One of the tasks the Trustees have been considering following Mike Gascoigne’s death in June is the appointment of Honorary President. I am very pleased to announce that David Swinton, one of the founding members of the Club and its first Chairman, has agreed to take on the role.
David’s active involvement in motor sport began at the age of eight when he was considered old enough to sell programmes at race meetings at Charterhall in the Scottish borders where his father, a founder member of the Border Motor Racing Club, was Chief Marshal.
By the time the new Scottish track at Ingliston opened in 1965 he had developed his interest and activities by, amongst other things, starting and running a Motor Club at Fettes College in Edinburgh where he studied with Mike Gascoigne. Attending the first race meeting at Ingliston as a marshal saw the beginning of a new level of involvement in the sport that would develop and grow over the years and he was soon combining marshalling activities with competing in Rallies, Sprints and Hill Climbs, holding an International Rally licence and competing in the 1970 Tour of Britain.
In 1970 he set up what was to become the Scottish Motorsport Marshals Club with the primary aim of offering a fully equipped rescue unit and experienced marshals to event organisers in Scotland. Within a few months the Club had its first rescue unit attending events and was running training events in all aspects of motor sport marshalling, including fire-fighting, flag signalling and rally time keeping as well as organising track events at Ingliston on summer evenings for competitors.
From 1970, David served on the organising committee for the International Scottish Rally for 16 years, having responsibility for route planning and reconnaissance - including co-driving a course car on the Scottish Rally and the Scottish segment of the RAC Rally.
As an extension of his interest in the sport, he was approached in 1972 to help with the design of a new track to be built at Knockhill, in Fife. Working with the architects he helped design a facility that conformed to the requirements of the Motor Sports Association and set about building and developing the marshalling team and the systems to run Race Meetings, Sprints, Hill Climbs and Rallycross events. The first events ran two years later and most of the event management system devised at that time remains in use today.
Building on his involvement with Knockhill, Monklands Sporting Car Club asked for help in 1992 in setting up their new Hill Climb venue at Forrestburn where he would then act as Clerk of the Course until retiring in 2017.
In the late 1980s the Motor Sports Association invited him to become a Steward and he later became a member of the MSA Sprint & Hill Climb committee. David currently holds a National “A” Speed Clerks licence and has taken charge of British Championship events at Barbon, Ingliston, Croft and Kirkistown. He continues to keep his hand in by acting as a volunteer official at events whenever possible as well as undertaking Stewarding duties throughout the length and breadth of the UK.
