SPEAKER_00 0:02

green green green Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Trackside, the podcast for marshals. I'm Jamie Osborne, one of your hosts.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

I'm Jess Galzoff, the other host.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

And we've got an interesting one today. So You know, there's a lot of things that happen at a racetrack during a race weekend. There's so much that goes on that's past the track, past the cars, the marshals even that are standing there. So today we're going to kind of do two things at once. We're going to visit with two... Marshalls from abroad. We've got Max Fumigalli, who was born in Italy, but lives in the UK. And John Benny, a Scot, a Scotsman. And these gentlemen are well known to American marshals. Jessica and I have known them and worked with them for many years. You may not know them, but you're about to meet them. They're great individuals, but They have an unusual history and perspective that they bring to motorsports, both because of their internationality, but also because of what they do in their training and their experience abroad. And it's more on the rescue side of things. It's a different perspective, but I think an interesting one, especially for marshals who want to know the other stuff that they can aspire to. know about understand that's going on during the race race weekend is that safety thing

SPEAKER_01 2:06

yeah no i think it was cool to get to hear more about that i don't think we've really delved into that too much yet um i know

SPEAKER_00 2:12

that we will but we have we

SPEAKER_01 2:13

will more but uh yeah i think as far as uh i think in the united states we kind of separate the two like marshalling versus the safety rescue team and and over there that's it's not really it's it's all kind of still under the same umbrella, just different. I mean, they'll kind of talk about that, but I think it's going to be really cool for maybe the American folks to kind of hear more about how they do that because you don't necessarily have to have a background in fire EMS. They will train you on all of that if that's something you aspire to, which I think is really unique. I feel like a lot of times, you know, at COTA, for example, if you want to be hired on the safety team, you generally need to have worked as an EMT or a fireman at some point where over there it's like, no, we will give you all the on-the-job training you need to get there. It's going to take a lot of time, but it's cool that they have that opportunity because I can tell you, Jamie, you've been working a little bit with the safety team more and more in your role as a dispatcher, kind of getting to be out there, learning it all hands-on, and it's something I would also love to do, but at the same time, I don't have a background in as a fireman. Right.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Nor do I, to be very clear.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

Yeah, but it would be really cool to be able to do that more but at the same time i i don't have the time to go get a license to be a fireman i'd love to but i don't and so that's why it is kind of the unique thing over there is that like they'll they can get you that training in different ways you don't actually have to be

SPEAKER_00 3:45

right

SPEAKER_01 3:46

working in the in the conventional sense as a firefighter or whatever

SPEAKER_00 3:49

yeah it's an interesting way to do it um you know it it's more by accident that the gentleman we were bringing on have this you know our original intent was hey let's talk to some foreign foreign marshals and it just uh it worked out this way too so it's a great way to introduce it um these guys are really cool and before we get too deep i i'll i will tell you from a personal standpoint that max uh particularly and and the whole pit grid team at miami were really my saviors i had a really rough experience in miami uh with the storm swollen knee and my mobility was really restricted. Max in particular and the pit team in general were really great to me. So I want to extend my appreciation to the Miami PPG team and Max for their assistance and their help to make sure that I was good to go over the weekend that the Miami Grand Prix took place. And as we record this, it will be a The Silverstone Grand Prix has just concluded and both of these guys worked at the Silverstone Grand Prix in the rescue capacity and they can share a little bit of their experience and all of that stuff. So tell us a little bit more about our guests and then we'll kick it to the interview, Jess.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Yeah. So yeah, Max and John, both UK based. They've both done all kinds of stuff, you Marshall's more in the conventional sense as we know it in the States, flagging intervention and stuff like that. And they've kind of since segued. And they'll kind of talk about how, you know, the way their licensing system works over there and how, you know, it is really cool how they have to learn kind of all the different things to be licensed versus here. We kind of talk about this a bit, you know, in the States, if you're an SCCA member, you get licensed in one thing, you know. So like I, for example, have several different licenses, each in a different thing. Over there, it's more of a level. I am proficient in all of these things at this basic level versus if I want to get better at all the things, I can go up. It's kind of a different situation. I think it's really cool how they do it over there. I think it's always going to be more beneficial for you as a marshal to know how those other specialties work instead of just being in your bubble of your one thing. I admire it. I think it'd be cool. I'm not saying we're going to change it here. in the United States, but I think it's definitely something to be encouraged at least, you know, if you do, if you're an FNC, you know, yeah, go, go do some pit grid, you know, go do some other things, you know, to see good start, you know, any of those things that you

SPEAKER_00 6:41

know, what

SPEAKER_01 6:42

you're, you can be a better Marshall to those people in different ways that you may not realize. So yeah, I think it's pretty cool, but yeah, they both are tons of experience. I met John initially at the inaugural Miami Grand Prix and I met Max at the inaugural Vegas Grand Prix they do come over here quite a bit which they were I think it was before we started recording they were saying how they were complimenting the American hospitality at the F1 events here that's all I'm going to say about that we don't want to disparage any of the hospitality the swag and the food might be a little bit better is kind of what we had heard without naming any Grand Prix names but yeah so you will see them a lot if you're in the states and definitely say hi. They're both lovely people. And yeah, I don't know. What else? What else should we say about them? I don't want to say too much because we're about to get into the interview. So we'll leave it there. How about that? And we'll kick it over to that. So this all started when we were in Miami and we have our two guests today, Max Fumagalli and John Benny. And they both came up to me and said hey when are we gonna be on your show and so we came through for you I hope you're not disappointed

SPEAKER_00 8:06

welcome to the podcast gentlemen thank you thank you they

SPEAKER_01 8:11

both are UK based and we're really excited to get to hear about their stories in all kinds of different realms of this marshalling safety rescue this that and the other they've done it all so yeah I think we'll maybe kick off with kind of what we always ask, which is kind of how did you get into all this? Max, you want to start?

SPEAKER_02 8:33

Yeah, sure. First of all, thanks to having me again. And apologies with your audience about my amazing level of English and accent. Yeah, I'm living in UK, but yeah, originally from Italy. And that is where I start marshalling back in 2002 now. Yeah, after many years, more than... 10 years as um uh let's use firefight volunteers in italy in the italian fire brigade uh some part of a chance to to do this job as a fire marshal uh monster and i say okay you know uh let me try and i never stop so this is i just make this intro because back in in a day in in in italy when i start my role was literally fire marshal and a rescue person And then I moved to London in 2012. And a couple of years later, I rejoined the martial world. And I became a Silverstone Martial. 2015, I think, if I reckon. And then I never stopped. I'm an old guy.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Oh, stop.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

That's

SPEAKER_03 9:52

pretty cool. And then in 2022? And then in, what was 2022? 23, Rescue.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

Oh yeah, 2022, I have a chance to meet this guy. He's literally next to me on the camera. John Benny. Then we start talking about my experience in Italy as a rescue and et cetera. And we start talking about why you'd want to join the team here in the UK. And I say, oh my God, because the training is, and John is going to, explain a little bit better is it's a two years training then you need to cover a lot a lot of stuff this is why it's a little bit different than marshalling so it's still volunteer but we are label like official but again two years training and then you need to do an assessment and I say okay I don't know if I can because I'm still old I need to start restudy again some stuff he pushed me a lot so I start enjoy more go back to my my I wrote and I became officially a rescue person person I don't know yeah last I think February end of February or first week of March was go back to my time at uni the worst weekend ever in terms of pressure anxiety and I say oh my god I need to do this if I fail I need to go back to John and say John I failed And start again the trainings. He didn't fail. He was so smart.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

He passed with flying colors. You didn't have to worry about. Yeah, exactly. Not to get too off topic, but I'm curious, what is that final exam? Is it all practical or is it written or both?

SPEAKER_02 11:47

Yeah, there is. No, it's a practical and class. So yeah, and literally we play, my assessment was based, our assessment back in the day was based on five scenarios. So different topics like you call rally scenarios, the racetrack scenarios and motorbike scenarios because as a rescue personnel in the UK and I think in the US too, correct me if John is desperate now, we are covering both medical, part of medical part and of course let's say the extrication and decarceration part. So yeah, it was interesting thing because of course you are going to do your uh your you need to play your scenario like it was real with your team you got your chief and etc and around you there are uh all the people that are going to assess you plus uh in term of casualty we got very good actor with blood with props was literally crazy and you don't know you don't have a script

SPEAKER_01 12:54

wow that's super

SPEAKER_02 12:56

yeah this is That was strange, but I really love it. I can redo tomorrow because now I know.

SPEAKER_03 13:03

That's great. There's a mechanical part to it. There's a medical part to it. Yeah. And there's also a verbal part to it. You have to explain what you're doing, why you're doing it.

SPEAKER_02 13:16

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 13:17

What the outcome will be and also what components you're using, particularly medical components. If you're assisting a paramedic or a doctor, you have to be able to hand them the right equipment. You have to know what you're looking for. So that's what Max went through. And five stars.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

All right.

SPEAKER_02 13:44

To be honest, the stress part was exactly as John described. It's like, okay, maybe you know what you have to do, but you need to be able to explain why you're doing this or why you are changing your plan or you pick a different tools and etc because that is uh is the the final goal for the assessment is like i they know then you've been training for two years and etc but they want to know if you are literally ready to go in case the scenarios became a real scenario as a real treatment and etc

SPEAKER_03 14:17

the idea is that you put the person under pressure because they're going to be pumping adrenaline going to an incident and they need to be ready as well so you don't need people that are going to crack under the pressure you need people that are going to respond

SPEAKER_01 14:35

yeah oh definitely

SPEAKER_00 14:37

that's super interesting and that voice you're hearing contributing to things is John Binney and John is in Scotland and he is should be fairly well known to a number of people that work in the F1 in America world because John makes the trip over to the States quite a lot. And so I've seen you, John, almost as much as I've seen my American friends. So that's a testament, but also great to have you on the podcast as well. You're from Scotland. Tell us a little bit about how you got started.

SPEAKER_03 15:16

Thanks for having me here all the way from Scotland. How I got here? Well, a bit of a fluke, really. I started off with my father going to races, and Jimmy Clark, and Jackie Stewart, and Graham Hill were all racing. And that was in Scotland too. There was a little circuit called Engleston here in Edinburgh. We used to go there every month for the meetings. And Marshall came over to the fence and he said, I see you here most months. And I was an amateur photographer. My father was too. And we were taking photographs and they said, do you want to get a bit closer to the action? Do you want to come this side of the fence? And I said, look to my father, because I was only 15 and a half. And he said, go on, go on. And I said, yes, I'll do that. So he said, next time you're here, come down to the clock tower. That's where the sign dawned. And we'll get you. fluorescent bib and you can come trackside so I did that and I thought I was going to be taking photographs and my father said go on, go on and the guy handed me a yellow flag and he said if any cars come off just you wave that flag on that corner and I said I'm only here to take photographs I don't know anything about this and the rest is history, I became a like martial training and then it became my fully fledged marshal both fire and flag and then a grade called incident marshal which max will know all about because he's an incident officer yeah correct and uh it just went from there age 16 and uh that guy to this day is still marshall with him wow he's 83 years old and he was at the track this weekend at Knock Hill because we transferred from Engelson over to Knock Hill and he still flags he still waves the flag on the start line so there you go Jamie

SPEAKER_00 17:47

so without adding any incriminating details when did this approximately what decade was all of this happening Mr. Benny that was the 70s

SPEAKER_03 18:00

that was 1976 Mere 16. And next year, I celebrate 50 years in motorsport.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Wow, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 18:11

And I had an interview with the CEO of Motorsport UK on Friday. And he wanted to know where all this had come from and how I'd followed my path in motorsport. Somebody must have tipped him the wink, though. I don't

SPEAKER_00 18:31

know who.

SPEAKER_03 18:31

Somebody had told them. So I got a little bit of a footage about my path in motorsport. And 20... 2010, I got fed up standing on the bank getting soaked. Prior to that, I started Formula One in 1998 at Silverstone and completed my 27th Silverstone race, Formula One race, this past week. And I got fed up getting soaked every Sunday. Scotland's not the driest country. And I'll go on to Donna and going to brands and going to other places which were sunnier and warmer, less rain or warmer rain, I decided I might try rescue. And they said, sure, we've got a place on the team, but you'll have to go through two years training. Right, okay. And they took me through my training and since then I've been on rescue. This is my 15th year. And I've encouraged lots of people carefully, like Max Fumagalli, to come and join rescue in various teams. So I'm a bit of a rescue, forgive this word, a rescue tart. I play in various rescue teams up and down the UK and another team somewhere in America, Circuits of the Americas. Oh, we've heard of that

SPEAKER_00 20:15

one. We've heard of that one, yes. I saw you dressed up in those CODA suits too. That was an unusual sight for us, let me tell you. Our

SPEAKER_01 20:27

exchanged student that year. Not really a student, you know, you obviously know what you're doing.

SPEAKER_03 20:35

Not a sport, but yeah, I've had a fairly...

SPEAKER_00 20:41

John, the topic of rescue safety, however it's termed is not one we've covered on the show and especially from your international perspective and though we eventually would like to get to the point where we're talking more about it kind of just in a very big picture terms kind of go over what the role of the rescue team during a large motorsport event be it F1 WECC a weekend event at Brands, something like that. What are the rescue team doing?

SPEAKER_03 21:25

Okay, 90% of the time, they're doing nothing.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

In an ideal circumstance, they're doing nothing.

SPEAKER_03 21:31

There are no incidents until there is an incident, as Max found out. And he already knew that from his incident officer post-chief role. But we're basically trained to wait and we're listening out on the radio and we're waiting for race control to tell us that safety or rescue is going to be needed the first call is for medics and we know that if the medics are going we'll be going too and we're sitting there poised normally four or five in a vehicle which is a cross between a fire appliance and an ambulance come mechanics van and we're waiting for that call we're also listening for anything that might preempt us that will tell us oh that sounds like he's going to slide off the track or she's going to crash into a barrier and that's when their part starts you're going from zero to a hundred the switch to the blue light's on the switch on the siren and you go into that role where you know you're going to use your training you're going to be going to an instant it might be nothing or it might be everything and it can be as minor as the person steps out of the car throws their hands up and says oh look at my car and we get back in the vehicle and let recovery recover it but as in the happenings Three weeks ago at a rally because I cover race, rally and single stage speed events. A car hit a tree at 100 miles an hour. The co-driver of the car was severely damaged, broke his back in four places. The spectators, because it took us getting on for seven minutes to get to him through a stage, he was in the middle of the stage, the spectators actually partly pulled him from the car, but they couldn't totally free him. So our job was to turn up there complete with doctor paramedic and free him from the wreckage really lucky the car didn't ignite didn't catch fire and that is our biggest enemy if we go to a burning vehicle we have to be very cautious we don't become part of the scene and in his case A lot of his body padding saved him because his seat totally crushed and the car was pushed against the tree with the roof against the tree, crumped in and... Very little actually spared him from death. But we were trained. We had him freed from the wreckage, pulled him up onto a banking. The advanced life-saving paramedics started work on him. We got all the equipment out. He got fluids. He got morphine. And from there, we just did our role. It happened around 9 12 9.15 in the evening we left the scene at a quarter past one in the morning they brought a helicopter in from Anglesey which is down in Wales and took him to the major trauma unit in Glasgow flew him approximately 100 miles to Glasgow but from arriving at the scene to loading him into that helicopter was three plus hours of work like we weren't standing watching we got the the safety equipment out we got the scoop out we got the trolley out and then four people came out that helicopter and they did their advanced life saving so that's a typical major trauma incident but as max can tell you it's as small as they've bounced off the barrier and they need to be checked for concussion so they will be taken to a medical center at the track and checked for concussion because concussion can lead to a lot of life-changing situations

SPEAKER_01 26:29

yeah so you this was this was at a rally right you were saying

SPEAKER_03 26:32

that was a forest rally in your real forest.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

I think that's something I'd be interested to hear more about just because that's not really a thing here in the United States, rallies. I don't know if it's because we're such a litigious country and we couldn't allow such a thing. I don't know. But maybe if you guys could talk about what that is.

SPEAKER_03 26:53

Yeah. If you go far enough in North America, you find them at the Canadian border. Washington State and Oregon have rallies but they're very much played down they're not high speed forest rallies they're target they go from point to point and it's more or less a navigational exercise but max can maybe talk more about it too he's a young fresh fledgling

SPEAKER_02 27:26

no we still we still have a lot of rallies in italy because again we we are lucky to have uh they are lucky now because i'm not i'm not in italy anymore but yeah we got mountain and we got a lot of uh um place where literally you can organize i think there is a more or less two or three rallies a month uh during the summer time so it's a lot and uh but the the what what john said literally is uh is the reason why we are happy sometimes to be sit in the van for the entire day doing nothing because uh when we go our call it means then the driver or the co-driver if we talk about the rallies but think about single-seater Le Mans series and etc he had a major crash incident and etc and require our attention so it's like it's sometimes is literally a life treating life situation so yeah it's not it's not it's not easy what we can say about rallies more

SPEAKER_00 28:33

It's a timed race, right? They win based on their time across a predetermined road, basically.

SPEAKER_02 28:44

I mean, there is a lot of category, of course. You go from the World Rally Championship, let's say, is like the WEC or the Formula One Championship through the club meeting. It's based on stages. So let's say we talk about, I don't know, something that I've done many times when I was in Italy, like the Sardinia Rally. So you go, I think when we talk about a World Rally Championship, we talk about six main stages. So there is a start, there is an end. And of course, it's based on time. But you need to go faster and faster. This is when sometimes we go a lot of crash and accident because it's based on the driver's ability, but not only the driver's ability, the co-driver's ability. So it's the who literally can read the notes. Because think about the rallies. It's fascinating for me because as a driver, you're literally driving a car. You don't know where you are going. You've got someone next to you to say, turn left, turn right. And then they use like a terminology, I think it's based on numbers, like six left. It means you go like a turn left, it's open, it's an heartbeat, or it's a close, it's in 100 meters, something like that. But as a driver, you go fast as possible. And, you know, if you start in the first group, maybe the rally stage is still in good condition. If you are in the mid-park or the end of your group, maybe the rally stage is not in the good condition anymore. Your notes are literally something that you can throw outside the car. And you're going to find yourself down the cliff sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 30:31

Yeah, there has been some speculation spectacular um mess-ups uh shall we say you can find them on google um i think the closest thing americans have the the vast majority of the the u.s has is our hill climbs yeah so you know like the pikes peak hill climb and the other the other ones is probably the most similar to a rally it's that style of driving it's just over terrain rather than up a hill i guess is the best way If you've never seen a rally, you should Google it or YouTube it. It is quite an interesting racing experience. It's not like a racetrack. You're out in the middle of nowhere. I'll tell you my one brief rally story is when I was in grad school, I got to go to Scandinavia visit some foreign exchange students that had lived with my family for a while and as I was visiting them I believe I was in Finland and one night very late at night we all packed up and went out to some random hillside and I wasn't even sure why we were there and they set up a picnic and we had a lovely little picnic sitting on the hillside and it was dark and I was wondering what was going on the bugs were biting and then was this glow on our left side and this scream and it got louder and louder and the lights got brighter and brighter and this car just went sailing by at about 100 miles an hour on this dirt road and then it got quiet again and everybody was like yay that was fun and about 10 minutes later here comes another one and it was a whole night of that I had never seen it before I've never seen it since, but it was wild. Yeah, it is wild. It clearly left an impression. It's kind of like a...

SPEAKER_03 32:40

Oh, go ahead. In the UK, they set them off at either 30-second intervals or one-minute intervals through the forests, and they're literally chasing.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

They're chasing each other, right? And if you get caught, you're too slow, so the ideas don't get caught.

SPEAKER_03 32:57

Yeah, luckily they let the fast... They're all classed, and... graded, so they let the fast guys go first so that they get out of the way.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

Right.

SPEAKER_01 33:09

It's kind of like a scavenger hunt type of thing in a way, right? But it's in real life, like out in actual roads. That's a

SPEAKER_03 33:18

target rally, the scavenger

SPEAKER_02 33:21

hunt style. Oh, yeah. In the US, one of the famous, if you think about from YouTube and what he's done, rally driver that I remember was a Ken Block, and

SPEAKER_00 33:34

actually. Right, Ken Block, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 33:36

His daughter, Leah Block, she started as a rally driver. She won quite a few championships, and now she's part of the Williams Academy, and she drove in F1 Academy, so yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:52

Yeah. So it is a start point to going faster. Yeah. And if you've got the rally skills, as Kimi Räikkönen had, Anna Mikkola and Akina then you can adapt it to F1 and onto a circuit because they have the skills to be able to do that

SPEAKER_02 34:19

you learn how you can control your car and how you can fail your car

SPEAKER_03 34:24

the crazy Finns even do it on ice yes

SPEAKER_01 34:30

Botas was he ever into that? I

SPEAKER_00 34:34

would imagine he would, being from Finland.

SPEAKER_02 34:37

Yeah, he's done some rallies too. These

SPEAKER_03 34:41

other guys, Hamilton, do it in karts. They start with kart racing. That is K-A-R-T, not C-A-R-T.

SPEAKER_01 34:55

So you guys both just came back from Silverstone. I don't know when we're going to air this one, but anyway, we're filming this the weekend after Silverstone. So were you both working rescue or safety? We had a conversation before we started recording about what is the actual term. So you maybe correct me of what you guys call it there and then tell us about Silverstone.

SPEAKER_03 35:18

You go first, Max.

SPEAKER_02 35:20

Okay, I'll go first. Just to say, yeah, war in the US has been called a safety team. In the UK and in other countries, we call it a rescue team. So it's more or less the same. No, the Silverstone, I was one of the incident officer. I was not on the rescue because again, I recently became a rescue personnel, like I'm still a newbie for the UK. And incident officer, I think you go, if I remember correctly, you go on episode, one of the first episode when there was, oh my God, I'm so bad, I forgot his name, but now he's He's working for the MotoGP. Oh, Dave Hawley. Yeah. He's playing very well the difference between every role in the UK. Incident officer is something between post chief and OCPM and lead intervention in the US. So we are connected with risk control. And of course, we control the intervention in time of fire incident. And we are the connection between risk controllers and rescue personnel and medic until they arrive on the scene. So I was working at Lafayette Centre, Lafayette Corner. It was my second year in that station. I really loved it because, again, you see the car very close to you. And Silverstone was officially my 55th Formula One Grand Prix. So, yeah, it was... It was

SPEAKER_03 36:59

more than me.

SPEAKER_02 37:00

Yeah, yeah, 55. so I can't believe it but yeah thanks to of course my time in US and in America in the past I think 3-4 years because I'm one of your marshals I caught Miami and Vegas so it was a good weekend to be honest we got a couple of drivers that came visit us and we got a very interesting moment when there is a a video on YouTube with the two, both of two us, so Oliver Berman and Ocon, we literally despawned at the same time in front of us, like we were dancing, and it was raining, and we saw the car literally, I say, okay, they arrive through the tire wall to us, and we go like a really mess, but they managed to go, pass through, cut the grass, and say hello. It was interesting. I

SPEAKER_01 38:00

think I saw that. It was like, they're like ballet. It's like They're synchronized swimming. They're like together at the exact like angle. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:06

My God. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 38:08

Sorry, John. Go ahead. What were you going to

SPEAKER_03 38:10

say? Can I ask Max, were you ready? Was the adrenaline going and ready to go into the rescue role?

SPEAKER_02 38:17

Oh, yeah. Actually, it's interesting what John said because now that I'm covered different role, I need literally to, I'm okay, but sometimes I need to think about, hey, Max, you are not on rescue today so you know I know then I told myself you're ready but you need to stop at some point because you are not officially rescued in that moment so but on the other

SPEAKER_03 38:46

hand you were required

SPEAKER_02 38:48

we could still use your service absolutely it's happened to be honest I remember was I think around May we ran one of the club meeting event on Grand Prix at Silverstone we are lucky then we and split the track in two. We use the national track and international track. And sometimes, based on the event, we go like what we call the Grand Prix track. It's the traditional track that people see on the TV. And at some point, I was there as an incident officer. I was back outside. And I think it was around half past 10, I received a call from our chief incident officer, race control, and say, Max, I think you need to jump on the rescue we need to have a second rescue unit we got some people that are coming down so leave all your stuff and in half an hour you need to be ready and jump in a unit and we did it I did it so yeah sometimes this is like the situation so as John say we need to be ready to cover more or less everything that's

SPEAKER_03 39:57

the beauty of being multi-disciplined that you can stand there and do one role but if the situation changes you're able to change into that role we've got some people particularly at Silverstone who think they're rescue but they're not really and they haven't been trained it's true and actually it's something

SPEAKER_02 40:23

oh sorry it's something that I really recommend to people they want to start sometimes we don't post what we call a test day or back in the day we can call a trainee so new people they want to try and become martial and etc and my suggestion at the time is like listen you got an year or two years something like that try to you know jump from flag to incident to track to assembly to paddock if you have a chance and when you go like a small meeting try pit lane too so you know everything you know what's going on during the weekend, then at some point you can decide. You can be like Jamie starting one day, but I'm sure, Jamie, because you mentioned many times, if tomorrow someone requires you to do just a flag, you're more than happy, like me, to go on post and grab your flag and start flagging. But again, you need to build your knowledge and confidence.

SPEAKER_01 41:27

I think you brought up a really good point in that I think a lot of us have, you know, experience in different specialties, but the importance of staying in your lane, proverbially, like, I feel like that's always something that even though, yes, we could totally leap into action right now, we're not, you know, until we are kind of called upon to do so, we have to, and it can be so hard to not want to go help, but, you know, if you go do that, now what you were brought in to do is now not being covered, and so I think you brought up

SPEAKER_03 41:58

a good point. And that's where you have to have the discipline, you have to be disciplined you're in that role and don't think that you're going to be stepping onto the track and doing another role because you're needed in the role that you're covering

SPEAKER_01 42:16

yes it's very true but you also reminded me of something else that's kind of interesting with Motorsport UK if I recall correctly the way that the licensing works you guys have to train kind of in all the different things versus here I think SCCA is kind of the big one that people get their licenses from. Of course, there are others, USAC and whatnot. But with us, it's like you would specialize in one thing. I'm getting a license in flagging, and that's all I focus on. And then there's a separate license for pit lane, et cetera. But for over there, it is like a general proficiency level of I know the basics of all of them, right? Maybe, John, you could talk a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_03 42:59

So we call it the pathway system. And you come in at an entry level as a motorsport marshal or a corner worker, as you like to say. And then you gain that proficiency. There are three modules you have to cover in the space of a 12-month period. And you have to collect signatures for that. You can't just say, oh, yeah, I used the fire extinguisher. You have to have... demonstrated that you can do that. You have to demonstrate that you understand and know and can use flags and you'll get a signature. each time you do that. And for flags, currently they're looking for five signatures. And it's covered over different disciplines, so different types of event. So there's circuit, there's rally, and there's hill climb or speed events. And you're expected to collect... signatures for each of these, for each of the the roles that you're going to do so Max talked about being an incident officer so you would be an assistant incident out on a post or at an event a rally marching and you would also be flagging you would get your signatures for that and you would be fire and you would have a signature for that and once you've gained that it's not just you know I'm expert now you have to maintain that and that has to be a minimum of every two years you must get the three three roles you must be capable of doing them they're shortly in 2026 going to introduce first aid and basic qualification in first aid so that everybody on a post is capable of responding to a first aid situation that doesn't mean to say they're going to be a paramedic or a doctor or an expert it gives them a basic grounding that if they go, say you were so short of marshals that you had to respond to an incident before rescue get there or safety get there, that you can use these basic skills to save a life. So we've got this, what sounds a rigid system, but it's flexible too. And it's good from the point of view that you don't just have people randomly turning up with no proficiency, no capability. And I'm speaking with my Motorsport UK hat on because I'm a trainer for Motorsport UK and We want to know that the people on post are going to be capable of doing the job and that we can leave them in that team to play their part in the job, just as Max talked about on rescue, doing his training and then being proficient. We've got to be sure that the people we send out there are capable of doing the role that they've been asked to do. So to make it in interesting if they cover all these aspects as Max said they can start specialising and him and I are in a specialised role as officials as opposed to just marshals because we're licensed to do rescue but anybody can pick up the gauntlet and go and do whatever role they would like to do. They're not just channeled to do flag or just work a light controller or just do incident. They get the opportunity to shine and prove that they can be something more. So it's a certain way of streaming people without them knowing it. It's a way of streaming people into these more advanced roles. If they have a technical ability, they can go off and do scrutineering or stewarding, which is a different field again. But they've all got that basic understanding of... what we do, why we're there, and they're capable of doing it. And Max and myself will have to renew our license. We get assist and accredited every three years, and we've got to show our capability so that it keeps it fresh all the time. I did, I'm blowing my trumpet now, I did a qualification called FREC 3 which is first responder emergency care pre-hospital and the 3 is designated as the type of role. There's a 3, 4 and 5 and then paramedic. So on rescue shortly, Max, we're going to have FREC 3 as a minimum standard so that when we're caught in an incident we're capable of providing that pre-hospital care and that's what I did with the guy who broke his back that was all part of our role to prepare him and package him ready to go to hospital but Take my hat off to Motorsport UK. They've certainly grabbed the bull by the horns and a lot of people didn't like it. They said they were happy just being a flag. Well, if you're just happy doing flag, that's fine, but you have to be proficient at it. And that pathway system has led to a lot of people advancing. And we also have cadets, which I don't know if you have in the USA yet. You can be as young as 12 in motorsport.

SPEAKER_02 49:48

You're

SPEAKER_03 49:48

not allowed to go trackside. You can do assembly. You can do paddock. But you must be chaperoned until the age of 14. And then from 14 to 16, you do a qualification. And then from 16 to 18, you advance. Wow,

SPEAKER_00 50:08

that's very young. I think that's a great idea.

SPEAKER_03 50:10

It is in depth, but it works. It really does work.

SPEAKER_02 50:18

And to add something to what John said, going back to your point, Jess, for example, as a track marshal or let's say incident marshal, you need to have a basic knowledge about flags. So part of your signature for your book and then when you're doing an assessment to move from training to track, from track to experience tracking etc is literally days as a flag marshal this is I think I find this very very very important because again not only you acquire knowledge but you know how the flag works and then you know sometimes why some flag marshal are struggling because they receive a call by radio they go maybe not just one but double yellow two flags and then they go the safety card board and then they are just alone so most of the time when I associate situation like this I'm an incident officer if I'm I'm not able to do by myself because maybe I'm busy and all the stuff I grab one of the truck marshals incident marshals say okay go there have the flaggy grab one of the flag or grab the safety car board or pace car board and help him or her because you know we are the same it's not just the same family but literally we are the same team same group so we need to help each other and yeah

SPEAKER_01 51:40

That's awesome. I think that's really good to have that perspective on all the different specialties. I think it's always going to make you better at what you do. So I think that's a very cool way that they do that licensing there. And that can

SPEAKER_03 51:52

be taken not just in the UK, you can transfer these skills across the world. So you go to Le Mans and you're using your flagging skills, your incident skills, your post chief skills and transferable skills. You can take them with you. And that fellow, Fumagalli, came from Italy and had been racing at a track there. He'd been marshalling at a track there and he brought his skills to the UK.

SPEAKER_00 52:24

Some little track in a park in Italy.

SPEAKER_03 52:27

Oh, yeah. A royal park. One circuit at one time, wasn't

SPEAKER_00 52:34

it? Yeah. So, without trying to put you on the spot, I mean, compared to the structure of the UK British European model I mean you must not look down on but well just give us your thoughts on the state of American marshalling based on what you've seen I'm not trying to put you on the spot I'm just based on your experience with both how could our system improve

SPEAKER_03 53:09

It varies from track to track. I've been to Indianapolis Motor Speedway where there's quite a good grip on all the skills. I've been to Daytona where there's a good grip on the skills. I've also been to Sebring and there's less skills there. So it does vary from region to region. Laguna Seca was a bit of an eye-opener for such a prestigious track, but it was down to not having enough personnel to manage it. So people were just getting thrown into roles. And that for me was a sort of light bulb moment compared to the UK system and even in Europe. this model doesn't work so we're hopeful that you'll catch up soon and I can see changes happening in SCCA people like Jessica Olthoff are making changes and improving things and Nadja and yourself Jamie so from my point of view and I have an SCCA card membership and I have two of the probably three grades that are needed on an original level. But yeah, I'm hopeful that things will shake up a

SPEAKER_00 54:45

bit. Do you find that the structure... helps to recruit new faces into the marshalling slash motorsports world? Or do you find that it can be an obstacle? What do you think,

SPEAKER_02 55:05

Max? Our structure or the one in Greece?

SPEAKER_00 55:07

Yeah, no, your structure. In the UK, based on your experience, do you find that people are attracted to the hobby? Hobby, that's a terrible word. The avocation of being a motorsports marshal? Or does it help or hinder you in recruitment, I guess?

SPEAKER_02 55:29

I can say that... In the past two or three years, it became very hard to have the right number of marshals on post. Let me say that. So Motorsport UK, they tried to make this access a little bit easier. But at the same time, if you consider myself, I'm 53 years old this year, so sometimes I'm the youngest in the group. There's no, what I find out in the US, there's more passion because maybe they see, again, all this movement around Formula One and then WC, there are more younger people join us as a marshal. It's a little bit less in the UK. I mean, you can see, you can still see dad with son or mom with daughter and son and et cetera became a marshal together. But it's, it's hard the problem for me is related to people don't want to take time to learn uh unfortunately i don't want to talk about i was watching a video on youtube a couple of days ago and the message i sent as youtube um that video was uh yeah you just need the martiany four days a year and then you know you're part of the team and maybe if you're lucky next year you can do Formula 1 is not the right message because unfortunately our track in the US in America in Canada sorry in America in Canada everywhere in Australia in the UK in Italy we are working every weekend with what we call in the UK club meeting with this amateur race and amateur driver and you need to build your expertise your knowledge your experience as a marshal with that meeting not just a Formula 1 W or the MotoGP. Of course, that is the goal. That is for me still an amazing reward. But, you know, and to go back to your question, Jamie, it's hard, of course, because you say, OK, you know, you need to spend an year as a trainee. Today is no training anymore. It's a grade one. But that year maybe is two, three days a month or if you're lucky. But you need to spend time on track. You need to know what's going on. You cannot just show up once or twice a year and say, oh, yeah, I'm a flag marshal.

SPEAKER_03 58:09

We have to be honest with people from the start. And that's why we've got the pathway, because there's a structure there. And as far as I'm concerned as a trainer, We show them the structure. We say, this is what you're going to have to do. These are the signatures you're going to have to collect. And you will have to come to events of various types to get that what's called accreditation signature, which is the first step. And if they're not prepared to do that. I'll be honest, we don't want them because they're only there for the glitz and the glamour and drive to survive has caused that. Unfortunately, the thing to step into F1 and be trackside and meet some guy driving a make-believe F1 car. But we have to be, that's what we had to do to make the change, to be honest with them and say, there's a bit of study and qualification in this albeit it's on the job yeah but it's not it's an interest but it becomes a role the role you're going to play is safety and you're part of the safety of everybody at that track or at that event

SPEAKER_01 59:41

yeah i'm sure it definitely weeds out the opportunists pretty early because we've kind of touched on that on the show in the past of like the people that I just want to work F1 and that's I don't care about doing anything else and it's just like go that

SPEAKER_03 59:56

way yeah

SPEAKER_01 59:57

it's kind of heartbreaking because it's like you know you said you know you guys have all this intensive training and so that if they were on post and something happened would they know what to do there's a very good chance they would not if that's all they do is come to F1 once a year

SPEAKER_03 1:00:12

well there's the big element of responsibility and everybody's responsible for everybody's safety but not to harp on but I'm a member of Silverstone safety team I had to sit nine different modules just to be accepted on that team since I'm a zero hours contract worker and they weren't going to let anybody near a fire truck or rescue people from a vehicle without the training You don't get step trackside, as Max can confirm, unless you have a degree of ability.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:58

Yeah. So do you have do you feel that there is so, you know, you mentioned drive to survive, which, yes, we've noticed that effect here, too. I mean, both Jamie and I have been working in this before that show debuted. And we can tell you that they used to kind of just take everyone. Right. Because we didn't have tons of marshals. And now it's like there's such an influx of applications. They are able to be more discerning, which is great. Yes, you do have to come in with some experience now, which is the right step in the right direction, as was mentioned. But what happens when. you know we have a shortage like we we need people do you think that this two-year program or a year whatever it is is especially because it's all volunteer you know what's going to happen when that day comes you know max you said that you're one of the younger folks with some of this what's going to happen with when it like the younger generations are just like nah i'm not putting in all this work for free just to do this what i guess what what's going to happen i don't know what do you think is going to happen then or do you expect this to happen i

SPEAKER_02 1:01:58

cannot say before I saw John Rady and he's more prepared to answer this politically question but no the two years training then I mentioned before as really related to rescue so because in two years time is the amount of stuff that you need to do you need to learn because you are touching all the medical I constantly told medical staff but is the amount of signature you need to have on your book. It's a little bit different than the martial part. The martial part, to be honest, could be a year, but it's based on you. It's based on how passionate you go. It's based on where you live. Maybe if you're lucky to live close to Daytona or Sebring or Cotta, you go more or less a chance to do one weekend for sure every month. There's something. I remember the first year back in the beginning, in 2002, the first year as a a martial on track I've done 68 days on track because I was so into every weekend it was an excuse to go there and of course you're if you if you're doing 10 15 days you got just all your signature you you need as a trainee as a grade one in the UK and maybe cost you six months instead of a year again it's based to you of course we we still have a grade one or trainee marshal with the 10 years activity because they are doing just a couple of weekend a year and they say they enjoy maybe that particular race and say i'm happy like this

SPEAKER_03 1:03:45

yeah they won't be doing f1 because you have absolute minimum signatures throughout the year we have to set a standard for that you can't just give a flag job to somebody who turns up to two events a year.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:01

Yeah. I definitely think there's a place for all the, just the more casual people versus it's okay. Okay. That's fine. If you don't want to put in all the time, you can still participate, but you're never going to be a leader of any kind unless you do put that time in. So I think it's definitely good to have the two different kind of ways you can go, but what you've described, which I've fully in support of, of all the training you get, it just, I could see that being a lot, especially considering it is all on your own dime. And so that's what I kind of wonder with, you know, all of this is getting so popular now, you know, is that going to be a concern? I think worldwide, really, that are people going to want to put in that effort? And then if that happens, what's going to happen? Are we all going to be replaced by AI light panels? That I don't know. I know that's kind of happening a little bit, you know? Well,

SPEAKER_03 1:04:53

the lights are accepted. They weren't at first and they We were told, oh, they're just auxiliary to you. You're the primary. But some circuits now, the lights are the primary and you're the auxiliary. But that's the reality. But there's never going to be a point where they don't need human intervention.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:16

Oh, definitely. I just worry that there might come a day when they just, we don't have enough people. So we're, you know, what's going to happen then? I don't know. But that's what we're trying to do here. We're trying to recruit.

UNKNOWN 1:05:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:27

The drive to survive is it's opened up a big audience and where we maybe only had 20,000 people interested, we've now got 120,000. So you can filter. Be more selective. Yeah. And that's where the pathway thing is important because you can set the standard and you say to them, we'd love to have you, but you are going to have to do this so if you want to commit to this that would be great we'll have you

SPEAKER_00 1:06:04

and it's not all bagging on the younger generation either I think many of them just simply don't know of the other opportunities that they can do besides flagging and intervention that's obviously everyone's first introduction is oh I want to go wave a flag trackside or I want to be the one that jumps the barrier and picks up carbon fiber and that's great to a point but at the same time i think a lot of people don't realize that there are other jobs at the track besides jumping over barriers and waving a flag you know there are other roles such as safety and rescue and there are other things that they can move into like the support um you know at moto gp where we're doing um bike recovery and rider recovery and you know those are jobs that have to happen and people that were marshals move up into those because they're available and they need to be filled and you know as people learn about the other jobs that occur on a motorsports weekend then they can start to expand their horizons and I think simply it's beginning in America at least we don't really just even advertise hey you know besides doing these things which you should learn do first get comfortable with later on as you develop and demonstrate your proficiency hey we can use somebody to do this job we can you know you can work down the road after you know what flags are in pit lane or you know in the various other specialties that are there and it's not just waving flags if you want to do more there is more to do you just have to work your way to it you just don't stop up into that role.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:59

You've got to have the basics. The basic understanding. But we have something, I think you have it too, we've got people called race makers and they're the sort of support roles, showing people to their seats in grandstands, telling people which direction to go and things. And a lot of them say, how can I get closer to the action? How can I be part of the action? And they their potentials for marshalling roads, but they will have to follow the discipline, but they're already in a disciplined role. So it's quite easy to make the transition. Just this past weekend, I've had people say, oh, you're doing that, you're wearing that fancy suit. How can I do that? And I'm honest with them and I say, well, you're going to have to go through the pathway process, but it's available.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:56

Here's how you get started, sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:58

And a lot of them are younger people who, obviously have watched TV and decided to get part of Formula One. But hopefully they'll come back to Silverson for all the other events that are on.

UNKNOWN 1:09:16

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:16

Yeah, because you guys have a lot of cool other stuff there, right? Like the British touring cars and

SPEAKER_03 1:09:21

all that. Yeah, classic and vintage. And there's a big one in August called Silverson Festival, which is veteran vintage classic and historic Formula One. So yeah, we've got to keep it interesting.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:39

What are you guys' favorite events to work?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:45

My personal one, the favorite one. I mean, I got two. One is a Silverstone, another one is an Anglesey, John mentioned. The Silverstone one is literally what we call Walter Race. It is the end of the Formula 4 Ford, right? Yeah. The construction is literally Formula 4 Ford from 60. Correct me if I'm wrong, John.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:10

60s and 70s.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:13

70s, yeah. And is a massive weekend we go I don't know how many races and you start literally with a qualifier and then race by race you arrive at the grand finale on Saturday but we talk about be active race 20 minute race just to every 30 minutes and it's so great and every time we go something new say book this date on your calendar do the Walter race it's going to be much more rewarding than a Formula One weekend. Believe me, you go like a lot of car, driver with every skill, you go on track, if you're going on track, many times a day and it's awesome. Unfortunately, it's I think first or second week of November, so rain and you test yourself as a marshal. And the second event that I really love is It's something special because it's called Race of Remembrance. It's the second weekend of November, John, if you remember correctly. Yes, correct. Or third, yeah. Thank you. Second weekend. And it's a 12-hour race split into days. And we call Race of Remembrance because literally on the Sunday is the Day of Remembrance.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:42

We call it Veterans Day. Veterans Day,

SPEAKER_02 1:11:45

exactly. And we usually have a team from US. It's a team with Canadian and American driver and the team. All the team, all the driver are veteran. So again, it's supported by, in the UK, Mission Motorsport. And it's a fantastic race. It's an island in Wales where literally, if you're lucky, if you've got sun, but it's so amazing you've got like nice shift and all the people so happy i mean yeah i really recommend them in once uh once in your life if you've landed in that area to do angle c

SPEAKER_01 1:12:28

nice john how about you what are your faves

SPEAKER_03 1:12:31

you've got all levels of ability at that and you've got people who are paraplegic and quadriplegic driving the car yeah you had one in america called liam i can't remember liam's last name He drove a Daytona and his legs had been blown off in Iraq. And that was the inspiration for Mission Motorsport.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:59

Yeah, it's Mission Motorsport in the UK and Operation Motorsport, I think, in the US. You go in Virginia, if I'm not mistaken.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:11

But it was my favourite, well, I started off with track racing and then I discovered hill climbs, which is a car that's been set off singly to absolutely lash up a track, a single narrow track to the top of a hill. And I enjoyed that, but that then led me to rally. And to be honest, to this day, rally is still my passion. It's to... See and hear what Jamie described earlier, a car thrashing through the forest. There's silence and then you hear the car coming, a blaze of lights at 10 o'clock at night, and then it disappears. It gives you a buzz, you get a real buzz. And the rescue part of it takes you to another place another level of it because you're waiting for the crash and the radio to say that number nine car that just passed you has just left the track but yeah I enjoy Scotland in particular specialise in rally because we've got the forests and we've got snow and the rain and the wind but I enjoy rally and that's where your skills are tested to the limit

SPEAKER_00 1:14:41

just The crashes are big.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:44

Well, if that happens, it's usually a big

SPEAKER_00 1:14:47

one. Yeah, yeah. Interesting. Well, that's a great way to look at it. But when you come to America, you guys spend a lot of time in pit lane, too.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:58

Yeah. Yeah, that's correct. Actually...

SPEAKER_00 1:15:00

Where nothing happens.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:02

Huh?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:02

Where nothing happens. Nothing happens in pit lane, right.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:07

Yeah, in... My first Grand Prix in... in America was in 2017, I was lead intervention turn 16 Kota. Yeah, in front of the tower. And then I take a little bit, a step back doing all the stuff because I try to, when I travel around the world to do, for example, Formula One or endurance race, I try to do something different. So then I had a chance, thanks to one of our good friends and your colleagues friends to brian pitts to jump in this i think it's particularly team related to ppg we call recovery so we are working with pit lane marshall in recovering a formula one or all the cars so they are literally running during the weekend and i really enjoy because it's a crazy moment you you work and support we call a support paddock and and the main paddock and we are is a never effort and nothing

SPEAKER_00 1:16:19

happens nothing ever happens John we're going to get you a t-shirt that says nothing will ever happen and then

SPEAKER_03 1:16:29

but

SPEAKER_02 1:16:29

yeah but to be honest this experience on what we call PPG team and greed team give us both of us a chance to start sharing our knowledge. So with Brian and other people, with Nigel's support, our chief in the US, we started years ago doing some training for pit lane marshals. So how you can recover a car, how you lift a car, how you can push, you clear the grid in case there is what we call a stroller and etc. So I really enjoy doing this. And then it was

SPEAKER_03 1:17:13

extended, wasn't it, in Vegas to training the intervention team?

SPEAKER_02 1:17:18

Yes. Then we extended this training in Vegas, the first year in Vegas. And now I think it's become something common because I know Jim Robertson then was one of your guests, I think a couple of episodes ago. He's still doing a training session for Flag Marshal again for for the Vegas Grand Prix. So by stealth, we're

SPEAKER_03 1:17:45

introducing training.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:47

Yes. Infiltrating. No, it's been really good. I think I attended the Zoom call last year for Vegas, Max, that you kind of did some hosting on, which was great. And so now I think no one's ever going to say no to training. It's just more of getting people passionate to want to do it. Because it is. It's a labor of love. Because you guys have to put all that together. Yes. now it's I think it's I can tell you that I've seen a lot of efforts been made to do better with training the time I've been doing this that's thanks to you guys quite a bit yeah I had a discussion

SPEAKER_03 1:18:22

after Miami didn't we where we thought we could put in the next steps and extend it further and that's for another day

SPEAKER_00 1:18:37

for a future episode

SPEAKER_03 1:18:38

there you go I did see you Jessica attend a training session that you were witnessing?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:48

Which? For Miami? Which one are we talking about?

SPEAKER_03 1:18:51

Kota.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:53

Kota. I attended. Which one was it? Sorry. What are we talking

SPEAKER_03 1:18:58

about? Just before you went to Japan, you attended a day where they were showing you sea extrication.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:06

Oh, yes. I think we were both. You sent somebody? Yeah, we were all there. Yeah, it was really well done. Yeah, well, we need to have some Kota safety guys on one of our shows.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:20

Oh, that the play

SPEAKER_01 1:19:21

yes they're they do a really good job of all that so great i don't want to more on that i we could probably go jamie that would be his more realm since he's an extension of the safety team but yeah anyway but yeah no it's always cool to get to see how that's done for sure even if we're not out there just to have the perspective so yeah

SPEAKER_03 1:19:41

as you can tell i'm all about training training training yes

SPEAKER_00 1:19:45

that's the way to be it's uh that's where safety comes and we spread the knowledge and, you know, as you train it, you learn. And so, you know, the, the more you do it, the more it becomes a part of your thinking and your natural response.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:06

Um,

SPEAKER_00 1:20:06

just last night I was training a new Marshall. And one of the things that I'm a big believer in is if you want to be a new Marshall, you need to practice being calm and how are you going to communicate practice, hypothetically, scenarios of a contact a spin an impact into the wall you know practice that you can do that on your own time while you're commuting to work while you're driving to the track practice your radio calls little things like that make you better and training is just a natural extension of learning that from somebody who knows more it's not an indicator that you're a poor marshal it's that everyone can get better and the The better we are as a team, the better we'll be as a track. And the better we are as a track, the better we are as a motorsport unit in the country we're operating in. You know, every little cog in the wheel is an important one.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:06

So maybe to wrap up here, Max, we got to do a shout out to you. He's a movie star. I don't know if anyone knows this. Do you want to tell everyone about your experience? experience on the F1 film, although, you know, of course, I don't want you blowing any NDAs, but...

SPEAKER_02 1:21:26

No, no, no. I was hoping to be a star in the movie. No, it's interesting. So, as you know, a lot of shooting, recording for the movie was done between Silverson and Monza on a truck, and at some point was, I think, a Friday, then At the end of the session, as a rescue personnel, usually you spend more time than the marshal on duty. More or less at the end of the day, one of the person in the production say, we need to do a check with the two Ferrari driver and we need people on pit wall ready to go. It was one of the changes being cut around crash and etc. At Monza, we usually wear a red helmet with a gold visor, like in Monaco and etc. So yeah, at the end of the day, I was so excited because the director, Joseph Kosinski, literally spent two hours with me and my colleagues, direct us for a five-second cut. And again, two hours. Visor, look right, look left, be ready, etc. And I was so excited. I had to say, yeah, I want to be in the film. I'm going to be in the film. Then I watched the film and the only part that I see of myself is literally my back next to the Apex GP pit wall. And that's it. By eight, I'm still there.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:06

You're still in the movie. That's your back. That's your back.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:09

It's my back.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:12

We'll see you at the Oscars. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's

SPEAKER_03 1:23:16

the problem with rescue. They only want to know us when we're rescuing us. I

SPEAKER_01 1:23:22

have to say without giving any spoilers, although this will probably air, you know, I would think everyone who's wanted to see the movie has seen it by now, but there is a scene at Silverstone where a wreck occurs. It won't give any other details. And the cavalry shows up the ambulance, the safety truck. And this was one of the goofs that I wrote down on my list of all the inaccuracies. No one gets out. So Brad Pitt gets out of the car and like not a single fireman. Nope. They all get out. They all showed up on the scene, and then they stayed in their vehicles. And I remember thinking, like, that would really happen. Like, that's the worst safety team in the world right now. They're just like, oh, he's fine. We're just going to stay in our vehicles.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:03

And

SPEAKER_01 1:24:04

I'm thinking, like, John is probably not going to be happy to see this, that this is Silverstone's, like, safety team doing nothing on this

SPEAKER_03 1:24:12

situation. I know. The problem there, only one guy was getting paid.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:18

That's, I figured, yeah, it was a bunch of people. actors, but anyway,

SPEAKER_03 1:24:23

so

SPEAKER_01 1:24:24

we wanted to give your chance to clear the name of the Silverstone Safety Team on the show and say that they're really good at what they do, and they don't just stay in the vehicles like you've seen in the film, right? No, they don't.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:38

And we have to remember that's only a movie.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:42

Oh, absolute. That's the absolute thing that people have to remember is it's always only a movie so

SPEAKER_01 1:24:52

yeah

SPEAKER_00 1:24:53

Hollywood did it did its thing but that's they did

SPEAKER_01 1:24:56

yeah yeah anyway well I think this is is there anything else that we we didn't cover I know it's a little late for you guys where you're at so I don't want to keep you too long but anything else that you want to talk about

SPEAKER_03 1:25:09

we could talk for hours and hours

SPEAKER_00 1:25:11

yes we could but we won't

SPEAKER_02 1:25:15

but we won't but we won't

SPEAKER_03 1:25:17

exactly

SPEAKER_00 1:25:19

John Ben Benny and Max Fumigalli, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you guys on the podcast and it's always great to see you again, although our listeners won't see you, but they'll hear you and it's great that you were able to bring your perspective on marshalling, particularly the safety rescue side and all of the pieces that go into it and show us how things are on the other side of the pond and, you know, to give us credence, you know, I'm mean it's not a real motorsports podcast until it's got a foreign accent on it so you know now we've touched that base and now we've got our foreign accents so dave got us started but you guys will really push us into that true motorsports world with these uh class accents you bring to us

SPEAKER_03 1:26:11

thank you thank you thank you it's been fun

SPEAKER_01 1:26:14

yeah i hope hopefully we'll see you somewhere sometime later this year usgp

SPEAKER_00 1:26:19

maybe when are you Come in the next time.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:22

I'm coming to Kota for the Formula One. I think, John, you are down for WEC?

SPEAKER_03 1:26:28

Yes, I'm going to the Lone Star.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:31

Ah, the Lone Star Le Mans.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:34

And then F1.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:38

Awesome. So everybody can meet the stars of the show when they're at USGP. John

SPEAKER_00 1:26:47

will be wearing the T-shirt that says, nothing will ever happen. That's

SPEAKER_01 1:26:51

right. And then everything will happen wherever he's

SPEAKER_03 1:26:58

stationed. We don't use the word on rescue and the word is quiet. Never

SPEAKER_00 1:27:03

use the Q word. Nope.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:09

Well, thank you both. It's been great. We'll talk to you soon then. Absolutely. Thank you. Thanks, guys. Bye.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:19

And that was John Benny and Max Fumigali visiting with us about the UK system and the marshalling approach to things which I really find both fascinating and really I think it's a great thing and I honestly my personal opinion is that I wish we would do more of that with the SCCA and other entities where possible cross training do Doing the formalized training that they have so nicely formalized in Great Britain and Motorsport UK. I think that's a great model for us and I wish we did more of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:06

Yeah, I agree. And I think it just goes to show just how dedicated they are over there. I mean, they kind of talked about all the years that they put in and they're all volunteer. Everybody is a volunteer there. And so it's all, you know, you're having to go to all these things all the time. the time and so if you're a marshal in the uk and you have these upgraded licenses they talk about that means you're doing it for the right reasons because you love it you know it's i think they kind of talked about how you know they they tell people up front okay if you want to get in this absolutely we can make it happen but you here's what you have to put in and he kind of said john i think kind of said we we kind of know early on who's gonna go the distance and who isn't right so yeah

SPEAKER_00 1:28:48

and and you know it's an important thing for a race organizer for a promoter to know that the people that are going to be out there like john john verbalized to know that the people that are going to be out there can do the job that is a huge thing um sometimes i wonder if our organizers and promoters can really honestly say that in the american events because i know there are times where you know we're grabbing people not last minute but you know, they just haven't, we haven't internalized such a structure that makes it easy for us to train marshals and put qualified marshals in leadership positions. Yes, almost certainly. But, you know, do the marshals know what to do in the event of an emergency, uh, that kind of thing. And, you know, I don't know if the answer is always yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:48

Yeah. I think it's just hard, especially, you know, with, we have three ground and here now and if you're a marshal you're volunteering so it is on your own dime and the United States is a very big place it's not like you can just fly from Vegas to Miami cheap yes exactly and so I think a lot of people are kind of picking and choosing you know I'd love to do them all but I just you know I can't swing it so I'm only going to do one and so I think we're kind of seeing more of that because there are so many and so I think with that being said it is kind of going to be hard to get the numbers we need you know and And so I could tell you, I'm sure we'd like to see more training, but sometimes you just, we just need, we need people. And so it's, it's, it's kind of the sad kind of reality in that kind of thing sometimes. So I think always, if you want to be a sure thing with all this or maybe move up, you know, definitely keep that in mind, you know, go volunteer at other stuff, local stuff, little stuff. We've talked in the past on the show about, you know, those, those smaller events that the club racing level or even HPD like high-performance drivers education events. I mean, you do it all there. And so you're going to get so much more experience hands-on. You know, F1 is awesome in different ways. But at the same time, you know, they bring all other people in to do stuff. And if, you know, a situation arose, you know, would you be able to leap into action and know what to do based on the experience you got? The small stuff, you know, I don't know. You're kind of doing yourself a favor to go and learn all that. You know, you can save some time. someone's life literally

SPEAKER_00 1:31:24

absolutely

SPEAKER_01 1:31:25

so

SPEAKER_00 1:31:25

but well they're lovely guys their time uh very valuable and we're thank them very much for coming on to the program with us and uh hope you enjoyed it do say hi to them if you see them at the in the tent at kota or if you're at wec look for john he's uh gonna be there i don't know what color he'll be wearing he might be a marshal him up and the safety team forgot to ask him but anyway uh Um... Yeah, that's all good. So, okay, just the big question. We've both seen the movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:01

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:02

What do we think of the movie?

SPEAKER_01 1:32:05

All right. I'll do the sandwich thing. I'll say something nice, then I'll say something bad, then I'll try to say something nice again. I thought the visual effects were really well done. It's pretty amazing. I think it's no secret that they filmed at actual Grand Prixs. and that's public information but they never actually filmed with the field they'd filmed by themselves and so the fact that they were able to insert those fictional cars in and make it look so real i have to say was really quite

SPEAKER_00 1:32:39

yeah the visuals were the best part of that movie i thought

SPEAKER_01 1:32:42

so kudos to them on that um how about you what with that aspect anything else to add before

SPEAKER_00 1:32:48

i get more critical i thought that that the way that they integrated the fee of an F1 event was very well done if you've been to an F1 Jessica you and I have unprecedented access so we get to see kind of the core kind of things that are similar to I mean we don't get paddock access and team access but when we're at an F1 we get to see you know the paddock club stuff the pit lane stuff and you know we're we're immediately adjacent I think to the stuff you see in the in the film and that felt very real that felt like it was spot on and kudos to them for that because you know they were very tightly integrated I remember seeing the apex garage at one of the Grand Prix's I think it was Miami where you know the garage was there as a part of the lineup and you know it was really neat to see and you know we saw how much filming they did at Vegas last year every downtime between sessions the filming cars were out there and they were out there and there was a scene that they shot in Vegas I won't go into detail that wasn't even used the famous deleted scene so maybe the Vegas folks will will want the extras that come with the movie once it's available for sale because there were some things in there that weren't you So that was, you know, it was fun to be a part of the process. And I thought it was very authentic, if not realistic.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:31

Yeah. That was going to be my kind of critique is that I thought the plot was.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:36

Oh, the plot was ridiculous.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:39

Yeah. It just seemed, I mean, I get it's Hollywood, right? You have to cater.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:43

Hollywood has to Hollywood.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:45

Yes. And so I was not surprised at all. I can't say that I was, yeah, any of that would really happen. And even like some of the rules that they in, f1 like that's not a thing that's not a thing not a huge plot point is not allowed um i don't know i maybe we'll we'll do

SPEAKER_00 1:35:05

it we are terrible movie watchers we're just don't ever take us to a movie especially if it involves racing we are terrible movie watchers

SPEAKER_01 1:35:15

right um but then there was that i thought it kind of glorified kind of playing dirty uh without um which is also kind of it seemed a little strange to me that they were wanting to kind of make like suggest that that that this might really be a thing I mean we there's been drivers that have been banned for doing the things that they kind of show and then just the I can't say not not to darken the room but I can't say I was thrilled about the depiction of the the women characters

SPEAKER_00 1:35:44

and you know that's been a fair point you know the the females in motorsport accounts I follow them believe it or not more I'm linked in than I do anywhere else. Um, they had some very valid points about the way women were depicted in that movie. And I can't say I disagree with them. That was, it was, I, everybody's going to say I'm not a romantic and I really am, but you know, the minute you, you kiss somebody in a racing movie, you've lost me, you know? I mean, it's like, I like the Ford versus Ferrari. Cause there weren't, frankly

SPEAKER_01 1:36:25

yeah

SPEAKER_00 1:36:25

in that movie there were no women and

SPEAKER_01 1:36:27

yeah no but it was

SPEAKER_00 1:36:29

yeah it would have been kind of like a you know i i well never mind i i digress i i didn't need the romance that that i know why we're doing that but it was completely

SPEAKER_01 1:36:42

it was ridiculous they

SPEAKER_00 1:36:43

had to throw in something yes

SPEAKER_01 1:36:46

they had to throw in a reason for all the men that were going to go see this movie to drag their wives and girlfriends with them to have

SPEAKER_00 1:36:52

some sort of romantic storyline I guess not that they're not going to go for Carlos signs and all that, but anyway, that's whatever.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:00

That was kind of like a, uh, but the other thing I will say to maybe try to try to make this slightly more positive to anybody here. That's that's marshalling or into this, like a hardcore fan. I challenged you to make a list of all the inaccuracies. Cause that was

SPEAKER_00 1:37:16

probably the most fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:18

I have like 12 at least that just, um, from the marshalling standpoint, I don't know if we want to, I don't want us to No, no,

SPEAKER_00 1:37:24

no. We'll do this in a future episode.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:27

When it comes

SPEAKER_00 1:37:27

out. That's your homework for this episode. Watch it again and build your list of all the inaccuracies, the things that weren't right according to the rules.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:39

Yes. I'll give you one. I'll give you one to start off

SPEAKER_00 1:37:41

with. And I'll give you another one.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:43

Okay. It happened in the first three minutes of the whole film. So they open and it's, and this is not a spoiler. They open and it's at the Rolex 24 and the Brad Pitt character is, is, getting ready for his night shift and he's gone out and the chief of the team who is inches away from the pit stop place is smoking a cigarette like that would happen like right where they're about to be fueling like two feet away so that's one of the things that I just as a marshal you can't turn it off so the dumb things you know so I challenge you to make a list of all the well that's not how it really works things especially in relation to marshals so what was yours

SPEAKER_00 1:38:23

mine was a continuity error um mine was an error it wasn't a marshall all no no because this one would have come from race control so mine was a continuity error and and i never remembered exact details and things so i may get this wrong in my description but there's a point in the race and i believe during the race it's in abu dhabi he comes around the final turn and And they are clearly racing, but there's a VSC sign on the TSP board.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:01

Oh, yeah, you're

SPEAKER_00 1:39:03

right. Even though it's a racing situation, there's a VSC sign on the racing, on the TSP board. I believe it's at Abu Dhabi as he's coming out of the final turn to complete a lap. It's just very brief. It's just very quick, but it says VSC and it shouldn't be there.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:21

And they shouldn't have been. Yeah, I noticed earlier in the film, another one on my list was there was a vsc sign with a yellow flag now granted that could have been the incident so i don't want to like fully count that

SPEAKER_00 1:39:31

one we may have been talking about i don't think we're talking about the same incident so it

SPEAKER_01 1:39:36

was earlier mine was

SPEAKER_00 1:39:37

definitely you and i are gonna have to go sit together not in a movie theater because we'll drive people crazy once it comes out on streaming you and i are gonna sit next to it and just dissect it then we'll then we'll do our podcast should we

SPEAKER_01 1:39:50

do like a live commentary like a whole just

SPEAKER_00 1:39:53

no we will not Not do a commentary reel, although that is super tempting.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:58

There's one other one I'll mention and then we'll stop. And it's not anything to do with racing. There's a scene where there's a hospital in Las Vegas. That's all I'm going to say. And out the hospital room window is the Mirage. So I also am not aware of any high-rise hospital in the Las Vegas trip. Are you, Jamie?

SPEAKER_00 1:40:20

No, I cannot say that I am. That

SPEAKER_01 1:40:22

was the other one I noticed that You could see the old Beatles love marquee that was on the Mirage Hotel and Casino, future site of the Hard Rock, by the way. But anyway, I had

SPEAKER_00 1:40:34

to call that out. Jessica and her obligatory Hard Rock job.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:37

But I just was like, huh, I'm not aware of any hospitals on the Vegas Strip, certainly one that wouldn't have a room that high up in the

SPEAKER_00 1:40:44

air. Right. So

SPEAKER_01 1:40:45

these are the kinds of things, but there's a lot of marshalling interesting things. So we encourage you all, watch it again. You could probably make a drinking game out of it. Well,

SPEAKER_00 1:40:57

there you go. There's our hashing of the F1 the movie. So what do we think about Apple being the rights holder to the television broadcast? Have you heard about that? I did not hear

SPEAKER_01 1:41:12

about

SPEAKER_00 1:41:13

that. Apple is apparently in the lead based on an article I read this week that Apple is apparently the high bidder for the F1 streaming rights or broadcast rights in America beginning I think next year maybe the year after I'm not full we'll keep you posted let's just say I think that would be an interesting tie in I think both ways good and bad could be good could be bad

SPEAKER_01 1:41:44

yeah I could see them trying to capitalize more on just having that relationship to make a TV show like a scripted show about this I could totally see that's maybe why. I mean, right now it's ESPN, right? Which is Disney. Correct. And so

SPEAKER_00 1:42:01

ABC.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:02

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:03

Like the Coda race will show up on ABC because of it's the whole media conglomeration thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:10

Yeah. No, I had not heard that. So we'll see. We'll see what happens.

UNKNOWN 1:42:16

All right.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:16

So anyway, well, Jess, it's always been fun to sit and hash out some motor sports with you and a few of our friends.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:22

Yeah, definitely. We have, we have some exciting guests coming up soon. So really excited to, to get some more of our shows

SPEAKER_00 1:42:29

booked. We have, we have a few already done that need published, but that that's my problem. And that will happen probably by the time you hear this one. So.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:40

All right. Look forward to it. Cool. Sounds good. All right. Thanks, Jamie.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:46

You betcha. And this podcast is copyright of its owners and creators. And though Jessica and I are employed by circuit of the America, Nothing we say represents an official opinion of or endorsement from the circuit or any of their clients or series. We might mention every opinion you hear on this show is that of the speaker. And with that, we will wind things up on this episode of Trackside, the podcast from Marshalls. Just, it's been a blast. I will see you next time.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:17

Sounds good. We'll see ya.