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!
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