A BRUNO'S GUIDE TO MARSHALLING NITRO & ELECTRIC CARS.

Marshalling is a very important aspect of racing and should be taken seriously otherwise serious injuries may occur and damage to cars will happen. Children will not be allowed to marshal unless they wear gloves.

Your duties as a marshal are to keep a close watch on your section of track, (you can watch a race later), to right upturned cars or return them to the track if they leave the raceway as quickly and safely as possible. Marshals are not to start or repair cars. The car is to be returned to the pits by relay, to the next marshal closest the pits. The following points are to guide you in the safe handling of both styles of cars and to ensure the races run smoothly, with no injuries and with the least amount of frustration to drivers and marshals.

Modern R/C cars have many dangerous moving parts, very hot motors or exhausts and are extremely powerful. They should always be handled with extreme caution to avoid injury. Your equipment should include gloves or a rag at the least.

Any car that is stalled or shows signs of damage that would render it undriveable or dangerous should be returned to the pits. Notify the driver by making the slash throat gesture and return the car by relay.

Any car that is upside down should be grasped by the rear of the body only and flipped as gently as is practical onto its wheels. If the car is off track pick it up by grasping both ends of the body and placing it back on the track, always check for oncoming traffic. Do not kick or drop cars, remember treat the car as you would like your own treated.

If a nitro car is high revving there is a chance it may be out of control of the driver. A good nitro driver will give small blips of the throttle to keep the engine running. If you think the car is out of control because it is free revving you must stop it as soon as possible. There are 3 ways, firstly you can squeeze the fuel line to starve the motor of fuel, snuff the engine by quickly and firmly putting your finger over the exhaust outlet or by turning the car upside down and pushing firmly on the flywheel which protrudes through the chassis. You must Wear gloves or use a rag for the last two methods.

Electric cars do not tend to suffer from the same problems as nitro but due to the extremely high currents delivered by modern cells there is always the chance of short circuit and fire. If you see smoke coming from the car remove the body immediately, undo the battery holder and shake the car until the battery disconnects. Do not touch the wires, they may look ok but the plastic wrap is probably molten and will cause serious burns. Luckily electric cars rarely run away or rev without input from the driver but always keeps hands away from gears etc.

GLENNO'S GUIDE TO MANUAL LAP SCORING. (Remember those days?)

1. Always have 2 people doing the scoring. One person calls the cars as they cross the line. The second person does the writing on the sheet. This avoids the common mistake of missing a car while writing on the sheet!
2. After the race time expires and the buzzer goes, the person holding the timer calls "time" after which any cars passing the line should be called as finished. Eg. "red finished". The person writing this down should in addition record a special mark to indicate the car has finished. Eg. "F". This avoids mistakes where a car goes around again after they have finished and an extra lap is recorded.
3. When a group of cars finish on the same lap and positions are important (eg. Finals), then the person calling the cars and the drivers involved should be able to resolve placings. The placings can then be recorded on the sheet in brackets next to the lap counts.
   
4. When writing the laps down some people prefer to use roman counting system of grouping the marks in groups of five. This makes tallying the results a breeze at the end of the race.
   Note: Some drivers are amazed to find that they have one lap less than the car they were chasing and they know they definitely were not lapped. These drivers should be reminded that if a car gets across the line just before the timer then it will gain a lap on those behind who didn't make the line in time.