Channel 10 and AVESCO

From watching todays coverage, it appears that there is no such thing as a race organising body anymore.

It appears that all senior officials are AVESCO or CAMS head office members, and that all trackside marshalls are Flag Marshalls.

They did a piece on senior race organisors. There was no mention of the Clerk of Course, no mention of the Race Secretary. In fact they went so far as to say that Tim Schenken had full control over the racing. The fact is that the Clerk of Course has the full say of what happens on the race track.

My father has in fact Red Flagged a session because AVESCO and CAMS would not tell the Clerk of Course (which was him at the time) what they were organising and getting through on their radios.

This is a major problem if a major incident occurs on the track. The Clerk of Course is liable in a Court Of Law, as he/she is the senior most official in Race Control. Yet if the Race Director makes the call, and the Clerk of Course backs down. The Clerk of Course still remains liable, unless he gets the Race Director to sign a waver stating that he will take full responsibility for any actions resulting one of his decisions.

If Race Organisation is going to advance in this country we need to sort out the top level, as there is currently too big a grey area.

I hope I made some sense. If you would like me to expand more on my comments I will.

thanks

Well written Vandas :)

What is produced for segments on TV, and what is reality, are more often than not, worlds apart.

I think we all know, that at the end of the day, the drivers, teams and support are going to listen to the Clerk of the Course, and not a stuffed shirt.

What I would like to do, at this point, is thank YOU, Vandas, for providing us all with a better insight into the actual running of a race meet. I have noticed over the past months, that you always come forward with some facts that are often overlooked in the rush of information. :)

Originally posted by Vandas
It appears that all senior officials are AVESCO or CAMS head office members, and that all trackside marshalls are Flag Marshalls.

They did a piece on senior race organisors. There was no mention of the Clerk of Course, no mention of the Race Secretary. In fact they went so far as to say that Tim Schenken had full control over the racing. The fact is that the Clerk of Course has the full say of what happens on the race track.


By far the most laughable part of this was the description of Tim Schenken as an ex-F1 racer - very ex and not very good at that (whether it was car or driver is beside the point).

But what was also missing from that description is that ANY experience he may have had driving an F1 was 30 odd years ago and has absolutely NO relevance to todays racing.

The closest anyone comes to having recent experince in the line up of clowns is Colin Bond.

Personally, I have a real problem with ANY category where the Stewards of the meetings are permitted inside race control during the event, 'advising' on what penalties should be handed out and THEN having to possibly later sit in judgement on those same penalties!