Marshal shortage cancels C1 race
The Citroen C1 24-hour race due to take place at Anglesey next weekend has been cancelled after not enough marshals signed up.
The Citroen C1 Racing Club’s second twiceround-the-clock race of the season was due to form part of the British Automobile Racing Club’s 6-8 September event at the Welsh venue.
The BARC offered a shorter C1 contest to run on the Saturday, but insufficient interest from competitors for the change in race format means this will not take place either. Instead, just the support races, for the Caterham Graduate and Hyundai Coupe Cup categories, will take place on the Saturday.
“We were very short of marshals – using a shift system, we didn’t even have enough for one marshal per post during the 24-hour race,” explained BARC general manager Ian Watson.
“There was no option but to cancel it, not only for the marshals’ safety but for the competitors’ safety. It’s not a decision taken lightly, but it had to be taken now to give them advance warning.”
When asked why there was such a severe shortage of marshals for this event, Watson said:
“If I knew the reason for it, we wouldn’t have a shortage. It’s been a long year and we’ve had a lot of race meetings going on. The whole thing with marshals across the country is very difficult
– a lot of meetings are running very short.”
The C1 Challenge is the most popular racing category in the country in terms of entries, with 99 cars taking part in the 24-hour race at Silverstone earlier this year. In the past, it ran both 24-hour contests at Rockingham but had to look for alternative venues for this season following the circuit’s closure.
The chairman of the C1 Racing Club,
Meyrick Cox, said: “It’s disappointing for us and our competitors. A huge amount of work goes into organising a 24-hour race; people have spent a lot of money testing, on accommodation and, in some cases, booking flights.
“It does raise the question of whether we go for a 24-hour race at Anglesey next year.
People talk about the depth of issues with
motorsport and this is just another one.
“Even when you have a successful series you end up with problems, and as a sport we need to have a look at this. There are too many events run with too few cars. As a sport we have got to consolidate quite a bit and need to be thinking how the sport works as a whole.”
Cox said he would be open to the idea of making it mandatory for each C1 team to supply a marshal if BARC and Motorsport UK provided the training, but said it would take more than the three-week notice they were given.
“Of course we would consider something like that – I do a day’s marshalling each year because I want to give something back to the sport,” he added.