OFFICIALS GAZETTE 2018 FORMULA 1 ROLEX AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX

Transcription

1 OFFICIALS GAZETTE 2018 FORMULA 1 ROLEX AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX GAZETTES NOW ONLINE ISSUE 3 / PAGE 1

2 A LIFETIME FOR PAUL AND ANGUS Two of AGP s Stalwart marshals, Paul Overell of Brisbane and Angus Black of Melbourne, were recently awarded a CAMS Lifetime Membership at the Nationals Awards Night at the Crown Casino in Melbourne. Only 47 of these have been awarded since its inception in It is awarded for long-term distinguished service to motor sport, by the application of extraordinary expertise, dedication and positive influence. Other recipients include long-time AGP officials - Peter Nelson, Dr. David Vissenga and Bruce Keys. Congratulations and Well Done to Paul and Angus! Paul is part of the five-man team of Marshal Chiefs overseeing Flaggies, Sectors Marshals, Trackies, and Spectator Marshals. He has been part of this Chiefs team since the late nineties. Paul has worked all 34 AGP s, as well as being part of the Australian Training Team for the Grands Prix in Bahrain and Singapore. He also was Flag Chief for the 1975 F5000 Grand Prix in Surfer s Paradise, Flag Chief at the Gold Coast V8 Supercar races and Clerk of the Course for Gold Coast IndyCars. His involvement in motorsports dates back 53 years and include both marshaling and Rally competition. But Paul reckons his honour might more involve his off-track motorsports involvements. He has been active on the administrative side of local and state motorsports. In 1979 Paul was asked to be on the Off-Road Committee - not because of his knowledge of that genre as much as his knowledge of high-speed accidents - of which there were some in Off-Road. That year was also the first of his 40-year involvement as delegate to the Queensland State Council. Other administrative posts include Chairman for 15 years of the State Council and nine years as Deputy Chairman; twelve years Chairman of the CAMS Motor Race Panel, Chair of the State Scrutineering Panel, Chair of the State Officiating Panel, twenty years on the National Officiating Committee, and member of the Australian Motor Race Commission. Add in seven years as Race Director for the National Production Car Series. Paul s been a busy boy. Angus is one of the Stalwarts having worked all 34 AGP s. But his motorsports involvement goes back to 1964 when he joined PIARC. He soon found his interest lay with scrutineering, back in the days of healthy touring car races. Angus also is a long-time member of the Victorian Scrutineering Team. He enjoys working Tech as he gets to meet and work with the people who make the cars and who make the cars work. Angus was the Chief Scrutineer for the 1984 Sandown International Sports Car race, and the next year he became the F1 Scrutineer for the inaugural Adelaide AGP race. He continued that role for the duration. Angus remembers the days when the FIA scrutineering involvement was on a much smaller scale; and a nice bloke was sent from overseas to act as Intermediary between FIA and the locals - Charlie Whiting. The whole scrutineering process has changed over the years. He continued to work Tech in Melbourne, but in different capacities. For a couple of years, he moved over to National Track Inspections. This weekend Angus is working with the Support categories. Angus has had long-term involvement on the local and state side of racing. He served as Chairman for 10 of his 20-years involvement with the State Council. His involvement includes Club, State and National racing. In his spare time, he spent six years as Chief Scrutineer for the Asian Touring Car Series, a job which took him around Australia as well as to Malaysia, Thailand and Korea. Angus wife also worked Tech with him for years, until she retired from that job. To her, husband Angus is a good guy for washing their overalls after a particularly memorable Adelaide AGP, and a bad guy for washing away her Ayrton Senna autograph. Angus marvels at how Ayrton qualified in Adelaide. Paul Angus ISSUE 3 / PAGE 2

3 SMILEY Meaghan McNeill and Trevor Ross from the Sign-On crew have stepped up to head up Muster this AGP, while long-time Chief, Kevin Barkway recovers from the mini- stroke he had last December. The call for help came just a week before all the activities were due to start; so, with a lot of ing back and forth, help and guidance from Kevin, and CAMS Officials Manager, Ainslie Gardner, they got the details sorted. It was new to Meaghan and Trevor, as well as Ainslie, who is new to her position. There are some new things for the marshals this year at Sign-On: reusable freezer packs for the lunches, nine options for alternative lunches, and individual sign-up for tabards. The mandate for individual tabard sign-up came the night before it was required, leaving no time to set up individual computers with crew lists by alfa name. This will be better handled next time, after learning what does and does not work. There wasn t much prior notice on the freezer packs either, but the crew rallied and it went well. The packets can be brought back for reuse, but the team does have sufficient numbers for all days. They are environmentally correct made with simple, compostable ingredients. Now as we have the freezers, can we put our hands up for ice cream bars? This year the team lost two people: one through Cancer and one from a tragic accident.; and it hit the crew hard. They are shorter than usual, with 15 working with the team, and helpers coming from the families. Trevor arrived Tuesday, and Meaghan on Wednesday, giving them only one day + to help get everything organised and sorted for Thursday morning Sign-On. He and Meaghan go through Ainslie for all the vendor and supply issues, tabards, ear plugs, and ponchos - which arrived Thursday in anticipation of the upcoming inclement forecast. For many on the team, it s a physical job with lifting, moving and sorting. Thursday there were about 870 marshals and officials signed on, and 795 Friday. It s a long day for the team, starting at 6am, and going to 9pm with the day s end social with food and beverages. The team has a license to serve adult beverages. In-between shifts, the team rearranges everything and sets up for the next day. Meaghan got started in motorsports via her long and strong friendship with Peter Nelson s daughters. Meaghan met Jo at a rally. Meaghan s first race came right after she came back from her Tahiti honeymoon. She s been working AGP for the past 20 years. She started as a marshal in the V8 paddock, telling the public where to go; and then moved up to gridding Support categories. Sixteen years ago, Meaghan, who has been nicknamed Smiley, joined Team 22, Marshaling Services. That smiley face has been handing out lunches for that long! In the early days, she brought her two sons with her, as part of Kevin s Nursery. Now, at 11 and 16, they like to come just to say hi to all the friendly people. And no the kids in the Nursery are growing up and taking over the crew. Meaghan likes coming back year after year as she loves volunteering, chatting and keeping up with the wonderful people, The Sign-On crew has people from all different walks of life. With her new role this year and the crew shorter than planned, Meaghan wasn t able to help out as much as she had hoped with the Gazette. This is Trevor s 13th year on the Sign-On crew. For the past five years, he s been a Safety Compliance Officer at other CAMS race meetings including Historics - his favorite. He usually works in the pits. When working at such events, he doesn t get to see much racing. But he likes meeting all kinds of new people and making new friends. As Worker Safety Compliance is his day job, he started getting asked by various people to do it at other events. He spends 2 1/2 months a year working Australian Tennis doing set up, working the event and bump out. In his spare time, Trevor does competition rifle shooting, at the International level. He s won three golds and a bronze representing Australia. So be sure and stop by and say hi! ISSUE 3 / PAGE 3

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6 F1 EXPERIENCE Roger from the F1 Experience took the Gazette Team through their garage to look at the Minardi Two seat ride cars. Nobody knows exactly, but each car has over 35000km on them and Paul and the team attend approx. seven race meetings per year. This year they will be attending all of the European races and maybe Russia as well. Austin was a favourite. According to Roger, the race with the best atmosphere is Mexico but it takes four hours to get from the airport to hotel and two hours to circuit each day so it s a long race meeting. Rogers personal favourite race track is Monaco; brilliant! Former CAMS employee and race official Cameron van den Dungen from AUSGPTV added his thoughts to the Gazette Team after sampling the back seat around Albert Park with Zsolt Baumgartner as his chauffeur on Thursday. It was a phenomenal experience... from the moment the V10 Cosworth engine fired up to the moment we rolled back into pitlane I was grinning like a fool. The physicality of the track was noticeable in the just the 3 short laps I did... particularly the run between T10 & T11, I'm incredibly lucky and cannot thank the Australian Grand Prix Corporation, F1 Experiences and AUSGPtv enough for getting the opportunity to live out a childhood dream. ISSUE 3 / PAGE 6

7 WELCOME BACK BERTRAM The name Bertram Dana may not be well known by most motor sport fans, but to those involved behind the scenes, Dana has made a big impact. Dana returns to the Formula Rolex Australian Grand Prix after missing last year s event due to a serious illness. This year, Dana will hold the position of a Media Liaison, making sure that all the media is looked after as well as getting on and off the track safely. I am glad to be back and fit, Dana said. It s fantastic to come here again and get together with the people who you have not seen for a year or two. It s more of a social thing but when it comes to work, I think all of us do our bit. Everyone gets it. It s part of the volunteer side of things. Everyone loves coming here. This will be Dana s 28th year volunteering at the Australian Grand Prix having held a variety of different positions throughout his time. Time spent as a race control secretary gave Dana an incredible insight into the high-pressure environment, as well as gaining a better understanding of Formula 1. Being upstairs (race control) for a long time, I learnt a lot including Rules and regulations changes every year, Dana added. It s fantastic. You have Charlie Whiting who is the number one, then you have three Stewards from different countries as well as Steve Chopping who is from CAMS and then all the people doing paperwork. However, after 10 years, it became more than just getting coffee and lunch for Whiting and his Stewards as he was building solid relationships with everyone from the industry. There were perks to it as well like meeting the drivers and managers. I now know them on a personal basis now because I have been doing it for 10 years, Dana said. Even when I was in hospital last year, I got a few calls from them to see how I was. It was very nice. I have been doing this for 28 years now including Clipsal and all the other meets as well and you really do make friends along the way. ISSUE 3 / PAGE 7

8 MICK PARKER Quick catch up with Mick Parker; long-time motor racing driver and official in pit lane today: This is Mick s fifth year as the safety car driver for support categories and this weekend he is driving the AMG E litre twin turbo charged V8. The Mercedes is a great handling car which is fun to drive, but we only get out approx. 4-6 times per day. When asked how many events he attends per year Mick said I manage to attend 14 race meetings per year as I enjoy the officiating role more than purely driving. My motorsport mentors have been Warren Reid, Skip Taylor, Ken Smith and Peter Nelson and it was Peter and Ken who suggested I start driving the Safety Car. Two of the most challenging corners at Albert Park are T15; as it s a really sharp 90 degree off camber corner plus T3 is also a tough corner. Favourite driver Dan Ricciardo Most popular driver ever Michael Schumacher Favourite F1 team Ferrari AFL Team Collingwood (wife s family made him) First road car A 4cyl Cortina Current car Porsche Cayenne First race car Mazda RX3 with a 13B engine which was so much fun Current Race Car R33 GTR which he loves but is often stuck in the garage Mick is currently running a Handyman service in the eastern suburbs based out of Park Orchards ISSUE 3 / PAGE 8