Blog post: Reflecting on end-of-season enjoyment

Guest blog post by long-time friend of Weltch Media, TV motorsport commentator and announcer, Richard John Neil

The end of each racing season usually means some uncertainty for us freelancers.

However, I’ve found year-end work to be some of the most enjoyable that I get to do.

My ITV work wrapped up at Brands Hatch at the beginning of October. It’s been a year of change within our wonderful team with Steve Rider retiring from presenting mid-campaign. Our script supervisor, Mary Hutchinson, retired the same day. Most of you won’t have heard of ‘Hutch’ but, like Steve, was a very big part of the team and did a complex job with ease.

The real end-of-season for me started with the Ginetta Junior Scholarship up at Blyton. It’s a three day event which picks the driver who gets a funded season in the class for next year.

I had to miss last year’s competition as I was working elsewhere but was delighted to be invited back to assist with the media panel alongside new recruit to the company, Alicia Radford.

As ever I enjoyed the three days and can report that the standard was higher than ever. The other thing that struck me this year was the international nature of the event. The entrants were from all over the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Romania, Poland, Sweden, Canada and other countries that have slipped my mind for now.

As usual it was an incredibly enjoyable three days with the staff from Ginetta, Blyton Park and the driver coaches.

One the great things about working on the scholarship is that I get to meet some of the drivers that I will likely be commentating on in future years. It’s an advantage meeting them there rather than breaking the ice at a later race meeting.

Then I was back at Brands Hatch for the 54th running of the Formula Ford Festival. The event holds a special place in my heart as it was one of the first events that I attended at the Kent circuit.

Over the years I have been to many of the Festivals, although I would not have imagined when I was that youngster watching over the fence at Druids that I would have ever got to work on the meeting.

Over the last few seasons I have been the broadcast stream presenter. The role has expanded as well with the return of a Q&A session on the Saturday evening.

I’ve been lucky enough to meet and interview many of drivers we enjoyed watching back-in-the-day. Martin Donnelly, for example, has been on the panel for two years. This year we were joined by 1976 winner Derek Daly via Zoom from his home in the USA.

My last event was another scholarship – the BRSCC Fiesta Junior competition. The first winner of the Fiesta Scholarship, two years ago, was Daniella Sutton.

That links into the next event I will talk about which was the young driver’s recent announcement of joining the FIA F4 British Championship.

As F4 commentator it was nice to be asked to work as an interviewer on the announcement event which took place at the Sale Sharks stadium in Manchester. The event was very well attended and showcased what a terrific understanding Daniella and her family have of the commercial side of the sport.

I would recommend that any young drivers struggling with ideas for engaging marketing partners (I deliberately avoid ‘sponsors’ as a word in this context) would do well to engage with Team Sutton to see how things like this should be approached. Again it was as much a good social event as it was a business one.

That’s about it for this year. I see the awards season is now in full swing although I tend not to get invited to many (if any) as people usually only ask me along if they need a presenter.

I am however looking forward to getting along to some non-league football matches over the winter and trying to improve my photographic efforts.

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