Lets talk Motorsports - karting & Money

Right, for a very long time I have been thinking of writing a lot about what I have been experiencing and going through lately with my passion towards motorsports. For last 12 years of my life all I have been dreaming and thinking about is Motorsports and how to get there.

The journey began in India with no idea or experience. Motorsports unlike all other sports is a very elite sport and not something which can be done by everyone. Why ? Let me try and make an effort to explain you all as to how motorsport actually functions.

Motor racing is all about Man & Machine, unlike other sports like say tennis or cricket or football or golf for that matter where you can just pick the equipment and go and practise, you unfortunately cant do that in Motor racing. Like all the other sports there are benifits starting at an early age. You usually would start in karting which in itself is very expensive.

A kart would cost you any where between 2000£ to 3000£ for a good second hand one or a decent first hand one which is about 2lakhs in Indian rupees. To do a season of Karting in UK at the club level would cost you anywhere between 4£ to 10£ k but this wont guarantee you any front running, to win the championship you would have to spend more. Now where does this money spent on ? Well weekend costs usually would be on new set of tires probably every weekend, engine rebuilds, crash, entry fees, extra days of testing and so on.

To compete at the national level I have heard top teams spend anywhere between 25k£ to 60£k or even almost 100k£ which is absolutely crazy amount. Unfortunately since the commercialisation of Formula 1, the cost of racing has just risen like the population of India or China in past decade or so. A normal person in India or for that matter a normal person here in UK as well cant think of doing this for a very long time.

By the time you decide to go car racing a lot of them drop out because they have already maxed out their budgets for past few years doing karting.

What I have aways failed to understand here is that why do people spend so much on karting where in they could actually save that money and spend the same money when the kid would decide to make a move to circuit racing. Winning in karting unfortunately doesnt guarantee you a seat in any teams. May be 2 % or 3 % of the drivers might get some sort of sponsorship, lewis hamilton is an example of that but rest of them have to find spend their own money to move forward.

As much as I love racing there is no other sport that I hate as well at the same time, unfortunately Racing has always had and will always have money as the main factor and not talent. But saying that the beauty of Motor racing is that unlike other sports age is not a huge barrier, you can compete as long as you are fit, you dont need to be super fit but a decent fitness will still allow you to compete hard and no one really cares what you are age is.

As the saying goes, ones a driver is in his or her helmet no one can see or know the face or age of the driver, for everyone thats just a racing driver.

I will talk more the life after karting a bit more in detail. I am just writing this post because a lot of my friends keep asking me why is it so hard in racing ?

Its been so long but good to be back

Its been so long since I last posted anything on my blog, I had even forgotten that I had a blog. Its good to read some stuff that you have written few years back. You can always compare and see how your thinking was and how its changed.

The last time I wrote something I was still living in India and had not moved to UK yet. Wow it seems that the time has just flown by. Its going to be almost 5 years since I have moved here but seems like I have been living here for a very long time now but saying that I do miss India a lot.

There are so many things that have happened in past 5 years, I have learnt a lot, my racing dream kicked off though still in very early stages but I am making progress even though its small steps. There are so many questions that keep popping up in my mind every other day, in general about life, dreams, politics, women, just so many of them. Its much easier to be a kid than been an adult.

Its been quiet a bit of a change for me since I have been here and there are still certain things that I dont understand and trying to work them out. Growing up in India all you cared about was whether you got good food, a small ground to play cricket with your friends and your school work. We didnt care about fashion, looks or girls. We of course could not afford any of that growing up but saying that me and lot of my friends were very happy with our lives. Our summer days were mostly spent on grounds playing cricket in scorching heat. Our evenings were spent talking about our future lives and sports.

Since I have been here it feels like we in India specially the lower middle class which actually can be classified as poor in western terms which I dont agree with live a completely different lives.There are still certain classes in India upper middle class or rich people who have exposure to the different cultures specially the westerns lifestyle. Having grown up in lower middle class where most of my friends belong as well, we all had different views and ideas about how life was.

The reason I bought up this topic was because even after living here for 5 years which I know is not a lot but considering I moved here when I was 22 which usually are the formative years in most of their lives, it does seem to be a lot of time, I still feel like an alien to the western culture.

I am still trying to figure out whether there is actually true friendship that exists here ? whether there is any true love that exists here ? whether there is actually any inner peace that exists here ?

With all the comforts you have here, all the money, all the flashy things, does it really matter if the none of the above things exist ?

I dont know the answer yet and neither am I saying that it doesnt exist, may be I just havent met a lot of right people yet ?