The Importance of marshals

BristolBlue
Edited Date/Time 10/13/2015 6:38pm
Yesterday Me and my son attended the Weston Beach Race. For those in the US it is a massive national event where a huge field of riders do a 3 hour race on man made dunes on Weston Super Mare beach. All levels of rider can enter from club man right up to professional GP riders.

I was horrified to witness this crash through the lack of good marshalling. The sport is dangerous enough without having to put up with s**t organisation.

The ticket prices were £20 per adult and approximately 100,000 people attended this years event over that weekend. I can't believe there wasn't enough money to pay for a pair of good trained marshals on each dune. Unbelievable...

The video is quite graphic...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHzSsbKalRk

RHL the people who ran this event should be ashamed.



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RMT
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RMT 10/12/2015 9:24am
10/12/2015 9:24am Edited Date/Time 10/12/2015 9:26am
Dear God that was ugly. Any idea on his condition? I mean if its as bad as it looks, Im not sure I would keep that posted here.
Hut
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Hut 10/12/2015 9:25am
10/12/2015 9:25am
Brutal, I hope that man survived? What is his condition?
BristolBlue 10/12/2015 9:35am
10/12/2015 9:35am
Im not sure of his condition but he was actually communicating with the medical staff while they attended to him.

I not having a downer on the event as it really is a great day out but accidents like this can and should be avoided. It was totally down to a lack of marshals. You can hardly blame the guy who hit him either. With no flags he was still in race mode.
Josh422
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Josh422 10/12/2015 9:36am
10/12/2015 9:36am
That was hard to watch, I hope he's ok.

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dak446
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dak446 10/12/2015 9:58am
10/12/2015 9:58am
FWIW, one of the comments on the YouTube page says:

"He has a broken eye socket, broken jaw and fucked ribs from what I know".

I hope that's all - could have been much worse.
GeorgiePorgie 10/12/2015 10:34am
10/12/2015 10:34am
That is why we need to have wheels on the ground when a yellow flag is flown.

I hope there was a flag man on the other side of that jump and the rider disobeyed it. No excuse for no flaggers.
bvm111
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bvm111 10/12/2015 12:13pm
10/12/2015 12:13pm
im not clicking on it.... not going to do it
BristolBlue 10/12/2015 3:14pm
10/12/2015 3:14pm
GeorgiePorgie wrote:
That is why we need to have wheels on the ground when a yellow flag is flown. I hope there was a flag man on the...
That is why we need to have wheels on the ground when a yellow flag is flown.

I hope there was a flag man on the other side of that jump and the rider disobeyed it. No excuse for no flaggers.
There was NO marshals on this jump that was my point. There was one on the one before and after but not this one...shocking.
Andy_Greenney 10/12/2015 3:18pm
10/12/2015 3:18pm Edited Date/Time 10/12/2015 3:37pm
This has been on the cards for a while, the first row of dunes are completely blind and the top guys hit them and launch, even if someone isn't down I have seen some close calls with people almost getting landed on. They definitely need to look into that, its got a lot safer (and little more dull) since they halved the numbers and staggered the start.
Dx3moto
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Dx3moto 10/12/2015 3:21pm
10/12/2015 3:21pm
One of the comments on the video says he suffered a broken eye socket, jaw, and some broken ribs. Not sure if credible, but if true, lucky that's the only thing that happened. Yes those injuries sound rough, but better than paralysis.
cwtoyota
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cwtoyota 10/12/2015 3:39pm
10/12/2015 3:39pm
That was just about the worst possible situation. I sure hope that guy recovers from his injuries.

Landing on someone is the only real fear I have in this sport...
It happened to me before for the same reason, no flaggers on a blind double.
When you're in the air coming down on someone there is nothing you can do. It is the worst feeling I have ever had in my life.
The Rock
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The Rock 10/12/2015 6:13pm
10/12/2015 6:13pm
You guys are a bunch of sissies. Racing is dangerous so get used to it. And most importantly more people aren't getting hurt it's only the Internet making us more aware of it. (Have I missed any dumb azz responses?) All sarcasm aside:

Donovan Mitchell got his career ending injury at a DITD event that also collected Fonseca. Lobito fared much better with only a split helmet while Donovan was paralyzed. The flagger left his position and ran down to render aid so riders kept coming.

As long as racers continue to race with poor flagging race organizers and some promoters will continue to provide poor flagging.
rubarb
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rubarb 10/12/2015 10:06pm
10/12/2015 10:06pm
Doesn't Trip preach about this?
Radical
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Radical 10/13/2015 1:56pm
10/13/2015 1:56pm
After watching this video I've decided that if I'm ever in this situation, I'm going to treat it like I went down in the middle of a freeway, and get off the track immediately and until traffic clears.

That was gnarly.
Andy_Greenney 10/13/2015 2:10pm
10/13/2015 2:10pm
Radical wrote:
After watching this video I've decided that if I'm ever in this situation, I'm going to treat it like I went down in the middle of...
After watching this video I've decided that if I'm ever in this situation, I'm going to treat it like I went down in the middle of a freeway, and get off the track immediately and until traffic clears.

That was gnarly.
The traffic doesn't clear at the beach race, its a constant flow. There are usually marshals on top of the dunes guiding people around though.
Sir Roostsalot 10/13/2015 6:38pm
10/13/2015 6:38pm
Didn't watch the vid, don't need to. The importance of flagging (marshaling) simply cannot be overstated. I have felt this way ever since running over a downed riders neck in 1981 when I was 11 years old. Thankfully he was OK, but I don't think he kept racing. I think the biggest factor is that flaggers need to realize that they are NOT spectators, and they are NOT medical personell, they ARE traffic cops.

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