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I’m approaching 62 and as a little boy, was obsessed with cars (and all things mechanical) which led to my interest in motorsports of all kinds. I would watch anything motoring related on TV (which meant many bizarre things on BBC Grandstand!) and attended many race meetings at my most local circuit Mallory Park, especially once I had powered transport. I went to every British GP from 1978 to 1986, camping on site from about Wednesday onwards and I suppose this would have been when my interest in F1 was at its peak.
With my mates we would travel all over the UK at weekends to watch rallies, including many years following ‘The RAC’ sleeping in the car in the evenings.
Saloon type Car racing was always my main passion, so again I travelled all over to see events involving this type of action, plus I’ve been to Le Mans at least 15 – 20 times. I even tried the sport from the other side of the Armco by racing a Mini Se7en a bit in the early 80’s. In 1987 I started working for a BTCC team so my visits to the British GP continued up to the end of the Group A period, plus since then, I have been lucky enough to visit numerous race circuits in various parts of the world, for Grand Prix and other things.
Nowadays I try to watch every GP & qualifying session on TV (family commitments allowing) but as far as visiting races live go, it’s only the past couple of years when I’ve been kindly invited as a guest that I’ve been to the BTCC meetings at Donington.
We do appear to be a dying breed, I don’t know of any people in their 20’s & 30’s who dedicates the time/commitment to spectating that we did at that age, but that is maybe a sign of the times?
Oh, and I joined 10/10ths in April 2005 at the ripe old age of 49, at the time, purely to find out more about the death of my old saloon car racing hero Gerry Marshall, which also explains my choice of sign-on name.
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