FEATURE
“ We were flagging and radio communicators at two posts on the epic Carousel corner. The sector was manned by a large UK contingent, and the overseas marshals and fans made us very welcome. It was a real party atmosphere, totally exhilarating, and it opened a whole new range of opportunities. The next year we volunteered for the Le Mans 24 hours and that led to us going to Daytona for the Rolex 24 hour the year after that.”
Matthew Greenwood started his marshalling journey a little over a decade later than Bennie, when he took part in a training day in 1989. He signed up with the British Racing and Sports Car Club( BRSCC) South East region and has since worked his way up to Crew Chief for the BRSCC Midland Rescue team, covering the Club’ s meetings throughout the year, as well as providing the unit to Lydden Hill for various race and rallycross events.
After nine years marshalling and having reached the level of Incident Officer and Rescue Crew licence holder, he decided to attend Le Mans 24-hours.“ A friend of mine had marshalled there before and I thought it sounded interesting,” says Greenwood.“ I filled out all the information, was assigned as a flag marshal and was welcomed very kindly.”
A simple hop across the channel, Le Mans offers a unique event format and a very welcoming atmosphere – and is far easier to apply for online than it was by paper and fax back then. Greenwood’ s first time there, however, turned out to be rather dramatic – as he was located on the Mulsanne Straight marshal post where Mark Webber’ s Mercedes had its infamous high-speed flip during practice.
“ I was on the flag marshal’ s point, and I saw him move out to overtake a car just as he went over the hump in the road nicknamed the‘ Bosse de Mulsanne’,” he recalls.“ The car went light, the air got under it, and it went straight up. As soon as
Matthew Greenwood has enjoyed marshalling at Le Mans for many years
we saw it, we put out double yellow flags out. He flipped and hit the barrier and by the time he stopped he had travelled all the way down to the Mulsanne corner on his roof. It was certainly a memorable moment!”
Since then, Greenwood has travelled to a huge range of international events.“ When I go abroad, my main series has been the WEC and the US equivalent, IMSA, and also Indycar. I have done a lot of events overseas but these days I only volunteer at Le Mans. This year I was at the Forest Esses, which is the section where they sweep down out of Dunlop Bridge. It’ s a great series of corners and it was an excellent experience.”
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Janette Pearce combined her passion for travel and motorsport to become a marshal at the Canadian Grand Prix in Montréal
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Revolution- August 2025
Mark Thompson / McLaren F1