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 ?
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 ?
No comments:
Post a Comment