Road To Glory - Why I want to write this

Hello all, it's been a hot minute since I last wrote an entry for you all. I've just started my second year of university, relishing the challenges and hoping to come out of it with a degree that'll help me get a good job. Whilst I'm there, I'm using all my experiences to help develop something that a lot of you who do know me personally will already know quite well, since I've probably said a detail or two about it to you, so this is mainly for the ones who don't already know.

I can't remember what my initial prompt was when thinking about it, but not that long ago it really clicked. As you guys are undoubtedly well aware (incase you're not, I'll bring you up to speed), I'm a racing enthusiast. Cars, bikes, of many kinds are the thing I have in my life that makes me smile and get pumped, and this year I've been to Oulton Park for the British GT, my local circuit Croft for the British Touring Cars and finally Brands Hatch for the DTM and W Series. I live for it, I don't go out on a weekend and get wasted (not shaming anyone who does of course), this is the thing I do and it's probably the quickest way to my heart, not that anyone is in much of a hurry to get there.

It started in 2008 when Lewis Hamilton won the F1 world championship, solidified in 2009 when Jenson Button had that fairytale championship victory with the Brawn team and it only broadened from there. I started to learn about MotoGP, then the categories beneath F1 such as at the time, GP2, GP3, F3 etc. I was fascinated to see these drivers in the feeder series trying to prove themselves, and then it all culminated in a movie called Rush.

A big budget Hollywood movie about the titanic battle between James Hunt and Niki Lauda for the 1976 Formula One world championship, and I remember watching it for the bajillionth time and I ran into people from my school who invited me to watch it. That feeling, sitting there with people who were interested in the story, in something that I felt a huge disconnect from others as a result of, and it felt liberating. Prior to the movie being made, I was embarrassed to say "I like motorsport" but thanks to Chris Hemsworth, Ron Howard and all the many other people who played a part in telling this story for a wider audience, I no longer feel shame to admit it.

As time went by, I started to delve deeper into the inner workings of motor racing and how these people get started. It's easy to look at F1 and just assume that you have the Lewis Hamilton's, the Sebastian Vettel's and Max Verstappen's turning steering wheels, winning races and championships, earning eight-figure sums every year, driving hypercars in Monaco dividing their time between their yachts, private jets and mansions, but the truth is far more complex than that.

Behind every driver is a sizeable team, full of a vast array of people. Behind the life of every driver, is an unconventional upbringing full of sacrifice and hard choices, Lewis Hamilton for example lived on a council estate sleeping on his sofa whilst his dad worked multiple jobs. Behind every success story, is a whole bunch of drivers who never had opportunities come their way. So whilst I can't exactly say when my head got into the top gear, but I just remember a huge influx of ideas coming into my head and that's when I was truly set on my Road To Glory.

I decided I want to accurately represent the mountains a young kid would have to climb in order to forge a career as a racing driver, so I gained contacts in the form of racing drivers like Olli Caldwell (3rd in Italian F4 2018), Ricky Collard (Runner-up in both British F4 and British F3, now races for Aston Martin in the GT World Challenge) and a few others too. I have also forged contacts with racing teams such as Carlin, reached out to driver management groups, other racing organisations, plus a karting circuit.

Speaking of a karting circuit, there is one that sits between my home town and the town I go to university in. I went there to talk to the owner and he even got the attention of one Rob Smedley, a Middlesbrough born guy himself who worked in F1 for many years with teams such as Jordan, Ferrari and Williams. You lot will probably know him for his many iconic messages to Felipe Massa during their time at Ferrari, such as "Felipe baby, stay cool!". Unfortunately I haven't heard from Rob since he messaged my mum saying he'd love to hear about what I have planned, hopefully soon.

Anyway I haven't actually spoken about it yet, so here goes nothing!

In August 2006, six-year old Alex is begrudgingly attending the Teesside 24 hour karting race where his uncle is racing representing a charity for current and former armed forces soldiers. Alex lost his dad whilst he served in armed combat, and hasn't been the same since finding out, and his mum is struggling to help Alex who has a form of high functioning autism.

As the race starts, Alex becomes overwhelmed by the sudden sound of the engines and has a partial meltdown and the watchful onlookers glare at Alex seemingly throwing a fit and his mum on the verge of tears trying to help him calm down. She starts looking around in her bag for a red Hot Wheels-esque car model that always helps Alex calm down, but she can't find it which is when a man who just caught wind of what was happening rushes into a nearby café and grabs something and rushes back.

He hands it to Alex and it's a scale model of a Ferrari F1 car, with a little figurine standing next to it in a red helmet, and Alex looks at it and immediately is fascinated by it. With a little encouragement, Alex is guided by the man and his mum to the café, blissfully unaware of the snide comments and glares he and his mum are receiving from the ignoramuses all around them. They make it into the café and Alex's mum thanks the man, and they get into a conversation whilst Alex still studies with fascination the scale model F1 car, and he figures out it's a model of Ferrari F2004, and the figurine is his and his dad's favourite F1 driver, Marcel Zetsch, five-time consecutive champion for Ferrari between 2000 and 2004.

Eventually the man starts talking to Alex after his mum has to go out to find Alex's uncle, we find out the man's name is Rick and he speaks in a bellowing Scottish accent. He's a driving instructor for the circuit as well as a mechanic in a garage not too far from the track, and he's been living a rather unremarkable but content existence but there's something alluding to more from him. Rick remarks that Alex must certainly like the model as he's been studying it constantly, to which Alex tells him that Marcel Zetsch is his favourite driver as he always likes seeing the red car win.

Rick then tells him, "Marcel Zetsch once drove one of those" and pointing outside at the karts driving around to which Alex takes his eye off the model for the first time since seeing it. Walks over to the window with the model still in hand and sees two karts flying through a fast chicane at the top of the circuit then the one behind throws one up the inside of the other performing a very aggressive maneuver to get past. Alex then places the model of the F1 car and the Marcel Zetsch figure down on the table and begins looking at it as if the car is going round the track, and looks at the figure with its arms pointing up in the air and remembers back to the time when Zetsch won his fifth championship.

He remembers his dad being there in the room with him watching the TV, telling Alex why Zetsch is his favourite driver and how he planned to go to the British Grand Prix in 2005 to go watch him race for the first time. Something his dad never got to do, and Alex for the first time addresses his dad's death for the first time, telling Rick to which he expresses his remorse and begins to see a kindred spirit in this young lad. They get to talking about racing and how children even younger than Alex are racing, and Alex begins to think about driving a kart himself.

Starting to listen in on a quietened and muffled kart race going on outside, Alex begins to hear the throttle application and engine notes pitching and focuses on it. Then when his mum opens the door and he hears the full force of the engines, he doesn't flinch at all and his mum is very surprised to see this, and Alex begins asking about how he can become a racing driver himself. The story goes from there, and we see Alex learning about how to drive a kart until he's eventually good enough and old enough to compete at

This story is not just about racing, it's about a broken young boy who finds something he's good at and dedicates himself to, balancing it out with school, learning to hold the weight of responsibility at such an early age and finding the people he needed in his life to share his success with. You see this boy become a man, from the age of six he grows, he comes of age in this highly competitive and cut-throat world of motorsport where success isn't always rewarded. He sees the social divide between the established status quo and himself, a working class boy from a small Northern Eastern English town, and doesn't let the deterring of many of his fellow racers put him down, because he has all the right people supporting him, from his mum Victoria, to his mechanic, engineer, driver coach and father figure Rick, and the friends he makes along the way such as Leonie 'Leo' Taylor, Jonas Schiffer and Nathanael Bauer, the latter of whom he has an intense rivalry with and has a major connection to him.

Throughout his journey, you'll see all corners of the world of motorsport and I'm accepting of this challenge because I love this world so much. It has brought me joy in the forms of my favourite drivers winning championships, it has brought me sadness with many of these warriors dying doing what they love, and they are all heroes, not because what they do is selfless in any way, but because we could learn a thing or two from these people choosing in the face of potential death, still pursue what they love. I want to accurately depict what all these drivers go through, the good and the bad, the struggles and the triumphs, pursuing this dream of theirs because they want to be racers. They're on their own road to glory, I'm on mine, you better damn well be on yours otherwise what good is your existence if you don't choose to give it meaning?

Thank you all for reading. Hopefully I'll have my books out soon, for all of you to enjoy. Alex Harrison's Road To Glory, it will be known to you all.