World Series By Renault

ChrisA · 10 Sep 2006, 21:07 (Ref:1707374)

Just got home from Donington Park. Three excellant days, 10 good races( including the Clios), good company on post and a reasonable finish time 5 pm. Just a pity it took the best part of THREE hours to get out.

Alan Crook · 11 Sep 2006, 07:20 (Ref:1707613)

I agree with Chris a very good meeting, just a shame it was decided to empty all of the public car parks before allowing any cars out of the centre of the circuit where the majority of marshals were parked.

There was a shortage of marshals with most posts only having an observer or flag not both (and many not graded for the job they were doing). With a wait of 2 1/2 hours to get out of the circuit with no cars moving at all I cannot see anything other than a decrease in marshal numbers at this meeting in future years.

Stack · 11 Sep 2006, 07:27 (Ref:1707616)

I think you can blame too many meetings for the lack of marshals. I would have been there exept for Rockingham and the Britcar 24 took a lot as well not to mention Oulton and Snett.

Delta Caller · 11 Sep 2006, 11:28 (Ref:1707837)

Agree with Alan had some brilliant racing superb . but again Donington strikes once more and does not give a stuff about the marshals, locking all the access points to the circuit didn't even give 10 mins for everyone to get out.

rbs · 11 Sep 2006, 11:35 (Ref:1707851)

I parked on the outside of the circuit and walked in by the exhibition centre having been told it would be difficult to get out after racing had finished.It still took over 90 minutes to get on the M1 ! .

ianpearson · 11 Sep 2006, 11:51 (Ref:1707865)

I don't think marshalls were targeted directly, the public car parks were grid locked, mainly due to selfishness I have rarely witnessed in this country before. Two orderly ques to get out until people fealt the need to drive from the back of their que to the front then push in, can't belive people let them in anyway. There was no organisation to get cars back out, After an hour or so, cars were even driving through a hole in the fence onto the main road.
Another thing that horrified me about the weekend was the number of people sitting in the prohibited areas against the de-bre fence.
Good racing but opening motorsport to the masses don't half attract some right hand shufflers

JimW · 11 Sep 2006, 12:01 (Ref:1707875)

Quote:

Originally Posted by ianpearson

. . .
Another thing that horrified me about the weekend was the number of people sitting in the prohibited areas against the debris fence.
Good racing but opening motorsport to the masses don't half attract some right hand shufflers

Yes, but to give credit where due, when I asked some people to move behind the fence (having waited until the sound of engines suggested that cars were out on track) they smiled and did so cheerfully. (And they did not creep back under the fence once I had walked back to the unit).

Not like some big meetings I can remember.

Regards

Jim

ianpearson · 11 Sep 2006, 12:14 (Ref:1707895)

Quote:

Originally Posted by JimW

Yes, but to give credit where due, when I asked some people to move behind the fence (having waited until the sound of engines suggested that cars were out on track) they smiled and did so cheerfully. (And they did not creep back under the fence once I had walked back to the unit).

Not like some big meetings I can remember.

Regards

Jim

This was the biggest meeting I've attended for years, mormally compete in club stuff. I'm sure most would move when asked, can't believe you even should have too. There were children that watched the whole of the last f renault uk race against the fence at redgate with proud parents standing by.

good day out none the less

Paul Newns · 11 Sep 2006, 12:27 (Ref:1707909)

Glad I missed it. Getting out of Silverstone was dead easy!

ChrisA · 11 Sep 2006, 15:47 (Ref:1708074)

One thing I forgot to mention, Di Hardy in a SKIRT, you don't see that very often?

Hepatic · 11 Sep 2006, 17:07 (Ref:1708135)

sounds like a typical big Donington meeting, it's not just marshals that's affected - everyone is. I've done MotoGP and World Superbikes with much the same problem, as did the Download Festival. Once you're out on the roads (and everyone is travelling in the direction they should be) it's not usually too bad, but getting off the 'Park is a mare. Zero organisation leads to a free for all, same happened at Rockingham for the 2nd Indy event, but having one exit for a massive field didn't really help matters...

HistoricRacer · 11 Sep 2006, 18:09 (Ref:1708158)

I heard that there had been an accident the other side of the tunnel which was causing a lot of the trouble. Also was told that as there were that many people going through it was unsafe to let the cars out.
we all got home safely, so I don't see a problem as there was always going to be a problem due to the number of spectators

Goosey · 11 Sep 2006, 20:47 (Ref:1708311)

Great weekend for me on Post 17. Extremely busy on Saturday with at least one coming off in each session nearly!!
Just wondering if anyone had recorded the coverage, and if they have clips of the off's at Coppice?
Anyway the photographer that was on our post at one point snapped me bringing the bonnet back at the end of the session after the course car said leave it till the end of the day to pick it up. Here's the pic anyway...! (im the one with the bonnet lol)

ChrisA · 11 Sep 2006, 20:59 (Ref:1708324)

Tuesday night 8pm to 10pm on MotorsTV. Apparently both races and interviews, not sure if the Meganes are on.

Mike Kelly 1 · 11 Sep 2006, 21:13 (Ref:1708337)

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChrisA

Just got home from Donington Park. Three excellant days, 10 good races( including the Clios), good company on post and a reasonable finish time 5 pm. Just a pity it took the best part of THREE hours to get out.

Glad I did the 24 hours instead. The race finished at 17:00 and I was out of the circuit by 17:22 even after going to race control for the results sheet!

Bet you didn't get fed at Donny!!!

Sheila M · 11 Sep 2006, 21:32 (Ref:1708347)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goosey

Great weekend for me on Post 17. Extremely busy on Saturday with at least one coming off in each session nearly!!
Just wondering if anyone had recorded the coverage, and if they have clips of the off's at Coppice?
Anyway the photographer that was on our post at one point snapped me bringing the bonnet back at the end of the session after the course car said leave it till the end of the day to pick it up. Here's the pic anyway...! (im the one with the bonnet lol)

A team member that it belonged to turned up in race control just as the parade was starting, saying they had "lost" a bit of their car. His English wasn't too good (bit like my French!) but between us we managed to identify the missing bit!

As for getting out at the end of the day, we had parked by the old Steward's room in the paddock. It took us 1/2 an hour to get from there to the gate at Paddock 3. Once there, we took a quick right hand turn through the market, down the old Melbourne Loop and out. NO traffic

ChrisA · 11 Sep 2006, 21:36 (Ref:1708353)

We were at Post 2 and the hospitality next to the post kept us supplied with coffee, tea, sandwiches and thick chocolate cake all weekend. And we got some sleep at night, particulary after visiting the Bull on Friday and Saturday nights.Two good evenings, especially with Colin Stancombe joining us as well!

Goosey · 11 Sep 2006, 21:37 (Ref:1708355)

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChrisA

Tuesday night 8pm to 10pm on MotorsTV. Apparently both races and interviews, not sure if the Meganes are on.

Unfortunealy, as a student living in halls i cant have sky and other than that i cant afford sky per month. My phone bill is bad enough

Fay · 12 Sep 2006, 12:15 (Ref:1708751)

Glad to hear you got out OK Shiela, however most of us did not have passes allowing us to park in the Paddock.

I think the main complaint was not that it was taking so long to get out, but the fact that we did not move for over 2 hours in the infield, as they stopped letting cars out of it. Why did they not open the Esses tunnel earlier if there was a problem with the Coppice tunnel? Having two tunnels, I would have thought that it would have made sense to have one for spectators and one for cars.

Quagmire · 12 Sep 2006, 13:02 (Ref:1708799)

Another thing that horrified me about the weekend was the number of people sitting in the prohibited areas against the de-bre fence. [/quote]

Is it correct to think that crowd control isn't reallly part of a marshalls job espically when we were limited on numbers?

I was on post 25 at the exit of the esses and i have to admit i was getting sick and tired of going down to the ambualnce gate to ask people to move off of the wall. (our observer radioed through to race control about the situation on a number of times throughout the weekend and nothing was done...not even a friendly reminder about crowd safety by the commentors which is not to much to ask)

The only time I had any assitance from the donny security was on the final F1 exhinbition slot when the crowds got to deep (and ingnorant) for me to deal with, and people were moving up towards post 24 for a better look.

I also found that the crowds were after anything which wasn't nailed down, which gets a bit annoying when your trying to keep an eye on whats happening trackside and clear up after an incident.

Apart from this I found it a very good meeting and a good chance to see some differnt cars and drivers. For next year I hope to be further away from the crowds!

adstubbs · 12 Sep 2006, 18:12 (Ref:1709057)

Manning levels certainly were a bit thin on Saturday, could have done with a mirror to prop up on post 15, as whichever way I was looking, the incidents seemed to be in the other direction! Getting to post in the fog on Sunday and being unable to see the far side of the track was a new experience, as was seeing that rather large cargo plane seemingly heading straight for me on its way to East Midlands on Sunday! My cunning plan to drive round the track and exit through the assembly area didn't really work, resulting in Quagmire and I spending 75 mins inching towards the exit - at least we could turn away from the traffic at that point (so glad my parents chose to move to a village 10 miles away from Donny!). Yes, the traffic was painful, but wasn't it good to see so many people there (even if some had left their common sense in the car park)?

JimW · 12 Sep 2006, 19:26 (Ref:1709128)

Quote:

Originally Posted by adstubbs

. . . Getting to post in the fog on Sunday and being unable to see the far side of the track was a new experience, as was seeing that rather large cargo plane seemingly heading straight for me on its way to East Midlands on Sunday! . . .

An Antonov, which is a regular visitor. Given the reliability of Russian planes I feel nervous when it goes overhead.

Jim

Sheila M · 12 Sep 2006, 20:50 (Ref:1709164)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fay

Glad to hear you got out OK Shiela, however most of us did not have passes allowing us to park in the Paddock.

Neither did we, Fay!!!!

I spotted that a lot of the cars parked up by the old Stewards bungalow didn't have passes and rang Steve (who was on the cage) to move our to somewhere a little more accessible.

SHEILA

Fred Bromley · 12 Sep 2006, 22:03 (Ref:1709213)

There were no paddock passes for this meeting, which is why we got away with parking in there!
I left race control at 5 past 6 and drove straight out of the paddock, out of the paddock entrance and down to the road where I had to queue behind 8 other cars. I then went through Wilson and back roads to join the A511 and back onto the M1 at jnct-22. It only took 10 minutes longer than normal to get home!

allanh · 13 Sep 2006, 09:15 (Ref:1709436)

Well lucky old you Fred, A group of us were parked by post 12 for over two hours, hot, tired and suffering from sense of humour failure. A spectator who asked us what was going on, said that it had spoiled an otherwise enjoyable day but would be unlikely to go motor racing again.
The radio discipline also left a lot to be desired with long drawn out messages and cutting across conversations, not to mention the open line at post 29

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