Unsung motorsport hero: Diane Hardy
Long-serving Donington Park administrator and race control emergency services chief talks to Motorsport News
Ifirst got involved working in motor racing I believe in August 1975, and it was rather by chance! It was through a then boyfriend, who was marshalling. I went to a race meeting at Silverstone and was quite happy to spectate, but they were very short of marshals so they asked if anybody had brought along any friends who could help out. And that’s how I got involved. So at that meeting I was working in race control on the race telephones, and the people I was working with were short of somebody to work at Mallory Park later that weekend too, so I got roped in to do that as well. And I suppose I got hooked from there, I just fell into the job.
I’m not sure exactly what it was that hooked me. I just thought it was very interesting, it was something to do on a weekend and it was a nice crowd of people.
When I first started, I marshalled regularly at Mallory Park, and then Donington Park opened and that was nearer to where I lived so I started marshalling there. Again I worked on the race telephones, and then I got involved with the emergency services team and started helping out on the radio there. And that, many years on, remains my regular role.
I am chief incident officer mostly at Donington for the emergency services team, so during a race meeting I sit on the radio and coordinate the team. If there’s an incident or whatever, with the cooperation of the clerk of the course I send the services, and at the end of the session it’s up to me to dispatch the recovery vehicles and whatever to clear up the circuit and make sure everything’s ready for the next session. There are not many Donington meetings that I miss, I even work at some of the bike meetings.
I started off learning from others, then for 20-odd years I ran the team.for this I did all the paperwork and made sure all the marshals and everybody got their passes as well as did all the arrangements to get the team out there. I’m still very heavily involved, though there’s now a committee of us who run the team and I’ve passed on the paperwork.
I also in recent decades even had a full-time job with Donington Park, as in 2003 when I was made redundant from my job at the Boots company
I was offered a job at the circuit. It was [Donington managing director] Robert Fearnall who offered me the role, as I’d known Robert for a few years through my motorsport. Robert was lovely, I enjoyed working for him. In 2009 I got made redundant with the failure of the grand prix at Donington, but nine months later I was lucky enough to get my job back.
When I worked in the office I helped do the calendar and do the contracts to all the hirers and later I organised the general testing at Donington. I worked full time at the circuit until last June when I retired. I got to pensionable age so I thought I’d take my government pension and just work part time for pin money. Now I work for the midweek marshals’ team, so I help to run the trackdays during the week.
I’m sure Donington is in safe hands without me there full time though! I still love the place and I’m looking forward to it getting back on its feet after this long layoff. I will certainly be going back to meetings when we start racing again, working in race control.
I really enjoy working with a team, it’s really satisfying. Especially if you’ve had a difficult day, it’s really great to get to the end of it and think
‘wow we did a good job, we made it work and we got through it’. It really is great to see the team when they’re all working hard and doing exactly what you want them to do and everybody is pulling together. It’s just so good to be part of such a good team.
There have been some difficult days, there’ve been some difficult incidents, but you just have to move on because otherwise you wouldn’t be able to carry on.
There are laughs as well which get you through the day, we try to have fun while we’re doing it. It is a serious business but if you’re not having fun at the same time there’s not much point of being part of it.
“It’s just great to be part of such a hard-working team”