.
Rafaël – I think we talk about the same thing here. The nice thing about working with your wife at a race track is one side a benefit, but also a disadvantage. We know each other very well and with half a word we understand what we mean/need/want to say. We were both together on post and a huge crash happened. I only remember a fire ball and a lot of noise, but seconds later we knew what to do … respond. I won’t say which event or car or driver, as that doesn’t matter. But in those first minutes, before all other team members and the track intervention team arrived it was the 2 of us, and we worked together like it was a normal thing. We felt what the other was doing and we knew when we needed support from each other. That still gives me goosebumps. Another – less race related – that is beautiful to me is how we meet the most amazing people per accident. 2 years ago during the F1 at Spa Kim and I went to the marshal pit walk and had no ride back to the camp site. We asked a friend of Kim if he could drive us there, but he was with somebody else, so his friend, without knowing us, took us and drove us miles the other way. That is the day we met Chris, but instantly he became a close friend that we meet almost every race for a drink or a meal.
“You come for the cars, you stay for the people”
Q8. People usually think of marshals being the ones waving a flag or recovering a car but what do you do during a race weekend besides waving a flag or recovering a car?
Kim – We are the eyes and ears of race control, spread around the track. We are watching for anything to happen that race control or the teams or the drivers might want to know about. Things like changes in track conditions, did it start raining, is there oil on the track, is there a problem with one of the cars that maybe they don’t realize yet? We also watch for the drivers to obey the rules and report things like blocking, unsafe or unsportsmanlike conduct, passing under yellow and things like that. We usually communicate things to drivers with a flag and things to race control via the radio, however sometimes we need to be a bit creative too. We were at a 24h race a few weeks ago and sometime around 4am a car came past us and one of the marshals said, “I am pretty sure he is on fire”. We called it into race control, but as no other stations had reported the fire, they weren’t sure. The next lap, he came by and was definitely on fire. I am not sure whether his radio wasn’t working or not, but apparently he wasn’t getting the message, so on the following lap, we all held fire extinguishers in the air and shook them directly at him as he passed. He got the message! Sadly it was too late to save his race, but at least he escaped the blaze without injury to himself.
Rafaël – We meet people! Really, my wife repeats it every few months. You come for the cars, you stay for the people. In those 3 years as a marshal I have met people from Germany, The Netherlands, the UK, France, US, Russia, Ukraine, Belgium, Hungary, Spain and so on. The crazy thing is that some are marshal, some are scrutineer, some are spectator, some are media, … but all of them have their passion that draws them to the race track. And we meet next to the track, at the local pizzeria, at the campsite, … and those people become family instantly.
Q9. You both do 24 hour races, when there is als action at night. What things do you need to pay extra attention to, because I gather the flags won’t be seen well when it’s dark.
Kim – Most tracks will tell us to stop with flags after a certain hour as the drivers cannot see them so well and definitely cannot tell the difference between flags of different colors in the dark, so it is just confusing for them. At that point each track has different solutions. Some use light panels only at night (like the panels you see at F1). At Nürburgring, we use reflective boards of different colors which are very visible in the light of the headlights. And, at Le Mans, if a flag station is well lit, we use flags all night and other marshal posts have light panels. For us, as marshals, we make sure to wear lots of reflective strips on our clothes so that we are as visible as possible if we need to be on track for any reason!Rafaël – When you go into night procedure, put on your sunglasses, because those headlights will blind you for the rest of the night. And all the rest depends on the racetrack. At N24 for instance, we get very fancy reflective panels, at Zolder we have a wooden triangle with lights, at Spa we have light panels and at Le Mans, we keep on waving the flags.
Q10. Final question. If it were up to you both, what changes (if any) would you like to see implemented so you can do a better or easier job ?
Kim – That question could really open a large can of worms. Of course, at every track, in every series, for every marshal sanctioning body, the contents of that can of worms would be completely different. So, I will focus on the two things that I think every single marshal would answer. Training and Recruiting. Training varies from region to region. Some regions do amazing jobs when it comes to training. Others, less so. Some, nothing at all. Regardless, no matter which of those is available to us, I think we would all love more. The more you know, the more you want to learn! But for me, and for most of us, the big one is – RECRUITING. You might have noticed I answered a few questions earlier and said that during the weeks, we have less marshals on post. When we are operating with a minimum number of marshals, we don’t get breaks or very short ones between the sessions. The hours are VERY long. Sometimes arriving on post at 7:00 or 8:00 in the morning and staying there until midnight only to be back on post again first thing in the morning. Sometimes we are covering two flag stations with just a few marshals and if there is a large accident or a fire, we have a very long way to run with a fire extinguisher to respond. Honestly, one of the best recruiting tools we have is the media. This is why I jump at any chance to do an interview, to talk to the media or anyone else that is willing to highlight what we as marshals do. If someone reads this article or sees one of my other interviews and thinks, ‘Hey! I would like to do that!!’, I want to make sure they know how to go about it. We need you! Stop by and talk to us at races and we are happy to put you in touch with someone that can help you become one of us! We are always looking to expand our ranks!! If you don’t know who to ask, please send us a message on Twitter (@rttfm or @amburaf) , and we will put you in touch with the right person!
Rafaël – That is a difficult question, as it depends per series and per track. I’m very sensitive to respect. I would like the racetracks/organisations to show more respect for the marshals. As an example: at a certain event our campsite is 7 miles from the track. They organise a marshal pit walk, but do not foresee any buses back to the campsite. Also the need for some events to have marshals on post at 7 AM while the first cars come on track around 9:30. Marshalling is doing long days, sometimes from 7AM until 10 PM, and the day after the track opens again around 7 AM. Another aspect that I’m missing is appreciation, we are not asking for something special, but a coffee in the morning, or sometimes a lunch during an extremely long day. I really appreciate that N24 for instance gives something to the marshals (a hat, a T shirt, this year a hoody!). Our job would be easier if we had more crew members. A 24 hour race with only a few people is balancing on a cord between safe and risky.
Thank you to both Kim and Rafaël for your time, hopefully it gives the readers a more in-depth of what it means to be a marshal and in the process, made the readers interested to become a marshal themselves. If you want to know more about Kim Ellis and Rafaël Slechten, or at which track they are working, follow them on Twitter. Kim – www.twitter.com/rttfm and Rafaël – www.twitter.com/AmbuRaf.
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Did you get a feeling of what it is to be a marshal and would you like to be one yourself one day? You can best start locally, for the Dutchies this means Zandvoort or Assen would be your best shot. Just subscribe and start from there.
“Recruiting youngsters seems one of the biggest challenges”
