MOTORSPORT VOLUNTEERS
“ Ultimately, we are trying to encourage people to take part in grassroots motorsport so at Durham, Alnwick and Hawick, navigation events run at no cost to participants and the Club bears the cost. At Durham, we also try to run our AutoSOLOs at the minimum cost, to make sure new people can come and have a go at affordable motorsport.
“ Being involved across several Clubs sometimes makes things easier, and there is often cross-collaboration. I recently sent an email about volunteering, for example, and it started by mentioning Durham’ s events for National Motorsport Week, then Alnwick’ s events, and I managed to cover the Scottish Rally Championship and the Association, too.
“ It helps to build greater awareness of events and often leads people to try out something new. That was evident on the Hill Rally I have just done as Staffing Officer, because we managed to encourage some crossover of Stage Rally participants to try their first Hill Rally, and that is really valuable.
“ It also has its benefits when it comes to volunteering. When I Stage Command, I have regular start line and finish line crews and if they are available when I am not on an event, I have got friends in Alnwick and Hawick who also stage command, so I give them their stage details – and being able to do that is extremely useful.”
Life as a Volunteer
When it came to volunteering on events, Burnip’ s interest was sparked in the early 1980s, when her dad was a Stage Commander and radio communications started to be used to run operations. As a young teenager, the chance to jump on a radio was great fun, and with no age restrictions [ at that time ] to marshalling, she was deemed“ sensible enough” to take on that task.
Many years later, in 2005, formal training was introduced for the role, and she was invited to take part in a pilot scheme. She became, at that point, the youngest qualified operator and the only qualified female operator in the North-East of England and Scotland. That role opened the door to attend event organisational meetings, and things progressed quickly.
“ I got involved in the Border Counties, the Jim Clark, the Cheviot Stages and the Tyneside Stages Rallies, and because I am quite an organised person, the project schedule for a couple of those was passed over to me,” she explains.“ I started keeping an eye on key dates and tasks which, in part, led me to be recommended for a Clerk of the Course license.
“ I was already Deputy Clerk of the Course on the Cheviot and Tyneside events, so it all linked together, and because I was involved in running start lines on a few events, I was also asked if I would consider being a Stage Commander. Again, I went through Motorsport UK’ s training and qualified for that role too.
“ The Safety Car role was a progression from being asked to be Chief Marshal for the Jim Clark Rally at the time Safety Car training was introduced. I qualified for that too – but I only do it to check stage set-up and staffing. I would never be able to go in a Zero Car because I just could not manage the speed and checking everything at the same time!”
In the last two years, the increase in safeguarding training from Motorsport UK has seen her take on that additional role too, regularly attending courses to keep up to date. Having been made the designated safeguarding leader in her day job, it was a natural progression to take on the Safeguarding Officer role in her motorsport activities.
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Lindsay Burnip was impressed by the‘ bonkers-ness’ of Hill Rallying
Stage commander Burnip and her team on the Kielder Forest Rally
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Revolution- July 2025