Motorsport recovery camp 2025

On February 15-16, 2025, the 2nd annual Motorsport Rescue Camp took place in Most, which is a comprehensive training course for rescuers in motorsport, the purpose of which is to deepen the cooperation of technical and medical rescuers with regard to the specifics of interventions in individual motorsport disciplines. This is a joint project of the Most Autodrom, the Autoklub Sport Rescue rescue system and the DavepoMedevac medical service provider.

This year's event was attended as observers by representatives of the Autoclub of the Czech Republic, led by the Secretary General of Automobile and Motorcycle Sports, Mgr. Tomáš Kunc, as well as representatives of foreign motoring federations from Slovakia and Greece.

The main theme of the Saturday morning block of theoretical training was the analysis of the extraordinary events of the 2024 season with officials who were personally present at the incriminated places, and the resulting knowledge for the activities of rescue workers. These were then discussed in detail through examples from the mentioned events in individual thematic blocks, from the design of racing vehicles and their safety features, through the organization of a sports event to the technique of carrying out the intervention itself, including the extrication of the crew and the resolution of a traumatic situation.

The head of the ASR rescue team, Zbyšek Zuber, highlighted on this occasion that: "...the activities of the crew members sent to intervene in the aforementioned emergencies were carried out with the necessary confidence and efficiency, which visibly reflected the positive influence of the crew training at previous Motorsport Rescue Camps."

The afternoon block was marked by practical training in vehicle crew extrication, when four-member teams consisting of two ASR rescuers and two DavepoMedevac paramedics gradually rotated through stations representing various motorsport disciplines to acquire new knowledge and consolidate routine joint intervention procedures. "The aforementioned extraordinary events from last season have confirmed our belief that the demands on the abilities of our crews will continue to increase and their training must correspond to this," said David Veselý, CEO of the DavepoMedevac medical service provider, and continued: "The analysis of these events led us to the idea of an intervention in a broader context, and we adapted the scenario of a traditional evening training intervention in the field to this."

Saturday's training block, after a short break to replenish their strength, continued with a comprehensive evening exercise, when rescuers were called to an accident involving a competition vehicle on a special stage. When they arrived at the scene, they discovered that the vehicle had ended up overturned on its side, its roof leaning against a rock wall. Before the rescuers reached the scene of the accident, spectators standing around rushed to try to turn the car over onto its wheels again, when immediately afterwards, in the same place, the following racing vehicle could not handle the situation and crashed into the already crashed car... The intervening rescuers first had to perform triage (sorting the number of injured), extricate them, treat them and remove them. The night, a freshly fallen layer of snow on an icy surface and 10 degrees Celsius below zero did not make the situation any easier for them. The entire model situation was controlled from a simulated dispatch center so that it was possible to send backup units to the scene, as is the case in real life.

During the subsequent debriefing, the Greek observer Dr. Pavlos Petridis (CMO Rally Acropolis) who was present expressed his pleasant surprise at the handling of the demanding exercise by the responding crews, and his colleague Philippos Papastathopoulos (Head of Safety of Rally Acropolis) also praised the coordination of the rescuers and paramedics during the afternoon training.

Sunday's program was carried out in specialized blocks of theory or practice according to the expertise of the rescuers, when the ASR rescuers primarily trained in operating rescue tools on disabled vehicles, while the paramedics prepared especially for the upcoming WorldSBK Superbike Championship race and practiced the specifics of intervention in the event of an accident involving a motorcycle rider.

Jindřich Hrneček, sports director of the Autodrom Most, concluded by indicating where the next year of the event will go: "In order to further increase training options and objectively compare the results of individual teams, we are also considering including a specialized training simulator that would allow rescuers to repeatedly practice given model situations under precisely defined conditions. We are also already thinking about how to move the entire Motorsport Rescue Camp to a higher, more demanding and more complex level, so that we can take our rescuers a little further." The head of the ASR rescue team, Zbyšek Zuber, immediately commented: "However, the further advancement of training is starting to hit the limits of the technical equipment of our rescue vehicles, which is becoming morally obsolete and it is also necessary to address its replacement and supplementation."

The event ended with a final thank you to the participants and all partners for their support, especially the participating racing teams, or rather the owners of all the borrowed racing machines, led by Škoda Motorsport, some of whom also provided extras in racing gear.

Text+photo: ASR Media team

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