An Introduction To... This Blog

I'm Ian and I'm a fan of lots of different types of racing. Like many people I grew up watching Formula One races on TV with the enthusiasm of Murray Walker's commentary drawing me in to watching more and more. He also used to commentate on the British Touring Car Championship back in the 90s and it was easy to watch with the races shown on the BBC.

By the time I got old enough to go to races myself I preferred going to races where the tickets were a bit cheaper and you could get a bit closer to the cars and the drivers. This took me to watching many BTCC races in person, plus other international series such as DTM (German Touring Cars) when they were over in the UK.

Fast forward to university and my racing fix went international, visiting the Le Mans 24 Hours in France multiple times to soak up the festival-like atmosphere, as well as finally attending the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in 2008. Since then I have found that while I still enjoy F1 as the pinnacle of the sport, there are many other championships I also enjoy. Going to a smaller event, there are often more support races throughout the day and you have a bit more freedom to move around and see different corners of the track. Often these events will also be a fraction of the ticket price of an event like the Grand Prix.

For the past few years I have always tried to attend at least 1 big event each year but almost always something new. This has taken me to places like the Indy 500, the Algarve for the European Le Mans Series, Rallycross, Goodwood Revival, Rally GB and even NASCAR. There are always more events on the list for the future though, such as visiting the Nurburgring Nordschleife (shown in the picture below), Le Mans Classic and some other interesting European circuits!

Hopefully reading some of these posts might help people answer some of the same questions and thoughts I had when trying to watch a new championship. There is such variety and a huge amount of entertainment to be had in watching and attending motorsport, alongside watching F1, if you just know where to look!