. . . and thanks to the volunteers
Cliches are often created out of truth and in motorsport one of the most commonly repeated cliches is that the sport would collapse without the support of volunteers.
New Zealand’s largest racing volunteer group is The Motorsport Club, which, while being largely Auckland based, also regularly supplies volunteers to events at race tracks across the rest of the country.
For the past two years, the group has given back to the support base by offering a fully funded trip to be a flag marshall at the illustrious Goodwood Festival of Speed hill-climb in the UK for their most dedicated volunteers. And last year’s trip winner, 20-year-old Sam Thomson, has just returned from the festival.
Like many others, Sam got into motorsport volunteering through his father. After being introduced to the timing section, he’s become
a regular Chief of Timing at tierone race events across the country.
“The Motorsport Club is like a big family. Everyone appreciates what everyone else does,” says Sam.
He travelled to Goodwood, as well as the Le Mans Classic — an
event for some of the world’s most famous historic sports cars that Sam wanted to add to his roster — alongside Tim Hill from the Historic Racing Club.
“I’ve known about Goodwood only for a few years, but in those few years I’ve watched the live stream and followed it quite
heavily. Being there was just incredible.
“There’s just so much to see. You look at it on a map and think ‘ah yeah, I can do that in a day, it doesn’t look that big’. Then you realise that it’s most of a kilometre just to get up the hill to look out, then you’ve got to get all the way down again. It’s huge.
“One thing that really stood out at both Le Mans and Goodwood was that I felt so at home. It felt just like being at a race meeting at Hampton Downs or Pukekohe — like just another race meeting, even though it was on this humongous scale.”
Last weekend, The Motorsport Club held its annual awards night. Sam was able to recount his event and Paul “Twopie” Carpenter was awarded this year’s prize for next year’s Goodwood event.
“I got absolutely blindsided, no idea this was coming whatsoever,” Paul said, when speaking to Driven on the night.
“I’ve been with The Motorsport Club for about seven years. I started off on the grids, and being an older sort of gentleman that became hard work — especially on the three-day events, we were on our feet for the best part of 12 hours a day”.
He now is head of the fire rescue department.
To learn more about becoming a racing volunteer, visit the club’s Facebook page or its website, themotorsportclub.com.