The hardworking and dedicated volunteers who make the Townsville 500 a success

Events such as the Townsville 500 couldn’t be possible if not for a group of volunteers who work behind the scenes helping the event run smoothly for people to enjoy.

(Left) Volunteer photographers Tim and Reece Lynch, Coates Sales Manager Joel Couacaud, volunteer Chief Marshal, Cosmin Ghebosu.

Events like the Townsville 500 wouldn’t be possible without selfless volunteers doing jobs ranging from marshaling to photography and everything in between.

Cosmin Ghebsou has been volunteering as a trackside marshal at the event for 14 years.

He was made the Chief Marshal at this year’s event.

“I attended the two years before that and thought ‘why not,’ you know, get to be closer to the action,” Mr Ghebosu said.

Being a marshal has seen Cosmin be a part of different events in Australia, including the Bathurst and the Australian Grand Prix.

But being the Chief Marshal in his hometown is something special for him.

“It’s great to be part of something that I enjoy and something that I love doing,” Mr Ghebosu said.

“I do travel around Australia, so being able to do this in my hometown is fantastic.”

Tim and Reece Lynch have been volunteering at the event for over a decade.

People come from far and wide to enjoy the Townsville 500.

For Tim, he wanted to find a way to get involved.

“I just wanted to find a way of getting involved and using my services more than anything,” Tim said.

“So you know, being a photographer was what I was best involved in doing.”

Reece started off as a promo girl before getting into photography with Mr Lynch.

“I wanted a different way to remain involved once I stopped that line of work,,” she said.

“Tim has taught me how to take photos so I thought why not put it to use.”

While the volunteers do get the best seat in the house, it’s not just sitting around and watching the cars all day.

“Over a weekend we can do anywhere between 40 to 6ks, depending on how active we get,” Tim said.

“As part of the Chief Marshal team, a lot of our focus is on supporting the trackside teams, so we get around a fair bit as well through the day,” Cosmin said.

“We do about two, three laps a day, and our workload is about supporting everyone trackside as well.”

We may not be waving the flags, but we’re in the background supporting everyone who is doing all the other roles trackside to make sure we have a great event.”

Coates hire is the official volunteer sponsor of this year’s Supercars.

Sales manager for Queensland the Northern Territory, Joel Couacaud said it was overwhelming the amount of community support they got from Townsville.

Events such as the Townsville 500 wouldn't be possible without the hard work and dedication of volunteers.

“We were literally closing jobs early because we had that many applicants, so it was really great to see,” he said.

“The community really gets around events like this in Townsville and it’s really exciting to see.”

This year the capacity for volunteers needed to be increased due the racing happening on the Friday

“A lot of the events have gone to that system now where they have a race on the Friday as well, so it’s usually just qualifying and a little bit of tuning the cars and a bit of practice,” Mr Couacaud said.

“We have to upskill and uplift the quality of the people on the Friday, and then carry that through to the Saturday and Sunday.”

If anyone has any thoughts of wanting to be a volunteer, Tim has some advice.

“Anyone that’s on the fence, give it a go, it can’t hurt to jump in and see if you like it,” he said.

Originally published as The hardworking and dedicated volunteers who make the Townsville 500 a success