Thank you for your note. Yes, I am certain trackside, just depends on where. My first Miami race I won the lottery being assigned to pit out. Throughly enjoyed that. The Vegas clown show I was at turn 6.6 on the back side and at Miami this year at 15.5 which is where Max hit the bollard. Been typically radio marshal which means I communicate with race control. What I understand is comms from the turns are broadcast so all in race control can hear. Some pretty stout folks are listening.

We will see if my request for a position will be met. No matter, it will be fun

Yes please.

I was supposed to be a corner marshal at the Formula E race in Vancouver that didn’t happen…

I’d love to see and hear about your experience.

Thank you all for your positive responses. I will create a thread starting Sunday night my time which is my departure. Not easy getting to Baku I will tell you and given the smaller market for flights, harder to leave.

Sunday then

Take club pins, decals and patches from your region to trade with the other F&C workers from other countries you meet. And if you can get away with it, a bottle of Jack will buy you friends.

I was able to get some SCCA patches to take. Seems SF region does not have swag. Have an SF region flag, an AZ flag for my state. Will see if I get to put them up. I tried to get some Friends of Laguna Seca lanyards (they were giving them out free with purchase at the historics) but no go. So the patches will need to suffice.

The UK based corner captain for my Miami experience brought his team patches.

Very cool, can't wait to see your other thread. thanks for sharing!

Small USA flag pins also work for some.

Where are you staying? Some nice places 5 years ago when I last visited.

The race organizers are providing free accommodation at the athlete’s village built for the Asian Games. Marshals I talked with at Miami says it is pretty nice. Will see. Understand it is a bit far from the main area of town, so taxi or Uber to explore

Wow, thats generous.

They will not do that for Vegas, though IIRC, they did provide a stipend last year for race workers staying at the Luxor.

Having worked Miami twice now, I can say for certain not again. With the 40min bus ride, being stuck in Ft Lauderdale not close to much and getting really lame t-shirts, there is not much to recommend it except being close to the racing. The box lunches were meh, and the “breakfast” well, not so good.

I think there were something like 700 of us or so at the Westin. Since the day was over at a relatively reasonable time, there was an opportunity for the organizers to provide a bit of group refreshments allowing a little bench racing between marshals. Figure 2 beers a piece might have run them $3000. Seems a small price for a nice gesture. We discussed kicking in $10 or $20 per station to do it ourselves, but could not work out the logistics.

Vegas had better t-shirts and I got that really nice blaze orange jacket and the buffets were pretty good, I will do one more year in November and then decide. BTW I did not get a stipend just the orange coat

The international marshals tell me the organizers of the European races treat their marshals better, kind of like the difference of US and European first class travel. There is no comparison.

So, later today I start my journey. Will put up something each day.

Safe trip and looking forward to the updates

The new thread is titled “On to Baku”