Coming into my fifth race weekend and my fifth different circuit, I was happy to have a little familiarity, returning to the BTCC for the second time. Seeing the paddock layout with the familiar names on made it easier for me to visualise how the finished article would look.

As usual, the Porsche hospitality unit was busy setting up when we arrived late on Wednesday evening at a cold, wet Thruxton circuit. Thursday morning proved to be a false dawn weather wise. I spent up until 8am in my T-shirt as we started to mark out the paddock but before long we were wearing our full range of winter gear as the heavens opened and the wind started howling.

Needles to say that trying to mark out a straight line with cones that kept blowing over made life very difficult indeed and mid way through the morning we admitted defeat and headed to the motor home to dry off and warm up. Eventually we got everything marked out, just in time before the trucks started to arrive.

The rest of Thursday and Friday  went off without a hitch (apart from the weather) and the result of which was a very smart looking paddock. This did lead us into a false sense of security however. Throughout Saturday, the wind picked up and by late evening we were starting to get concerned about the teams’ awnings blowing away. Several of the teams with less sturdy structures were in trouble, Including Tony Gilham. The Honda Civic driver/team owner, lost two out of three of his awnings during the night, forcing his team to squeeze into the cramped garages.

Our main concern of the night was the Pirtek hospitality unit. The wind had collapsed the front in and the wind was lifting the structure ten feet in the air. After one attempt to hold on to it when it lifted (and running for our lives), we spent the next hour battling against the elements to save the flapping awning with the Pirtek team. Eventually we had it hunkered down and, exhausted we hit the sack.

Race day was great fun, even the torrential rain couldn’t dampen my spirits. As usual with the BTCC event, we were responsible for the podium presentations. This was made slightly easier by the wind as it was far too dangerous to use the sponsors’ backdrop on the podium truck. The rain did stop briefly and just in time for the drivers parade lap. I was lucky enough to drive around with the drivers on the back of the truck as they waved to the fans and Marshals around the circuit. Everyone apart from the MG drivers, Jason Plato and Andy Neate. The pair were late and missed the bus! We found them thumbing a lift at the chicane, much to the amusement of the other drivers.

The highlight of my weekend was getting to meet the legend that is Murray Walker. The voice of British motorsport was visiting his local track and after doing an interview, I dived in to introduce myself and shake his hand. I told him that I spent more of my childhood listening to him than I did listening to my parents. After a quick photo with him it was back to work, but this time with an even bigger smile on my face.

I have the weekend off next week before two consecutive weeks down at Brands Hatch for BARC Dunlop championship, followed by DTM.

Last week saw my first assignment at the home of British motorsport, Silverstone for the opening rounds of the FIA F2 World Championship. Although I’ll be working some far bigger events in regards of spectator numbers and TV coverage, any trip to Silverstone is always special for me.

With the Wing complex glistening in the background, we start to survey the paddock of the old pit lane sandwiched between Woodcote and Copse while the first race trucks wait outside the circuit gates. With no race vehicles allowed in until 6pm, there was quite a queue building up going into the afternoon. Just as we finish marking out the allocated areas however, Silverstone decided to open the gate and allow the convoy of trucks over the Wellington bridge and down towards us! The sight of twenty or so articulated lorries heading towards the two of us was quite a daunting site to say the least and the next four hours were frantic but every enjoyable to say the least.

In terms of the number of competitors, this was by far and away the busiest paddock. With 16 F2 cars, 30 Lotus’, 30 Radicals, 25 Minis, 45 Sports 2000s and 60 production BMWs to accommodate there was never a dull moment. Even with the generous space in the paddock at Silverstone, the sheer number of cars/teams meant that any late coming artic lorries were going to be in a spot of bother parking into their space.

Some make it look easier than others I have to say. A German Radical team did make an absolute meal out of it, taking over an hour to park straight in their space. To add to their humiliation (and two world wars and one world cup) two Brit drivers show them how it was done, parking up with two manoeuvres which I doubted were possible.

With the Minis finishing their weekend after their second race on Saturday, the vacated space was filled up with the rest of the production BMWs that spent the night being held on Copse runway. I have to give a special mention to the Project8 family for their hospitality over the weekend. After my boss left on Saturday, I was sleeping in the sleeper cab of one of the Dunlop tyre trucks and I was treated to tea, coffee and bacon butties with these great guys.

After the hustle and bustle of the BTCC weekend at Brands Hatch, it was a sparsely populated Oulton Park that greeted me on Monday afternoon. Ahead of the Easter meeting at the weekend, some of the teams were there to take advantage of the two general test days on Tuesday and Wednesday before the first round.

As normal, the first job was to survey the paddock and mark out the teams allocated spaces. This could only be done for Formula Ford and the F1 teams as the rest operated a first come, first served policy. As a newcomer to the job, this didn’t make my task any easier without any solid plans. The stress levels were exacerbated by the fact that I was flying solo on Tuesday and Wednesday, having only a handful of days under my belt.

The highlight of the test was the arrival of ex McLaren team manager, Dave Ryan’s GT3 team. I manage to see a little of their McLaren in action. Being a general test however, this monster of a car was sharing the track with Caterhams and Ginetta’s. Watching from the pit wall, the speed differential was immense!

After a few day’s at home, it was back to Oulton for Easter Sunday and bank holiday Monday. If the start of the week was a little strange, arriving back on Sunday was quite bizarre. Being Easter Sunday, there was no track action, even the Ginetta’s and F3 teams were pulling out having finished their races on Saturday. Replacing the F3 teams was competitors from the F3 Cup, a club series that runs older F3 machinery. It’s fair to say that these team don’t always compete on such a big stage and were unprepared for my keen eye to have all the truck in a perfect line. One driver in particular struggled to get his head around the need to move  his truck ‘a few inches’. Every time I asked him to move, he would mover a good two feet! And every time I asked to go the other way, he got more frustrated and move even further past his mark. My boss tell me that we are to expect the odd team like this but most know what is expected and do what they can to make it as painless as possible.

Sunday was only a half days work. Lining up the last of the F3 Cup teams and helping with the super car display and my work was done. Since I was there, I decided it would be rude to leave without watching a couple of races. The Formula Ford race was won by a very talented Sheffielder, Jake Cook. I’ve never seen anyone pull out a lead as big as he did in one lap and in very wet conditions. My second and last race before heading home was the GT race. There was some great action throughout the field, especially a five cat fight for third. The biggest drama however, was left to the last lap. The United Autosport Audi R8 had lead from pole position. They held a comfortable lead all race and looked to have it in the bag. I, like a lot of others, had made our way to the podium only to hear that the leaders had ran out of fuel with only half a lap to go.

This week, I’m off to Silverstone for the FIA F2 championship Thursday to Sunday.

Once upon a time, there was a car company called Lotus and they allowed a F1 team to us the Lotus name. However, Lotus decided to do F1 for themselves and tried to make Lotus change their name. Lotus didn’t want to do this so they slightly changed their name. This made Lotus mad and they decided to take Lotus to court. Lotus won the case and were allowed to keep the Lotus name but then decided they didn’t want to be called Lotus after all and changed their name again. This all made Lotus very happy! Now they could call their cars Lotus from the start of the 2012 season. After two races, Lotus decided they didn’t want to be in F1 anymore and stopped sponsoring the Lotus team. Even though Lotus aren’t sponsoring Lotus anymore, they are still called Lotus and intend to keep the Lotus name.

The end…..

It’s Thursday morning and I back home in Sheffield after 8 days on the road, the first five of which were spent at Brands Hatch for the first rounds of the British Touring Car Championship.

So, what does a logistics co-ordinator do over the course of a race meeting? By the time ITV4 start their live coverage on Sunday, MSO CS, the company I work for have already been on site for 4 days.

Walking into the empty paddock for the first time on Wednesday lunch time and looking at the CAD plans, it’s fair to say that I felt a little lost, wondering just how we were going to turn this vast, empty space into a full, bustling, organised paddock. Luckily for me, me bosses, Derek and James have been doing this job for twenty years and could probably do it blindfolded!

The first job was to locate the road marks that were sprayed the following season and to mark them out with cones. Once the road ways are marked and straight, we begin to allocate the teams their allotted space. Starting with the Porsche Carrera Cup on the right hand side, followed by the Clio Cup runners finally the various Ginetta teams along the far, left hand side.

This whole process takes a good 4/5 hours to make sure all the line are true and straight. The next time you see a helicopter shot of all the trucks in the paddock lined up, remember, that doesn’t happen by accident.

Brands were hosting an open test day on the Wednesday so a few of the teams were already around. I spent the rest of the day, and Thursday learning how to get the articulated trucks straight. This may sound a little silly but until you try to park one of these bang on a line, you really can’t appreciate how difficult it is. I would say that the average time to get one into position is around ten to fifteen minutes.

This average however, may be a little higher thanks to my first solo attempt to park up a lorry. To be fair, it wasn’t really my fault. After assisting to park up over a dozen trucks, I felt confident enough to do it myself. So off I went to the IDL Ginetta team were three big factors conspired to making this park up very difficult indeed! 1, this was the first truck I’d seen with a rear steering axle and 2, it was the first time the driver had driven a rear steering trailer. After forty minutes (half of which were under the watchful eye of my boss) we finally got it nosed in and straight on the line.

The dynamics of the role change on Friday. All the teams are in and practice sessions are under way by 9am. One of the scourges of the paddock is private cars! Finding offending vehicles is one thing, finding their owners is quite another. Friday see’s more action going on in the main paddock as the BTCC teams arrive ahead of setting up. Due to the ultra tight paddock, the order of the trucks going in is carefully orchestrated as when all the trucks and motor homes are in, you are left with a road no bigger than one lane wide. As a newbie, I was given other things to do in the afternoon which was to collect all the trophies and champagne from the different championships and check them all before the first races on Saturday.

After a curry and a couple of beers Friday night I was up early on Saturday, ready for a busy day. Before we got started I thought it best to have a shave after my morning shower as the camera’s will be rolling in the paddock for the podium celebrations. The only reason I mention this is because the showers we use in the paddock are situated next to the public toilets. As there are no sinks in the shower room, you have to move next door to have a shave. As some of you my know, I’m very folically challenged and shave my head. So you can imagine the surprise as the early arriving fans got as I’m stood there, no top on resembling santa with my full head of foam!

Into the afternoon and we were over in the main paddock to manage the three race podiums of the weekend, this where the first major panic happened for us. Two trophies hadn’t been assembled as well as they should have been by the manufactures, leading to some frantic gluing in time for the race finish. I’m happy to say that we got them repaired in time for the finish of the race and the viewing public were none the wiser….. At least until the third trophy (the one that didn’t break) fell apart on the podium as it was lifted by the second place driver!

On to the main event, Sundays action packed race day with three BTCC races taking top billing. There is plenty of work to do on the podium. Changing the backdrops and podium numbers for the correct championship and sponsors as well as dressing the top three steps with the trophies and Champagne. The day ran without any major problems, although I did miss most of the second race hunting down some missing champagne.

As I said in my first post about paddock life, I wondered how I would cope with going from a fan, to being part of the team making the event happen. To be honest, I didn’t think about this until we were on the road home. Living and working at a race circuit is about as good as it can get for me and to call it work isn’t the right word at all.