 | A Passion For Motor Sport ... | And a fan for life ... | Posted on: 24/12/2014 By: Jacky Sherman |
A week off work in today's blog and a little insight into my personal world. I absolutely love motor sport. I love the noise, the smell (oh, the smell is fantastic), the danger and rooting for my favourite racer. Oh, and the overwhelming maleness of it all. Oh yes, I know, there are women in racing too but ...
picture courtesy of Red Bull Racing
I got involved as a teenager, way back in the late 60's. Gosh! What a different world it was then. We had moved as a family to Norwich on coming back to Britain from East Africa and I was struggling to fit in at school. "Jacky no mates" - that was me.
Then someone in my class invited me to join the Red Cross as we both wanted to be nurses when we left school and it opened up a whole new world for me. At that time, the Red Cross provided the first aid at most of the sporting events in the area. So at the tender age of 16, I started going to Snetterton to provide first aid at all the meets. It was so wonderful; I met a whole new group of friends who shared a common interest and I got to meet all the drivers, riders and support teams. I was involved in the whole sport AND I got to stand by the track right in the thick of the action.
My goodness! The safety record was awful then. We picked up a lot of people off the tarmac but racing people are, on the whole, completely mad and the dangers and crashes were all part of the scene. Oh, the smell of oil, sweat - and sometimes blood - and lots of testosterone. What an introduction to a 16 year old girl ... I was hooked!
Somehow, on leaving Norwich, life took me in a totally different direction and although I always watched the Grand Prix with Murray Walker on TV and all the motor sport whenever possible, I no longer attended the events.
Then when Robert (my son) was 10, we took him Karting to Daytona in Milton Keynes as a birthday treat. He loved it and was quite good so as a family we got involved this time, right in the thick of it with a team, KR Sports and, of course, the local race teams - Red Bull, Force India and McLaren Mercedes, in particular.
My heart though, belongs to the British Touring Cars. It's rougher, tougher and evokes for me the memories of my teens. I love watching it on TV but better still going to the track. You feel the danger, the joys of winning and the heartache of crashing out. It's seat of the pants stuff. Then there's the noise and smell ... and the testosterone! Did I mention the testosterone?
Ahh, good memories and the new season starts in March. Bring it on!
Until next time ...
JACKY SHERMAN
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