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Showing category "Musings and opinion" (Show all posts)

The value of preparation and pushing for safety

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Wednesday, December 2, 2020, In : Musings and opinion 

There is no doubt that Romain Grosjean’s crash at this weekend’s Bahrain F1 GP was anything other than terrifying. That he was able to effectively walk away with no more than burns to his hands and ankles is amazing when you watch the footage of what happened.

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His survival is down to two things - the evolution of safety equipment, in particular the Halo device, and the presence of a dedicated medical and rescue response (and the use of the word dedicated is deliberate and two-fold).

As Sir...

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Motorsport and the virus

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Friday, April 17, 2020, In : Musings and opinion 
Outcomes in motorsport are often determined by little things. A fifty cent bonnet pin. The nut that keeps a wheel in place. An nth of a second in pit lane or through a corner complex. These small things determine championships.

A very small thing has brought our sport almost to a complete halt. The SARS-Cov-2 Coronavirus. So small it can only be indirectly seen using an electron microscope.



In addition to the usual months of planning, strategies for managing the coronavirus at the opening F1 ra...

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Bikes, motorsport and life

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Monday, May 1, 2017, In : Musings and opinion 

I like to think that I am not totally unfit. I attribute much of that to spending most of my younger years cycling everywhere and swimming a lot. I think it gave me a good base to work from.

I'm getting older and bits of me creak now. What is more noticeable is the longer recovery time. I've become more aware of my physical limitations and how they can impact on how I choose to spend my life. I figure that if I am going to be able to continue doing the things that I enjoy and particularly kee...

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Protecting yer noggin'

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Friday, April 1, 2016, In : Musings and opinion 


There is a lot made of safety at motorsport events. Competitors sign a waiver acknowledging that motorsport is dangerous and the same statement is printed on every ticket sold. Crashes such as Fernando Alonso's in Melbourne a few weeks ago, Robert Kubica's hand injuring rally crash in 2011 or Simone De Silvestra's 2010 IndyCar inferno amongst many others serve to reinforce that message.



It is not surprising then that safety is emphasized for those officials working at a motorsport event, whet...

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Dr. John Hinds

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Monday, July 6, 2015, In : Musings and opinion 


John Hinds was an anaesthetist, an intensivist, a prehospitalist and a motorsport doctor in Northern Ireland. He was also a talented educator, a pragmatist and extremely witty. And John was a friend.

I first met John at the SMACCGold conference, after his "Cases from the races" talk and recorded a podcast with him and Brent May. As with many people at SMACC, I had had conversations online with him before I met him in person. My last contact with John was at this year's SMACC conference, in Chi...

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Medical response at Formula 1: Insider

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Wednesday, May 21, 2014, In : Musings and opinion 


For anyone who doesn't already know, Dr Gary Hartstein, the previous FIA Medical Rescue Co-ordinator who rode shotgun with Alan van der Merwe in the Mercedes AMG C63 station wagon at the back of the grid for each F1 start, has moved on from mere tweeting and now writes his own blog, A Former F1 Doc Writes.


More recently, he has started a series of posts on how a medical response to a racing incident is articulated. The posts give an insight into how the process is managed at the very highest l...

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Time for a Registry

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Sunday, January 19, 2014, In : Musings and opinion 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Friday, October 25, 2013



It’s hard to know that a problem exists if you don’t look for it.

Sometimes you’ll find it because the problem finds you, usually through an adverse outcome. But wouldn’t it be better to know of  a potential problem’s existence beforehand and, even better, put something in place to mitigate it. So it makes sense to look out for problems before they cause trouble; that’s just basic survival.

And it is not without ...

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Rollcage Medic gets Twitterlicious!

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Saturday, January 18, 2014, In : Musings and opinion 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Sunday, October 14, 2012

Sorry about the long gaps between posts. I've been working on some collaborative projects that have taken up time usually put aside for motor sport medicine. They've been mostly centred around the other site that I'm involved in, the Intensive Care Network, along with an emerging online medical education movement called FOAM (Free Open Access Meducation), which I'll do a separate post about. If you can't wait, you can find out more by d...
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Pre-hospital practice and motor sports medicine on PHARM

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Saturday, January 18, 2014, In : Musings and opinion 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Thursday, June 21, 2012

There's a lot to be learned from the guys who practice pre-hospital acute medicine that can be adapted to motor sports medicine. Minh Le Cong is a retrievalist working with Queensland RFDS who has created a great blog (PHARM) that covers tricky topics and offers pearls in pre-hospital medicine.

He interviews individuals who have particular expertise or experience that may be of benefit to practicioners and this week (Lord knows why) he in...
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Spanish Grand Prix drama

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Saturday, January 18, 2014, In : Musings and opinion 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Monday, May 14, 2012

The Spanish Grand Prix was held at the weekend and it was a drama filled event, from qualifying to an hour and half after the podium presentation. Hamilton's relegation to the rear of the grid promoted Pastor Maldonado from his impressive second place to his first pole position. He then backed it up with a confident sensible drive into the Turn 1, losing out to Fernando Alonso, only to regain the lead with solid driving and clever pit strat...
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Australian Formula 1 GP, Melbourne 2012

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Saturday, January 18, 2014, In : Musings and opinion 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Monday, March 19, 2012

Australia has once again openend the F1GP season and overall it was a good couple of days. We've finally been able to get a feel for what the 2012 cars can do - who has made progress over the winter period and who has stood still? It seems that Ferrari have gone backwards and HRT are falling off the tail end of the pit lane.

Mercedes were looking like the big movers, unfortunately a gearbox issue dropped Schumacher out of the race and a la...
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The Azores ... beautiful stages

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Saturday, January 18, 2014, In : Musings and opinion 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Wednesday, February 29, 2012

I'm watching the beautiful Azores stages of the opening event for the 2012 Intercontinental Rally Challenge , courtesy of wrcforeva who posts coverage from both WRC and IRC events on YouTube - which I am grateful for, given the lack of television coverage here in Oz.

The Azores IRC is a gravel event, on a volcanic island - so the dirt is dark and rich and the vegetation lush. There are some great stages where the road runs in a gully...
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Crazy Monegasques

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Saturday, January 18, 2014, In : Musings and opinion 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Thursday, February 9, 2012

For me, the Catalunya Rally always had the most mental spectators. Lining the edges of the route 3 - 5 deep and scuttling out of the way only metres in front of an oncoming rally car and surging back in afterwards, it was only a matter of time before someone's luck ran out.

The Monte Carlo Rally is back on the WRC calendar, with a mammoth 5 day event (the influence of Jean Todt's preference for endurance events perhaps?). What a great...
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A history of race suits

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Saturday, January 18, 2014, In : Musings and opinion 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Tuesday, January 17, 2012

There's a summarised history of race suit development on the F1 GP website, that charts the transition from the cotton pants and shirt of the gentleman racer to the two-layer nomex with undergarments worn by today's speed demons. The article also names one Paul Trafford, a UK surgeon who has been involved in motorsports medicine for about 25 years and has worked alongside the likes of Sid Watkins and Terry Trammel. Traf has taken on th...
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Rally Australia CoC awarded FIA Senior Official of the Season

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Saturday, January 18, 2014, In : Musings and opinion 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Michelle Gatton, a former rally driver, has been officiating for Australian and Asia-Pacific rally events for more than 10 years. This year she was the Clerk of Course for the Rally Australia stage of the 2011 WRC season. For her efforts, she was recently awarded the FIA Outstanding Senior Official of the Season.

You can read more about Michelle and her award here:
http://www.cams.com.au/en/Media/News/2011/Australian_named_FIA_Outstandi...
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Dakar's fangs are still pointy

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Saturday, January 18, 2014, In : Musings and opinion 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Saturday, January 7, 2012

2012 is off to a motorsporting start with the Dakar Rally. The world's self-proclaimed most dangerous motorsport event takes its name from the original Paris (France) to Dakar (Senegal) route. The only other event that has such a publicly fearsome reputation is the Isle of Man TT, which annually kills riders and not infrequently spectators.

The Dakar was life-threatening enough negotiating rocks, trees, sand dunes, lions and the heat, ...
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Farewell Dan Wheldon and Marco Simoncelli

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Thursday, January 16, 2014, In : Musings and opinion 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Monday, October 24, 2011

It has been a bad week for motor sport and more specifically for the families of motorsport competitors. The weekend before last, Indy Car driver Dan Wheldon was kiiled in a high speed, 15 car pile up at the Las Vegas circuit and yesterday Marco Simoncelli was killed at the Malaysian Moto GP. Both deaths occurred during racing and resulted in the remainder of each event being appropriately canceled.

Dan Wheldon, an Englishman who had pre...
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Australians assisting with Year 2 of F1GP South Korea

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Thursday, January 16, 2014, In : Musings and opinion 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Tuesday, October 4, 2011

The F1 juggernaut returns to South Korea in just under two weeks for the second time. Last year was the first ever hosting and a training team assembled by CAMS went over to help the Korean team to prepare and conduct the event. There were a number of stumbling blocks along the way, but despite these, the event won an FIA award for its efforts.

This year a smaller Australian contingent is returning to Mokpo for back-up while the K...
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Fire safety tale

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Thursday, January 16, 2014, In : Musings and opinion 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Friday, August 19, 2011

01/08/2011, 21:30 - Just found another angle on the Heidfeld fire (http://tinyurl.com/3pjqlkj). It wasn't the tyre that blew, it was the left sidepod.

Also, it's probably a sector marshall that gets caught in the blast - Distinct lack of fire retardant overalls and a plastic rain poncho. There's also no sign of a Yellow flag near pit exit nor a safety car, which seems odd given the nature and position of the incident - Watch two cars zip...
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Medicine in Motor Sport, the movie (well ... the textbook, to start with)

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Thursday, January 16, 2014, In : Musings and opinion 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Thursday, June 30, 2011

Anyone who has visited the FIA or FIA Institute websites in the last 3 months, or has read the most recent edition of the ASMMR Newsletter will be aware that the FIA have published the Gary Hartstein edited textbook  "Medicine in Motor Sport". You can read it online on the FIA Institute website or buy it for your e-reader from Amazon at www.amazon.com/dp/B004XJ6BQG. I'm planning on putting aside some time to leaf through it over the next...
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Wiley Coff's business

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Thursday, January 16, 2014, In : Musings and opinion 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Wednesday, June 29, 2011

The Coff's Harbour Deep Sea Fishing Club has spotted a market opportunity and will place one or more of their vessels in the harbour during the rally with Monaco-esque views of the super special stage. If you are interested, you can visit their website at http://deepseafishingclub.com.au/

Sounds like the Coff's residents are getting into this rally thing ....
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Australian WRC driver returns

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Thursday, January 16, 2014, In : Musings and opinion 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Wednesday, June 29, 2011

For anyone wondering what Chris Atkinson has been up to since the Subaru World Rally team folded up its operations, he's been competing in the Asia-Pacific Championship in a Proton S2000. He's planning to content at the Coff's Harbour WRC Rally Australia round in September.
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