2018 – My Year of Motorsport

This year I’ve been to more races and other motorsport related events than I probably have in my entire life up to this point, so being a man of numbers, I decided to do some stats on my own year of motorsport.

In total I’ve spent almost an entire month either trackside or at a motoring related event, 27 days in total, the earliest being Autosport International in January and the latest British Rallycross and the Walter Hayes Trophy at Silverstone in November. Those 27 days were spent at five different tracks, four of which I walked on part of the track or grid at some point. In total I’ve watched around 150 races, though that is a bit of an estimate as there was no fixed timetable for the British Rallycross and races/heats were very quick.

Over the course of these 27 days I took 322,826 steps, that’s 224.919km, equal to around 38 laps of Silverstone, 16 laps of Le Mans or 4,498,380 Jaffa Cakes. My driving distance over this time was 5818.260km, equal to around 19 F1 race distances. Just during the week of Le Mans I made 110,828 steps and walked 76.530km, five and a half times the lap distance.

In terms of food and drink I’ve had 14 burgers, 11 ice creams, seven bacon rolls, five portions of chips, three hot chocolates, two crepes, one waffle and one pizza (and a partridge in a pear tree). Plus also various other snacks and drinks on top of this that aren’t counted but not worth counting or trying to remember EVERYTHING I ate over the year.

I visited Birmingham once for Autosport International, Castle Combe six times, Brands Hatch twice, Thruxton twice, Le Mans, Silverstone twice and paid a visit to the now closed Donington Collection.

I got into a hospitality suite at Brands Hatch, I went to Le Mans, I got a grid walk and paddock access for a BTCC event, I spent a lot of time with friends, old and new, talking about and watching cars, 2018 was great.

Next year I aim to do even more, starting off again at Autosport in January where I will be for all four days, if you can find me, feel free to say hi and have a chat. I’ll also be at at least four BTCC events, potentially more, and at Castle Combe more or less every bank holiday.