I listened to the latest Aside with Joe show on Sidepodcast where Joe Saward of GrandPrix+ fame and his own blog and was intrigued to find that he used to work for the BBC as a ghost commentator for Murray Walker and James Hunt during the F1 coverage in the early 90s. This has got me thinking about my profound interest in being a commentator myself.

I remember when younger, I used to watch video tapes of F1 and Le Mans etc, and as I did come up with my own commentary. I also used to do this a lot when playing my racing games on the Playstation. I remember when I played Formula One 2001 on the PS2, put the game on TV mode and tried my hand at giving a running commentary to the action that was going on on-screen. It did used to drive my parents crazy sometimes!

I was also fortunate to win the Puma Motorsport F1 competition and become a fan reporter on behalf of them at this year’s British GP at Silverstone. It .was a great experience but also gave me a chance to be my own person in front of the camera, when a video was filmed for the report using a HD video camera. Unfortunately the video was removed after a while because of FOM not taking to the inclusion of on-track action of F1 cars included. It’s a shame since I felt that I did a good job. Tim, the guy who was with me over the weekend to look after me and help me out, said he thought I was a natural in front of the camera. I took this praise with great dignity.

My dream has always been to become a racing driver but unfortunately I never had the opportunity and my parents never had the money. Now I have racing games and a wheel to fill that void and with driving lessons coming on nicely, things are looking up. But I still dream of being in a single-seater, winning a race, jumping out of the cockpit and celebrating, arms aloft and punching the air with joy. But alas, opportunities like this are hard to come by, and so in all fairness I’m pretty sure this will remain a dream.

But my other interests are things to do with the media, like writing blog posts, editing videos together and using photo-editing tools to create pictures. I feel I have creativeness flowing through me but I just need the right tools and an idea to unlock it. Thankfully racing does help with this. There’s always a news story regarding F1 and there are plenty of sites to find them, namely Autosport. But there are also the bloggers who raise great opinions, like Joe Saward. I have read a few of his recent articles on matters in F1 such as his prediction on the 2010 driver line-up, Toyota’s slump in form and Massa’s quick recovery from his Hungarian GP qualifying accident. I left comments on all 3 of these expressing my own views, to both show my appreciation for his work and also share my own opinions on the subject.

But getting back to the commentating thing for a second, I suppose working as a racing commentator would be an awesome job. I think I’d be pretty good at it, although maybe my voice would be a bit fast for it. I’ve been told I do talk rather quickly and it’s not unusual for some people to ask me to slow down when speaking. But this is only because when I get excited about something or I know what I want to say, it kinda just comes out! I don’t think about the speed in which it does because I’m more focused on sharing that thought.

The Puma weekend at Silverstone gave me a great taster of being a reporter in a world in which I thrive in and enjoy. If I were able to get a hold of that video, maybe I could assess it and develop my skills. Maybe start somewhere like YouTube, post a few videos of me displaying commentating skills or displaying views on certain subjects. Maybe it could get me noticed.  But there’s a lot to think about regarding that.

At the moment it’s just an idea. With more thought, it could go somewhere. We’ll see.

Advertisement