January: A Month Of Mayhem

Hello, Hello and welcome back to the blogs!

After 10 days without a single blog, I am officially back and what a wild old month It's been!

I hope you are all well, apologies for my disappearance I was incredibly busy and had no time to write one - but seeing as nobody's noticed that I've been away/there's been no blogs, let's just get into it because nobody cares.

At this point I'm probably doing these for myself but ah well, at least I'm having fun right? Right?

The last blog I did was on the 16th January as a young, immature 19 year old.

As I write, I am a much more mature 20 year old....or at least that's what I think. Maybe I'm only physically 20 and mentally 12 (at best)

Sunday 17th January, 2021

The 17th saw my penultimate piece of work being submitted - Assignment 2 for the "Representing The Real" module which I had to write the answer to the question that I proposed in a previous assignment, this question being:

“How does the media present personalities of sportspeople in a documentary compared to a Hollywood Biographical Sports Film?”

I think that I did alright at this, bringing in different theorists and looking at different views on RUSH and SENNA - but the grades will speak the loudest words.

It just felt very good to have only one piece left.

Tuesday 19th January, 2021

I cannot actually remember what happened on Monday 18th January, other than the last day of being an 19 year old, and recieving a kind email from a lecturer.

My first lockdown birthday was obviously a very quiet affair - my girlfriend wishing me a Happy Birthday 13 minutes after midnight, an incredibly kind gesture to start the day off. Many more would follow after this. In terms of presents, I got some cool things like a Shark necklace which tracked a shark (the money buying the gift went to helping shark preservation). In addition to this I got socks (because I'm an old man now) and my top 4 favourite sweets - Haribos, Randoms, Fruit Pastilles and Maltesers (chocolate, I know). In addition to this, they also got me a box of Millionaire's Shortbread and a pack of pens - an incredibly cheap and cheery year for my parents knowing they don't have to fork out on a brand new Xbox or Playstation.

The real surprise of the birthday would come a few days later - a nice, grey iPhone 6s as a replacement for my currently cracked one - as my current one is still useable, I'll probably use the new one as a spare when my current one dies.

My mum would also bake a brownie cake which we were all impressed by, although we are still making our way through it today.

Wanting to get 1K iRacing on my birthday (at that time at 970), I hopped into a Zolder F3 race session and had a cracking battle for 3rd, unfortunately this would end up with me and the driver I was fighting with have contact, and breaking a critical component of my suspension and resulting in a crushing DNF and massive loss in iRating, dropping to 942.

Friday 22nd January, 2021

With the exception of missing a Virtual Networking Event held by UWRacing (missed first 40 minutes and didn't want to interrupt or make them have to re-cap everything for me), the 20th and 21st were incredibly quiet - just sitting in my room chipping away at the Key Concepts Of Journalism work which was due on the 22nd. Although this marked the last OFFICIAL deadline until March, I still chipped away at the work, I wanted to fully complete these pieces of work to my satisfaction.

Saturday 23rd January 2021

Saturday marked the 2021 Daytona 24 Hours on iRacing and after lots and lots of practice and feeling very comfortable in the Lambo I was well and truly pumped and excited to get racing - especially after not competing in it last year due to a driver registering the wrong team. The race would start absolutely phenomenally with Brayden slapping it on the first row, second position in the GT3 class.

After Brayden's immense double-stint keeping up with the lead car, a GT3 podium was almost certain...until Dominic came down the pit-lane...

Half an hour or more before my stint, I went to the bathroom (because it's better to drive on an empty bladder) and as I watched Dominic from the loo (that sounds wrong on so many levels, I'm so sorry) I saw he missed the pit-box...he began reversing. I couldn't see where our pit-box was and how far he had to reverse...but eventually his car dissapeared and I quickly found out we were disqualified. Shit.

With a penalty or repairs, you can usually drive the car again after an hour or so, this was a disqualification from the race - I would not be racing in the 2021 Daytona 24 Hours. Bathurst 12hr up next. Lambo again, this time NO margin for error - you make an error, you're either in a concrete wall - or hurtling at a concrete wall.

The situation with the DSQ was interesting. I don't know how to put this because human bodies are disgusting, but lets just say "I was having a difficulty" and had we not got DSQ it's likely Angel would have to take my stint and I would be in major discomfort during the stints I did do.

Sunday 24th January, 2021

On Sunday morning, I got the shock of my life - my mum messaged me to look out the window and as I did so I found that I had snowed...like REALLLLY snowed - like proper layer-on-layer snowed! It was beautiful!!!

Monday 25th January, 2021

After the tough week beforehand with Zolder (a continuation of my VERY wild F3 Season) as well as the failure that was The Daytona 24 Hours, Monday 25th January was a fresh new start and saw the end of my "difficulties" of the week prior.

Monday was also the day of my first lecture of 2021 - this being on Radio News Production which I was both excited about and slightly nervous about as I had never touched radio and to be frank - I didn't know a thing about what I was doing.

Tuesday 26th January 2021

Having lost iRating at Zolder, I wanted to quickly gain back what I had lost at the very next round of the F3 Championship, but knowing my luck, I was in for a bumpy ride.

It'd start with something funny I'd call "SSS" or Slippy Sock Syndrome, where my socks (I assume) were very new and had no grip, meaning my feet were sliding all over the pedals - half an hour into practice and I managed to get over this and focus on lap-times.

My first attempt at Belle Isle/Detroit, I jumped the start, and with having to serve a stop/Go, I was thinking "by the time I emerge from the pits I'm going to be AT LEAST a lap down....and what's the point if I'm not fighting and not having fun?

Fortunately, the second attempt went much, much better - a finish in 6th bought me up from 866 iRating to 923 - with VRS Endurance this weekend and yet another attempt at trying to have some form of successful F3 race in early February, I'm not quite at the giving up stage quite yet - If I managed 1K in August 2020, what's stopping me now? I've got the skill - I've got many top-10's, I just need to summon the luck!

Wednesday 27th January

That brings us nicely up to date and up to now?

How Am I?

I'm good thank you, thanks for asking - I'm mentally and physically healthy, I'm quite relieved because I have finished the "finishing up" of the Representing The Real work and doing a final check-through of the News Writing portfolio (and profile interview) which I'll probably submit because it's better to submit than not to.

I'm only 50 iRating off my record iRating for 2021, so if I get 25 or so during the VRS Endurance, and 25 during the F3 race (incredibly unlikely) I'll be back at 970...ready to smash that 1K barrier on the second attempt - but I just know there will be something stopping me.... All I can do is try y'know!

Thanks for reading!