Silly Stone etc. al

Well the Silverstone Marathon is over, and its been quite enlightening really, First was the SnoozeBox revalation at the LMS and then followed an very different role at a very different Endurance event.

I have been very lucky to be part of the TV team for the Britcar 24 hours since it began, first as a pit reporter, then producer and as of 2 years ago, I have been entrusted with the production of the whole event. While I can cope with the challenges of filming a 24 hour race with a tiny budget its the small things that get you, catch you off gard and generally make you feel like the world is about to explode. The challenge of mini budgets mean i cant alway use the Pros that i work with at ITV, Eurosport or Sky. Instead i have to rely on amatuers. I have loved giving people the platform to show what they can do ever since i created a show for singers who performed 'modern' music at a very concervative school....'Angels by Robin Williams' who's he?!

Sometimes however this approach bites back, as a 17 year old my then 'Girlfriend' decided the guitarist was cooler than me and i got dumped whereas these days, the hickups tend to be a bit more drastic, like your whole crew bailing on you 3 days before the event! Thankfully I was able to rejig to use the hugely professional Hayfisher crew who shot the stunning sunset impecably in HD and looked after themselves. This was even more important when my presenter fainted on the grid and my Producer became a Paramedic. I was commentating on MotorsTV at the time as I was on shift later but it meant suddenly we were seriously down on man power! The Sun was much more welcome that the drizzle which normally dribbles out the sky during the Britcar 24 hours and it mean there was no risk of our Golf Carts getting stuck in the mud like last year.

From Exec Producer one weekend 6 days later i was back at Stone in the cold for the Blancpain Endurance Series as Podium host. I hate endurance podiums for the simple reason that they take forever. Each class must have thier moment but that moment must be as quick as possible because they really are rather dull! So i was shocked to see along with the 5 podiums we also had Championship winners to welcome onto the podium, oh god.... It got worse when the vice president of Blancpain started setting the podiums with Champagne because it was taking so long, god know what it was like to watch.

From 14,000 people one weekend to 3,000 the next and then it was BTCC time in the pits for ITV's recorded shows and 30,000 trying to get in... 

What was odd is apart from the traffic the track felt no busier than it had 2 weeks ago... the grandstands just as full and the atmosphere just as exciting as the Britcar had been 2 weeks ago. I would love to chat about the elation felt as the Champions were crowned in Porsche and BARC Formula Renault and of course BTCC but it all pailed into insignifiance that evening.

In my life time i have been brought up with the idea that Motorsport is very very safe, Youtube videos of huge accidents get banded about between freinds and you know you may acheive noteriety when an incident occurs that your producing (Martin Havens claim to fame is being the commentator when Engster smashed in the pace car at Pau, seen by over 1 million).

I remember being pretty hurt when Senna died but also reacting in a similar way when Robert Kubica had a similar accident in Canada with relatively little injury to my surprise but then there was Henry. I was at Brands that day and sadly knew the news before many others from the the TV pictures. I was sickened, I knew H, I had spoken to him that morning and couldnt comprehend that I would no long be seeing his face. The thing was it was not a big smash with him, but with Dan it was vicious, so difficult to comprehend and whatsmore with the widespread press, everyone wanted to talk about the whys and ifs.