Dan Puddicombe - My weekend with Autosport

Passion. It's a word that can have so many meanings, but is generally used to describe someone who is, well, passionate about whatever it is they're good at or have a keen interest in. Over the last few weeks that word has cropped up a lot, from a number of places – the F2 paddock, my family, random people on the Internet, even – when talking about your correspondent. Quite honestly, I'm flattered to think that so many people have taken an interest in a ginger car geek's plight to write some things about cars. So when Jack asked me to write about my weekend as a journalist for AUTOSPORT at the F2 event, I was more than happy to oblige.

Photographs (c) Dan Puddicombe

Click "read more" to see Dan's weekend writing for Autosport

I won't talk about the qualifying sessions or the races – they can be found here, here, here, and here - but instead I'll talk about the experience of being allowed wherever I liked for the majority of the weekend. For someone who considers himself a fan more than a wannabe journalist, it's an amazing opportunity, and boy did I seize it. I also felt that it would be good to share the experience online, so throughout the weekend I was seen tweeting pictures from the pit-lane or little tit bits from the drivers. So thank you to those who responded positively to my musings over the weekend – I felt I was giving something back to the fans who would have loved to have been in my position – including Jack, who kept on telling me how jealous he was of me!

I had to keep on pinching myself that it wasn't just a dream as my sister drove me to Brands Hatch on the Saturday, as we followed the 'media' signs. In the media car park –which, for reference, has a terrible road surface – I got out of the car, went over to the entrance gate and was waved through. I really was living the dream. After that, I found a very helpful person who directed me to the media centre – it involved using a tunnel that I'd been out of following a BSB pit-lane walkabout last October – got there and was greeted by the lovely Tom from F2 who got me my pass. After signing in, I met up with Andrew who told me I was to be writing the web reports on F2 for AUTOSPORT's website, and that whenever there wasn't an F2 session on, I was allowed wherever I liked, which took a moment or two to settle in. Here I am, a fan, who just so happens to be half decent at writing – or so people say; ultimately, it's up to you, the reader to decide of course – with the right opening, thanks to being a jammy git, being allowed where I liked. You couldn't make it up!

The F2 qualifying wasn't the first session of the day, but even so, I sat in the media centre, watching the first session of the day unfold – I think it was F3 – and thinking to myself 'in a minute I'm going to have to write about F2 for millions of people'. Fairly soon afterwards, it was the turn of the F2 boys. Phone off. Twitter off. Timing on, word document open, and notepad poised, I started making notes on the key bits of the session as it unfolded. Then, far sooner than what felt like half an hour, time was up. Suddenly, the entire media centre went quiet save for the furious tapping of keyboards.

The next few minutes were a blur of frantic typing as I attempted to recall what had happened in the session and put in to words. Fortunately for me, the timing screens in the media centre – and on my laptop – still had all of the results on them, so it wasn't too bad. I made good time, emailed it over to Andrew who duly put it online, caught the end of the press conference, then went for a wander.

My wander encompassed the pit-lane, which was just opening for the International GT qualifying session. After passing through one of the garages, there I was in the pit-lane with the world's most expensive queue in front of me. I did what any like-minded social-networking-aholic would do, and posted a picture on Twitter, then stood in the Ferrari garage to shelter from the rain that was coming down at the time. This place proved to be a good place, as five minutes later, a pair of scarlet 458s came in for a tyre change, which of course I photographed. 

After watching a magnificent display of tyre-changing, I thought to myself 'I am here covering F2, and I have not been to the F2 paddock'. So I made amends to that by generally getting in the way of everyone (sorry) while having a nosey at the cars. Just as I was heading back towards the nerve centre, I noticed Luciano out of the corner of my eye. Like I had done to everyone in what looked like racing overalls that morning (if the German motor biker that I caught outside the toilets is reading this, there was a misunderstanding. I'm sorry), I went over to say hello and introduce myself. 'Hello, I'm Luciano' said Luciano after I said I was 'Dan from AUTOSPORT'. Thankfully the conversation was a lot more intelligent than those first few words; I spent the best part of five minutes chatting to him, before I felt the need to leave him alone to do racing driver things. As I went to sake his hand, he said 'High-five me, man'. Of course I high-fived him, and to my surprise, I heard that unmistakable noise of the paparazzi. If you did take that photo and happen to be reading this – please get in touch with me; I'd dearly love that photo.

After my trip to the F2 paddock I mainly flitted between the media centre (where it was dry) and the pit-lane (where it rained). More often than not over the weekend, I found myself plumping for the media centre over getting wet, simply because a) I didn't want to get wet and b) the media centre had a great view. About 40 minutes until the start of the F2 race, I grabbed some lunch and made my way back up to my computer to discuss clouds on Twitter and get ready for the race.

During the race itself – which was quite a thriller due to the rain and safety cars – I was scribbling in my notepad notes on the unfolding race – I'll post a photo on Twitter of one of my pages if there's enough demand – with the hope that I'd somehow remember some of this and actually be able to be read my gibberish. I needn't of worried though, because after the success that was my qualifying report, I felt quite relaxed as I bashed away on my keyboard as soon as the race finished. The only hitch was that the timing screen decided to disappear halfway through my writing session, so I had to rely on my notes and Declan, who was sat next to me; if it wasn't for you mate, that report wouldn't have made it up in anywhere near the time it did.

After the F2 race I once again went down to the pit-lane to get another taste of live motorsport. Regular readers / people who know me will know that I'm blessed in the respect that I'm able to go off to quite a few events over the course of the year, but even so, live motorsport has a place in me that won't disappear. It's so intoxicating, thrilling and fascinating to admire, and nothing else comes close to it. Except for karting, but I have tales of crashing Nigel Mansell's brand new kart that will have to come another day...

Back to Saturday afternoon. It was raining again, so I stayed in the media centre to keep dry and to get a decent view of the support sessions. My brother in law wasn't due to collect me from the circuit until the end of the last session, so I had to do something. Hard life, eh?

Fast-forward a couple of hours, and its the end of the first day. I had a huge grin on my face; I'd been on cloud nine all day. I didn't really care that it had rained for most of the day – the two sessions I was covering were made interesting by it – I was a very happy bunny indeed when my brother in law came to pick me up. I didn't even care that I had to walk for fifteen minutes around the circuit in the rain without a coat, because Yours Truly can be a bit of a Muppet....

Sunday dawned bright and early, as opposed to dull and cloudy, and once again I had a huge grin on my face as we followed the 'media' signs on the way in to the circuit, the novelty of it all certainly not wearing off. My brother in law was coming too, as a spectator, so he was really chuffed to find that he was allowed to park in the media car park.

I was walking behind a few people in AF Corse clobber on my way to the tunnel towards the paddock / media centre complex, and once again it struck me that I was really doing what I dreamt of. Of course, me being me, I arrived at the media centre in plenty of time, and was once again greeted by the lovely Tom from F2, and the Brands Hatch staff (thanks for breakfast guys), as I set up my computer for day.

I didn't have much to do for a while, so I went onto Facebook and Twitter to update people on the weather (yes, I am British – I am obsessed with the weather) and wasn't really doing very much; I didn't have enough time to go down and pester F2 drivers and the media centre was nice and warm. Then in walked a familiar face; that of BBC F1's Lee McKenzie. Suddenly I went from professorial journalist to awe-struck fan in one sight. Of course I went over and introduced myself to her – and reassured her that, yes, I was meant to be in the media centre. To her credit, Lee was lovely; she talked to me for a good while, posed for a photo, and most importantly, gave me great advice.

That word 'passion' came up again, as did the general advice of going around the lower formulae paddocks. Lee was actually at Brands Hatch to watch a friend race but told me how its important you keep abreast of the young drivers coming up through the ranks and told me that I should go around the pit lane and talk to people. I did that a bit later on. Lee, again, thank you so, so much for your advice and chat.

By this time, the F2 lot were about to come out, so I had to go back into full concentration mode with everything bar the live timing – which was shaky at best – open to help, and an empty page in my notepad. The track had not fully dried, but it was sunny, so it would be interesting to note the lap times the drivers able to do. As it turned out, the session was quite anti-climatic as everyone had run out of boost with five minutes to go, so nobody ran. This suited me as it meant I had ample time to write a session review, and get it online, and actually make the press conference.

While sat listening to the press conference I sat behind someone with what I thought said 'RichardF1' on his t-shirt. I thought this was a bit strange, since this was F2 and he didn't look like a Richard to me. I took that off my mind and posted my press conference photo on Twitter. Two minutes later, our gracious host for this piece, Jack tweeted to tell me Luke Smith from Richland F1 was also in the media centre and we should meet up. This Luke Smith chap tweeted to say that yes, he was sat in front of me. Ah, problem solved. We then walked over and found each other to introduce ourselves properly, before I went off to the pit lane to watch the start of the International GT race.

Guess who I bumped into in the pit-lane then? Well, yes, I did bump into Lee again, and we had another chat, but I also saw TV Chef and car bloke James Martin for first of five times that day. I'm convinced that he was stalking me.

Between the end of the International GT race and the start of the F2 race, I saw my brother in law, to check he was enjoying himself (he was) and went and found Luciano again. He remembered me, which I was amazed at, and also seemed very calm and collected after not a very good qualifying session. I then went into the pit-lane again, before grabbing an early lunch, and then sat down at my computer to prepare myself for my fourth and last report of the weekend.

As it turns out, it was quite a processional race, which was good and bad for me. Good because I could make the press conference again, and bad because I had to fill an empty space. Again, I did it quite quickly and was quite proud of the piece, all four actually.

Luke and I decided what we really wanted to do straight after the press conference was to go and collar some drivers for a word. Annoyingly, by the time we got down to the paddock most of the drivers had either disappeared from view or were on autograph duty – which actually was lovely admire how friendly the drivers were to the general public and not just those with yellow wristbands with 'media' in black writing on it.

The rest of the afternoon was spent either in the media centre, in the pit lane, or with my brother in law in the general public areas. It felt strange going into these areas when I'd been allowed wherever I liked and really did reinforce how lucky I am to have been able to cover the weekend for AUTOSPORT. Put simply, I said that I was from AUTOSPORT and it opened so many doors over the weekend and gave me so many friends and contacts, and as I came out of Brands Hatch on the Sunday evening, I had a huge smile on my face. Could you tell I was on cloud nine all weekend?

Passion? If I may say so, I think over that weekend I proved I have the passion to carry on; certainly judging by your comments on Twitter, comments made to me in the media centre and in the AUTOSPORT and Autocar offices. To those of you gave me such kind words; thank you. It means a lot, it really does. 

I should be at the Snetterton round of the BTCC with AUTOSPORT; I will be tweeting all weekend, hopefully, and hopefully giving you guys a glimpse into what it's like as a journalist at a race meeting. Like I say, I'm very fortunate to have the chance, and I want to share it with people who may aspire to do the same, but haven't got that magical break. You can follow me on Twitter here.

I have to say a special thank you to Tom at F2 for sorting out my pass, Andrew for giving me the chance to report over the weekend, and of course my sister and brother in law for ferrying me about like a VIP all weekend.