Stories I want to tell and how you can help

Image courtesy of www.sportskeeda.com

Hello you, my name is Luca but you can call me Luca. So I did an article about how much I love Rush, a movie detailing the battle for the 1976 Formula One world championship between flamboyant Brit James Hunt (portrayed by Chris Hemsworth) and calculating Austrian Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl), directed by Academy Award winning director Ron Howard.

In the article I wrote, I detailed just how significant this movie is to me, not only because it's an incredibly enjoyable movie but because of the social impact it had on me. Having lived an entire school life feeling a sense of ridicule and almost disrespect of my love for motorsport by the majority of my peers.

It is no secret whatsoever that the majority of the casual viewing public are very dismissive towards motorsport, claiming it isn't physical because you don't see the athlete moving without the help of an engine, and that it's way too reliant on numbers and that it is way too mechanical. Motorsport is just driving around in circles, it's not a sport! We all know this is bullshit, which is what made Rush so significant to me, I managed to go see the movie with some friends when I ran into them at the cinema and it felt amazing to show what I loved to them and they loved it.

Rush was my breakthrough, and it made me realise just how little the motorsport world is represented in a respectful manner in terms of media, especially in movies though I can understand why there aren't many movies since motor racing itself costs a lot of money to run so making a movie would cost a shit tonne of money. Plus with the lack of interest from a majority of movie audiences, it isn't always going to make its budget back let alone even profit, Rush cost its studio apparently $38M before marketing, and the movie made just short of $100M. It didn't lose money but it wasn't so overwhelmingly huge, a respectable achievement but not enough to cause a wave of motor racing movies.

Whilst I would love to see an Ayrton Senna biopic with Rodrigo Santoro, it probably won't happen but this doesn't mean we can't see a rise of other forms of motorsport entertainment. This has been playing on my mind for a while now, and I've decided that I want to help people like me not grow up with such shame. I want to create stories about motorsport, and I want to make it cool.

At the moment, I have three ideas in mind, all very different and tackling different corners (pardon the pun) of motorsport and showcasing this passion I have in the form of stories and various forms of media. I'd like to detail a few of them with you right now, the last one will need your input mainly as that's the one I am diverting the most of my attention to but if you can give me some pointers on the others then I won't stop you.

Image courtesy of www.carguide.ph

Here's the first one and I spoke about it in a full article, a Gran Turismo movie. With Sony having been pushing for a long time to have their own car racing franchise in order to rival the Fast and Furious franchise and also Need For Speed's attempt at a franchise which probably hasn't really materialised.

The GT film never really got going, and honestly it seems like a good thing considering they were aiming for the level of action and tone as Need For Speed and the Fast and Furious movies, and Gran Turismo really doesn't lend itself to that. Thankfully though, they weren't planning on adapting the source material of the games and were instead looking to base it around the concept of GT Academy, which incase you didn't read my dedicated article, was a programme that took gamers and put them through a selection process to determine who would be picked to become a racing driver.

There have been many graduates of the GT Academy programme but the one I always point to is the one I have pictured when it comes to proven talent and success, Jann Mardenborough. Unlike the other GT Academy graduates, Mardenborough has not only proven his worth in GT and LMP cars but also single seaters. The young Welshman began his journey by taking a gap year from education and playing way too much Gran Turismo, and then entered the competition and fought off many competitors during the selection process.

Sony's intent was to have a story about a gamer who becomes a real life racing driver, and I am definitely retaining this concept. I know for a fact though that the F&F and NFS style wouldn't work with this concept, but distancing itself from the absurdity of those two and grounding it in reality would be way more appropriate.

If you read my article, you'd also know that I am not basing it off of any of the real life stories of gamer to racer, but rather an amalgamation of a load of stories, not one exact true event but combining them all to tell a story that honours all of them. Because my main character in this story would be a British-Nigerian student named Josh Zuma, portrayed by Star Wars actor John Boyega.

He would be a very casual player who uses a controller, so that the audience are able to relate to him  a lot more even if the idea of a controller casual player being as capable as someone using a wheel and pedals is very unrealistic. We will then be introduced to the world of professional gaming racers, to show how rich the world of Esports and online and competitive racing is.

I detail all of this in my article here: https://redsone-shot.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/an-idea-gran-turismo-movie.html

If you fancy reading up more on it then go ahead, because I know there's plenty to tell there but mostly plenty to inspire. Gaming and motorsport are both categories that people are very quick to dismiss, and not only does this story to me seem absurd in the grand scheme of things, it's very much true and I want people to see that it is possible.

In the context of my current vision of the story, Josh Zuma aims to become the first gamer to win both the 24 hours of Le Mans and the Formula One World Championship, because I heard former Nissan head of motorsport and current leader of the Esports and Cars team Darren Cox say he had no doubt in his mind that there will be a person who at one point will be racing virtual cars that will at one point win Le Mans and the F1 world championship. I hope I live to see the day, and that's what I want to get across in the GT film.

Image courtesy of www.youtube.com

Next up is an idea I had with my friend Nadine, an anime and manga focused on a motorcycle racer. Nadine and I have love and appreciation for motorcycle racing, but also Pokémon and I concede to all of you anime and manga diehards that Pokémon probably doesn't do very mature typical anime much justice, and I'm not an anime diehard myself though I am trying to get onboard with it. The anime and manga subgenres are fascinating from the outset, especially having got a glimpse of it with Pokémon.

This concept would be based on a main character who is Japanese, and is racing in the in-universe equivalent of MotoGP, which for now I will call MotoX1 incase I can't use MotoGP for licencing purposes. I have a very clever name for my main character, he would be called Motoharu since I love the idea of having 'Moto' in his name. Though Nadine tells me that you apparently have to have a name for your character that is very relevant to their personality when it comes to meaning, and Motoharu apparently means 'Origin of Spring'. Maybe I could come up with a more relevant name and have his surname contain Moto, maybe like Motozumi or an inevitably better one.

If I ever got this series to happen, I'd like to think I could hand it off to some writers who truly understood the value and importance of a story like this, and also knew how to do anime and manga way better than I ever could. My hope would be that it would have a new issue released monthly or however long it takes to release a manga, and maybe along with an anime series it would follow the main character as he races in the premier motorcycle racing category, showcasing a lot of exciting moments during the racing and meeting a lot of major characters.

I'd like to have a very flamboyant Italian character who rides for the in-universe equivalent of Ducati, and very much a Marco Simoncelli figure in terms of appearance and character. Then a lot of Spanish characters but with one certainly being the equivalent of Marc Márquez, these of course wouldn't be the main characters, just for authenticity's sake.

Of course though, this Japanese rider who just so you know who I'm referring to, I'm calling him Motoharu even if I change it later on. Motoharu is the main character, and I believe utilising a manga/anime style to tell stories in the way that this genre have been known to tell. The heavy emphasis on the racing within the story, the visuals and artwork along with the tone of anime and manga that I have seen, the energy that they undoubtedly possess, it's a recipe for perfection in my eyes!

Ideally, I'd love to see a Motoharu manga series with an issue of it released every so often, preferably as often and ideally as possible, and the anime series formatted like that of Pokémon. Following the main protagonist's progress throughout the motorcycle championship he would compete in, and the many different personalities that he will meet along the way, forging rivalries and honing his skill, I can see this becoming extremely beloved by the motorsport community.

Finally though, and this is the big one. I don't even have a name for it, that's one of the things you can help out with, along with many other things. I want to write a set of novels based on a fictional racing driver who goes from being talent-spotted in karting and going through all the hardships on his way to Formula One.

Image courtesy of www.KartSportsNews.com

In this photo from 2013, two of the drivers will be ones you may or may not know as they're both in F1 and pretty much on their way inevitably to F1. On the far right, Red Bull F1 driver Max Verstappen and on the far left, current F2 championship leader Lando Norris who is set to race for McLaren after Fernando Alonso calls it a day.

I religiously follow an incredible range of motorsport championships, especially going up the junior formulae ladder and I know fine well that a lot of you won't really follow the lower categories of racing, but it's how all drivers must go before they get to F1. For example, Verstappen was a rare case in which he only raced in the one series between karting and F1 with the FIA European Formula Three championship, finishing third behind now DTM driver Tom Blomqvist and current Force India F1 driver Esteban Ocon.

Lando Norris however is a different story, having gone from karting (becoming the youngest karting champion, beating Lewis Hamilton's long standing record) to Ginetta Juniors aged 14, finishing third with best rookie honours. Then from 2015 onwards, Norris has won single seater championships like it was just another daily function like eating or sleeping, as he won the FIA sanctioned British Formula 4 championship that year, followed by three separate championships in 2016 and last year he won the FIA European F3 championship in his rookie season with incredible ease, even more impressive considering he wasn't even with the all dominant Prema team that up until that point had won every FIA European F3 championship since the series' inception in 2012.

Norris is currently leading the FIA Formula Two after four rounds by a comfortable 27 points over five year F2 veteran and last season's vice-champion Artem Markelov, and as much as I want to relax, I know I can't because as confident as I am he's going to win, I don't want to jinx it. Anyway I've gushed enough about Lando now, all you need to know that this is how an F1 driver starts out.

Most people don't watch the lower categories even though there's always some great racing, but regardless of that, the casual F1 viewer doesn't take into account where these drivers came from. No average Joe can just make it to F1, there is a heavy selection process and I want to get across the struggles and hardships that these drivers go through in this story, the uncertainties of racing since it costs a lot of money to maintain this, coupled with growing up and going through education, the social pressures in life, all the hardships that come along the way.

My main character is going to be from my hometown, born in the early part of the year 2000 and will be talent spotted at the Teesside Autodrome karting circuit, a track which I go past when I'm on my way to Middlesbrough. Apparently the longest kart track in Europe and I went there a few days ago to speak to the owner, as I am doing research into what the process is when someone is apparently good enough for the people there to suggest that they should consider chasing a professional racing career.

I also have a very helpful and great guy helping me out here, a 15-year old British racing driver named Olli Caldwell, who is currently racing this year in the German and Italian Formula Four championships, having won a race in both series so far this year. He's been giving me his own personal experiences but I know fine well that experiences differentiate, and that I'll be doing my utmost to gather several perspectives because I want to do this story justice.

My aim with this potential series is to really encapsulate everything that a driver goes through because it seems that so many people don't see that or just don't care to know. That for every Lewis Hamilton, there's probably another kid who isn't granted the same opportunities, and I don't want to put a foot wrong.

You see, the main thing I wanted to get across with this novel and also the other two ideas I've had, it's that like the movie Rush, people who watch motorsport really don't have a lot in terms of entertainment like movies, books etc. I know there are plenty of movies out there about boxing and football, probably not a lot but that's another thing I want to get across, there's no shortage of stories out there about any and all forms of sport.

I highly encourage anyone out there who likes football or boxing, or indeed any other kind of sport that I can't think of off the top of my head, to write a book or a screenplay and try to tell this story of yours in a way that would mean that even if someone didn't traditionally like this sport, they could still pick it up and enjoy it. Like what Jeremy Jahns said about Rush, you don't need to be an F1 or motorsport fan to enjoy Rush in the same way you don't need to be a mixed martial arts fan to enjoy the 2011 movie Warrior with Tom Hardy, Joel Edgerton and Nick Nolte.

But of course to tell this story, I need people out there who are racing drivers. It doesn't matter to what degree you are into motor racing, as long as you are looking to hopefully one day make it to F1, you are around the right age, either you're still in karts or you are going to be in junior formulae, or already are, any and all advice is great.

So if you're reading this and you know you can help me out with your own personal experiences in karting and racing, feel free to contact me. Message me on Twitter @TheLucaFormat.

That's the perfect way to end this blog article. Again, if you feel you can help, do not hesitate as I hope to be making this novel and I may or may not be publishing it for free on here until a publishing company picks it up then you can go out and buy it, kind of like how Andy Weir's The Martian came to be.

Alright! Thank you so much for reading. As I've already stated, my Twitter is @TheLucaFormat, feel free to follow me on there if you haven't already if you want to know when I publish an article. Or you can put your email address in the 'Follow By Email' option on the right hand side if you want my articles sent straight to your inbox.

Hope to see you all here soon, so until we meet again.

Luca.