Daniel Puddicombe: My BTCC weekend with AUTOSPORT (Part 1)

Author: Daniel Puddicombe - the guest editor for JLF1 this week. 

This is a two part series on my weekend at Snetterton with AUTOSPORT. The second part will be online tomorrow (Tuesday). Enjoy, and as ever comments are welcome, either on here or on Twitter.

I'm no stranger to the world of the British Touring Car Championship, having followed the series for a number of years thanks to ITV4's excellent coverage, and have attended a few races at Brands and Thruxton since 2007. So there should be nothing to worry about, correct? Wrong. I somehow managed to get another weekend with AUTOSPORT, after a successful weekend reporting on F2 at Brands, and a week's work experience. Yet, for some reason, I was nervous as we drove towards the circuit on Saturday morning. You see, unlike Brands, which I know like the back of my hand, I'd never been to Snetterton, because, well, it's quite out of the way for me. Oh, and, it's the second-most watched series in the UK after Formula One. No pressure then...

Arriving into Snetterton, I showed my media pass, and was promptly directed into a public car-park. Brilliant. Anyway, I took it gracefully, and asked someone where the media centre was. After a bit of faffing around, I found where the media centre was...and walked into Matt Neal while he was signing autographs. Sorry mate.

Kevin Turner was already in the media centre, and gave me my weekend task. In short, I had to do the Free Practice Two report, and I also had to write mock reports of the Clio Cup and the Porsche Carerra Cup races. When a series I wasn't concentrating on was taking place, I could go wherever I liked and speak to whoever I liked. Once again, I was to have the freedom of the paddock. Still, the touring cars were coming out of the garages for their first practice session, so I loaded up a timing screen, took a photo of my view to make everyone envious and paid attention to what was going on.

Of course, the main thing that happened in that first free practice session was Gordon Sheddon's car catching fire; as it was trundling down the pit-lane, all of a sudden it burst into flames and all you could see was smoke. The media centre is right above the pit-lane so we all got a grandstand seat of the Flash fire (sorry). The memory of it won't leave me for a while; it's hard to describe, but what I did know was that I needed to go down to the paddock to chat with with Shedds and to see the damage to the car for myself. As it turned out, Honda were in the garages closest to the media centre so finding the car was an easy task. The entire engine bay was black and smouldering when I got down there, and the bodywork didn't look much better either. I spoke to Flash a bit after he recovered, and he told me that he had to leap out of the passenger-side door, while the car was still moving to avoid being engulfed in flames himself. It's a miracle and a testimony to the safety of cars these days that he wasn't seriously injured or even hurt at all – just a bit shocked.

Between the end of FP1 and FP2 I spent my time grabbing words with drivers and team members ahead of the second practice session and also learning the circuit a bit. As well as that I needed to pop up to the media centre to make notes on the Clios and Porsches. In short, motorsport journalism seems glamorous, but it really isn't! When I got back to the media centre, I noticed a certain Louise Goodman from ITTV4 had set up opposite me. Not for the first time over the weekend, I had to explain why I was there and had a lovely chat with Louise – and I did later in the day too. Motor-racing is so serious, but everyone – generally – is very friendly. It's refreshing, and was also a bit weird to bump into pals that I met during the F2 weekend...

FP2 went by and I wrote my report, emailed it to what I thought was the right email address and I was well on my way to getting some much-needed lunch, as I was stopped in my tracks by my iPhone making a noise to inform me that I had got the email address wrong. A slight panic ensured as Kevin and Ben were nowhere to be seen. After a bit of brain-racking, I remembered the right email address and sent it in. My dad also appeared from nowhere too, so we had a catch up and discussed when we'd next see each other (it turned out to be at the end of the day, for reference), and he gave me his qualifying predictions. Writing about the action is all well and good, but it's sometimes useful to get a track-side perspective on things which you can't get when you're in the media centre, or running around the paddock trying to get information.

On my way back to the media centre, I bumped into Matt Neal for the second time in the day, and he told me that he was hoping to take the fight to his best mate Jason Plato in qualifying, and tried to give me an update on Flash's car (at that point it was a 'maybe' for qualifying). I found over the course of the weekend that a lot of the BTCC drivers were more than happy to talk to me when I nabbed them as they were going from one place to another, none more so than both Honda drivers; they were the only guys who kept on signing things for the thousands of fans that were in and around the paddock while speaking to me. As a journalist, it's a bit of a pain to have the public around as it makes it hard to speak to people, but from a fans point of view – remember, I put myself as a fan who likes write about motorsport and cars – it gives fantastic access.

The Porsche rabble are always closely matched, and the qualifying session at Snetterton was no exception; eleven cars were within a second of each other. After maing a few notes on the session and picking up the results sheet, I headed out once again to the BTCC paddock (see, told you all I did on the Saturday was go to the paddock). After about two seconds of searching I found Matt Neal again. Unlike our previous encounters, he seemed pretty downbeat, claiming that Plato had a speed advantage over his Honda Civic. Of course, the next thing I did was to go down to the KX squad and speak to someone, that person being Frank Wrathell who told me that their speed advantage was more like 1kph (which isn't much), compared to the 2kph that Neal was claiming.

I then thought to myself 'Jason Plato has blanked me three times in the last three years. He can't ignore me because I'm in the media, and anyway I want to speak to him'. I honestly wish I hadn't. His engineer stopped me from going into the garage (all other teams allowed me to waltz in), which is fair enough, and asked me to wait for Jason (which again, is fair enough since he's a busy bloke). After ten minutes, Jason pops out, complete with sunglasses, and starts to quiz me on who I'm with. After explaining to him that I was with AUTOSPORT, I probably did the wrong thing and told him that Matt Neal thinks that his arch-enemy will walk the weekend. To which I got told this:

'Have you ever seen touring cars? Matt is playing games and is clearly talking out of his arse to you'. Righty- ho.

'Jason, how do you think you'll do in qualifying?'

'Well we'll have to see; obviously those Hondas are a bit quicker than us, but you know what Matt's like. I honestly think he'll beat me and he's bluffing to you, but we'll have to see.'

'And the races? It's meant to be warmer which suit you, shouldn't it?'

'I don't know yet. Come back to me after the races. I couldn't give a shit about the weather, as you probably got that from Matt' he says smirking.

'Erm, okay. Thanks Jason.' I go to shake his hand, and he turns around and heads back into the garage, ignoring the fans that were camped out behind, hoping for a quick chat with him. If only they knew the real Jason Plato while the cameras were off...

A little shaken, I headed back towards the media centre, and on my way back I bumped into Mat Jackson, one of the kinder members of the drivers. I asked him how his chances for qualifying and also asked how the NGTC car was getting on. Mat was friendly and explained that he only ran four laps in the car so he was treating the weekend as an extended test session. As I headed back to the media centre for qualifying, I had mixed feelings; Jason had obviously been quite rude, which was annoying, yet everyone else was so helpful and kind – his team-mate for one. I put that out of my head, sat down and asked Louise for her prediction and chatted to her a bit more. Have I mentioned she's lovely?

I found it amusing all weekend how everyone goes their own way to do things during the weekend, but about five minutes before the BTCC sessions begin everyone crowded into the media centre to watch and take note. Alongside me, I had Kevin, Ben, a Motorsport News writer and the lovely duo responsible for tweeting from the BTCC account and keeping btcc.net up to date. Together we had a laugh all weekend, with Matt providing the laughs more often than not. One gem from him, as the session was red-flagged after Shedds got going again was this: 'Who runs this series? The Chuckle Brothers?'. I admit that it makes more sense if you were there, but he's a very funny bloke indeed.

Clios then beckoned and I actually had to concentrate as I was writing a report on it; in short, it wasn't as manic as a typical Clio Cup race, but it was still a brilliant race nonetheless. I had arranged to meet up with dad during the final race of the day so straight after the Clios, I said my goodbyes and packed up with the am of getting out of the circuit at a half-decent time, as by then I was shattered.

Finding my way back to the car was a challenge as I had to negotiate a number of over-eager Ginetta drivers, and because I wasn't really sure where to go. After finding the car, I flopped in and rested. It had been a long, hard day, but a very rewarding one. I think this a good point to stop, and to say that the second part of this two part series will be online tomorrow. Hope you enjoyed reading this little insight into my life as I was a journalist for AUTOSPORT again, and I look forward to hearing your comments!