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Volunteering as a marshal or official is a great way to be in the thick of the action. You will interact with the rally crews at the stage start and finish controls or ensure everyone's safety as they whizz past you at high speed on the stage.

Check out some footage from the Forest Rally stage at the 2025 Festival of Speed:

At Southern Car Club, we have an active rally marshalling group with experienced level 3 marshals and qualified officials up to the level of Clerk of the Course and MSUK Stewards. We provide a pathway for those new to motorsport to gain experience, including running rally stage arrival, stage start and stage finish controls.

We run the Forest Rally Stage at the Festival of Speed every year but also attend a range of events:

from grassroots to a round of the European Rally Championship

from nearby events to Wales and Jersey

from 12-car navigational road rallies to special stage rallies

Apart from the Festival of Speed, recent events we have attended include Rally Ceredigion, Rally Jersey, South Downs Stages, the Bovington Stages, the Roger Albert Clark Rally, Kent Targa Rally, Brands Hatch Stages and many others.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

You are there primarily to ensure the safety of yourself, your marshalling colleagues, spectators and competitors.

You may be stationed in the middle of a rally stage, maybe at a junction, and will take control of any incidents as they arise. This may mean reporting an incident over the radio, slowing down the next rally cars, pushing a stricken rally car, ensuring rescue and recovery crews have access or managing spectators. In any incident, competitors will be looking at you for instruction.

Or you may be running an arrival or stop control where you will be assigning an arrival time to each rally car as they arrive and interacting with the crews. Or you may be running the start, setting off the countdown procedure to launch the cars into the stage.

Whatever your role, you will always need to be ready to make swift decisions if any incident unfolds

GETTING STARTED

Join Southern Car Club and let us know that you're interested in Marshalling on the form. Our Volunteer Co-ordinator can add you to our dedicated Marshal WhatsApp group and give you guidance.

We marshal as a group and will make sure you are paired with an experienced marshal if you marshal with us.

Register with Motorsport UK by using their online process to become an Accredited Rally Marshal - it's quick, simple and free - and you will be receive an Accredited Marshal licence and MSUK Marshal hi-viz tabard.

Marshals must be 16 to be Accredited, however Motorsport UK run a Cadet Marshal scheme for younger marshals from the age of 11.