I've seen people get hit in the head with cars(mostly slashes). Its not fun at all. There is an older guy at our track that got hit in the head with a T4 that had the one long body clip going across to both body posts and the end of the clip caught the guys head and he ended up needing to get stitched up. My local rack doesn't let just anyone marshall anymore. you need to be a racer(no fans), and above a certain age. I've personally had my finger mangles when a 8 yr old kid didn;t have a gear over on his slash and when I went to marshall him he hit the throttle.

Now if they hit the throttle I just watch them and wait until they are done:mdr:. I think people need to see where they are at, where the cars are coming from, and not stand by the jumps. Some common sense will save you in the medical bills.

For whatever reason, I was marshaling once at an indoor track (read: electric only) and one guy was flipped over, so I jogged over to his car and as I bent down to flip it, he gave it a burst of throttle. He wasn't revving it all before, but only just as I bent down.

I got a face full of dirt (a good bit in my eyes), and so I proceeded directly off the track.

There were about 10 people on the driver stand and I was the ONLY marshall (it was open practice). They weren't too happy at the guy (who by the way, is a complete ass for blipping the throttle on his ELECTRIC car...)

I've heard of an instance where someone was killed while marshaling. A 1/8 scale buggy nailed the guy in the temple off a large triple and he was dead before he hit the ground.

Your a better man than myelf, I'd would have stomped on his buggy, What an Asshole.

You could've had scratched you eyes or worse.:diablo:

To people who think that the racers shouldn't marshal and the track should pay people to do it..... if it were like this, people probably wouldn't marshal just to help out and because they are a good person and want to help out fellow racers, they would only do it for the pay. And my guess would be that the track would end up with people who wouldn't do their job right or would just mess around and use up time just for pay. If you race, you should marshal (unless you have a disability that prevents you from marshaling). It's just the right thing to do and you are helping out fellow racers, and if your car flipped during the race, you would want someone to quickly flip it over so you can continue with the race, so do the same for others.


I always wear Mechanix gloves when I marshal. I learned the hard way why you should always wear gloves when marshaling.... burned my hand on an engine head flipping over a 1/8 nitro buggy.

Should be more like 1:1 racing/ soccer- have a yellow card for dangerous driving/ behavour, then a red card for a repeat offence- in the case of revving an engine as a marshal tends to your inverted car, just pick it up and turn it off/ pinch the fuel line to shut it down- no excuses for being an ass hat to someone trying to help you. If they complain or give you abuse for getting redcarded/ black flagged, turn their r/c into a frizbee....

The most dangerous task of a marshall is retrieving cars from the landing zone of a big jump. Due to the jumps you can't always see the cars coming so you have to be quick. I have seen many guys hit at our track but normally they are hit when starting a race with the nitros. Bad track design at our track means the cars can leave the track down the main straight and clean up the guys doing the starting.

Lucky for me, I've not encountered much incident thus far. I've learnt to keep my hands protected with Pit Gloves. Saves you from hot engines and easier pick up. I always keep my eyes on the track and be on my feet. This way, I can better appreciate the situation and be ready to act against anything.

Wow that sucks to hear. Worst marshalling "accident" that happened to me when was a 1/8 nitro buggy flipped over and went WOT while upside down and gave my knuckles alot of tire burn.