Moto America 2020 at NJMP – Motorsport Wanderlust

It will be a surprise to no one if I say 2020 has been a very weird year. The pandemic threw a wrench into my Motorsport volunteering hobby as I’m sure it did for everyone else from teams to spectators and fellow marshals like me. It’s been so screwed up that I completely forgot to post about this Covid-19 track experience until now a few months later but better late than never, right?

So… I was certain my racing season was over after the February trip to COTA. Coronavirus hit New York City metropolitan area hard, and as a science believer I heeded the advise of experts and cancelled all of my plans… motorsport and otherwise. I had a flight booked to Florida for March that I rebooked when the price dropped due to Covid. But eventually cancelled it again just days before I was supposed to fly for the Sebring double header (12 hour IMSA and 1000 mile WEC). Fast forward to a few months later and racing around the US slowly started to resume. Most of the Northteast events still got cancelled and moved to the states that didn’t take the pandemic as seriously (Florida?)… but MotoAmerica did return to NJMP and I guess I was fortunate enough to be invited to participate.

Another statement that will come as a surprise to no one: I was used to wearing a bandana across my face long before the pandemic hit… except now everyone else had to wear a face mask as well… for obvious reasons. In the past I did it to protect myself from sunburn and now to avoid getting someone to breathe on me if they unwittingly had the virus or me breathing on them if I did. Posting this a few months later obviously proves we did it the safe way.

The racing was really neat though. It felt so great to be on the side of the track flagging and communicating with race control. We did have a few spectators in attendance but everything was understandably social distanced, etc.