At 5.15am, while most of the campsite at the Goodwood Festival of Speed is still asleep in canvas and campervans, Jon McEwan is already awake, washing his face in the pre-dawn summer morning and pulling on a set of overalls he knows better than his own work clothes.

By 6.30am, he’ll be on a bus making his way from the campsite to the event. By 7.50am he’ll be on post. And by 8.30am, when the first engine howls up the hill in front of Goodwood House, he’ll already have been on the go for over three hours.

This year’s Festival of Speed was a homecoming of sorts for Jon – his return after twelve years.

Jon shared his reflections on this year’s Festival in a detailed written interview.

“This year was my first one in 12 years due to my son being born in 2014,” he explains. Weekends that once belonged to hillclimbs and hay bales now belonged instead to a small boy until, in a neat turn, that same boy became the reason he came back.

From Spectator to Post Chief

Jon’s marshalling story began in 2009, at Silverstone, spotting a recruitment stand while watching the F1. “I’d always seen the marshals at work and thought it would be good to try it and be involved in the sport I love,” he says. Two years later, in 2011, he got his first taste of the Goodwood hillclimb, working Finish 2 on track.

“We didn’t touch a single car or bike that weekend,” he recalls, “but the view of the cars crossing the finish line at full speed was amazing.”

The years that followed, 2012 through 2014, were spent on the notorious Molecomb corner, a spot with a reputation among marshals for keeping you busy. “We had several incidents each day,” Jon says. “Some cars lightly touched the hay bales and others went through several rows of them.” It’s the kind of understatement that only comes from someone who has genuinely seen it all.

This year, Jon returned not as a volunteer finding his feet, but as a post chief, the marshal responsible for a post and the small team running it. “I think it was the best one for me,” he says simply.

A Different Post Every Day

Unlike a conventional circuit, Goodwood’s hillclimb throws up a different challenge depending on where you’re standing, and Jon’s three days illustrated that perfectly.

Thursday was a rare treat — a day as a spectator, wandering the trade stands with no radio clipped to his overalls.

Friday put him on Crossing 5, right in front of Goodwood House, a combined post where just two marshals manage not only the track, but also the safety stewards controlling when the public can cross. Saturday moved him into the forest to Finish 2, a post he knows well but which comes with its own hazard; dust. Kicked up relentlessly through the day by the rally stage running behind it. “Definitely recommend a snood or mask if on that post,” he advises, with the weary authority of someone who has learned that lesson the hard way.

Sunday brought him back to Crossing 5, this time with a third pair of hands. “This was a great post for the day,” he says, “as you get a great view of track and any doughnuts or burnouts the drivers do.”

It’s a day that, on paper, runs from 8.30am to around 6.30pm. In reality, for Jon, it starts at 5.15am and doesn’t end until he’s back through the campsite gates before the 10pm curfew, ready to do it all again the next morning.

When the Radio Crackles

Marshalling at Goodwood isn’t simply about standing and watching. Every so often, the radio crackles with real urgency, and years of training take over. This year on Finish 2, a post Jon describes as usually quiet, a motorbike and two cars broke down. “We managed to push all of these down the hill so they could roll back to the paddock,” he says, the calm efficiency in his voice at odds with the chaos such a moment could easily become.

Then there was the stone. During one run on Sunday, a car ran wide and left debris on the racing line. Jon spotted it, called it in and, only once cleared to do so, stepped out to retrieve it. “I kept hill control updated with each step,” he says, describing a process that, while brief, is a small demonstration in the discipline that underpins the sport’s safety.

Perhaps the most memorable moment of his weekend, though, had nothing to do with an incident at all. “Seeing Adrian Newey attempting a burnout, then stalling the car, which we then had to push down the hill to the paddock, was an unexpected encounter,” Jon recalls – a reminder that even Formula 1’s most decorated designers aren’t immune to a stubborn clutch. There were quieter thrills too; a wave from Damon Hill, his childhood F1 hero and, perhaps just as gratifying after a long and dusty day, several free cans from the Monster Energy stand.

A Family Affair

What makes Jon’s return to Goodwood particularly poignant is how it came full circle. After stepping back from marshalling for around five years to raise his son, he began returning to the odd weekend as his boy grew older. Then, last year, came the question that changed things again; his son asked how old you had to be to marshal.

A conversation with his local track, Donington Park, revealed that children as young as 11 could marshal in the assembly area. Now father and son are into their second year marshalling together, and Jon has just had his upgrade to off-track Grade 1 confirmed with the BMMC and Motorsport UK — a milestone earned not despite the years away, but partly because of them.

What Spectators Don’t See

If there’s one thing Jon wants people to understand, it’s that marshalling isn’t only about the dramatic moments. “Not all marshalling is dealing with incidents,” he says. “Some days we might do nothing and it looks like we aren’t needed. But as we all know, when a major incident does happen, we know what to do and do it safely.”

It’s a philosophy that extends to the small frictions of the job too, like asking spectators to stop taking selfies whilst crossing at the crossing point. “It’s because we have been told to close the track as cars will be coming back down very soon,” he explains, without a trace of irritation, just the patient clarity of someone used to explaining the invisible parts of his role.

For Jon, what keeps him coming back isn’t the lunch vouchers or the pin badges, welcome as they are. It’s the team, the friends made over years of shared campsites and long days on the hill. And now, it’s the son standing beside him, learning the same quiet discipline that brought his father back to Goodwood after twelve years away.

“It’s a great hobby,” he says, “and you will be part of a team and an extended family.”

Thank you Jon McEwan for sharing your experience of the Goodwood Festival of Speed with us. We wish you and your son many happy years of marshalling together.