Wow, so this series became a mammoth six-parter haha! As I said in "I'm back Part 1", I wasn't really sure how this was going to turn out, so settled on the most organic approach of just writing pretty much the first thing that came to mind. This is a personal blog after all, and I've never pretended to be a professional author...
Picking up where I left off from the previous instalment, I saw out the remainder of the BSB season with CDH Racing. It went by way too quickly for my liking and I was gutted when the campaign finished at the legendary Brands Hatch circuit in mid-October 2023. It felt like I'd really built up a head of steam with regard my work method and ethic; initially there was obviously a bedding-in period, not to mention the novelty and excitement of working for a bonafide race team.
But as the season wore on, I really grew into the role, worked more efficiently and more importantly developed a visual style/identity for CDH Racing and TFT.
I will admit that I am quite visually stunted, which I suppose ties in with the fact that my creativity almost exclusively resides in the literary domain.
However, learning how to use Canva lit a little fire in my belly for the design element of the job - you don't need to be a Photoshop whizz to use it, yet it's definitely powerful enough (even in its 'free' iteration) to create some really cool designs.
The only limiting factor is the user - and to a lesser extent, the size of their wallet...
So, what am I doing for this upcoming season? The honest answer is, I don't know.
When it was announced that Toprak was moving over to ROKiT BMW Motorrad, that faint glimmer of hope that was extinguished by Pata Yamaha's refusal to allow me to join them for 2023 suddenly re-appeared. I certainly wasn't going to set myself up for a fall like before, but at the very least when I approached SMR head-honcho Shaun Muir at a scorching hot Magny Cours last September, I could say that I was working for a BSB team - I wasn't just some random fan asking for a job. It also helped that Shaun had had previous dealings with CDH team boss Dean.
And to be fair to Shaun, he invited me into the BMW hospitality unit - albeit briefly - to hear me out. And to my pleasant surprise, while he didn't state there was a position available, neither did he categorically say that there wasn't. This in itself was more progress than I'd ever made with Pata Yamaha.
In the following weeks, I gave Shaun a few gentle nudges regarding a possible position in his team. He advised that SMR were looking to consolidate the social media for the WorldSBK team as well as 'Portugal Enduros', Shaun's other venture. The role was being advertised online but immediately there was a huge stumbling block - it required the successful candidate to be based at SMR's Guisborough office headquarters.
As a Londoner, I'd never even heard of Guisborough! Turns out it's a stone's throw from Middlesborough - a five-hour drive, no less.
So that, as they say, was that...
Since October I've emailed the vast majority of teams in the BSB and WorldSBK/SSP paddocks but as yet, no takers. I was close to joining a new BSB team that moved up to the class towards the end of last season. But unfortunately, despite a promising conversation with the team boss on the run-up to the new year, when we entered 2024 and I chased him up for an update, he advised that they'd decided to put all their funds into their new bike and as such social media and PR would continue to be dealt with in-house.
Bugger.
Worse still, I'd put Dean at CDH on notice that it looked likely I was joining the aforementioned (who shall remain nameless) team, and that working for CDH free of charge and covering my own expenses was no longer an option. One thing I've learnt is that news travels quickly around the paddock - so I didn't want Dean to find out from a third party that I was joining another team.
I value my integrity and my personal relationships with people and wanted to leave CDH with a clear conscience.
However, my good intentions ended up backfiring - Dean has since secured the services of a couple of other people to deal with CDH's socials. So in trying to do the 'right thing', I ended up shooting myself in the foot!
Ergo, as it stands and at the time of writing, I haven't got a team in place for 2024.
All hope is not lost though - Chris has once again stepped up in my hour of need and has Kağan and I covered to attend all UK BSB rounds (Round 1 is in Spain!), as well as gaining us access to internet in the event we can't get into the Media Centre (once a few thousand people are trackside, the internet goes to shit so a half-decent wireless network is imperative).
Even so, I'll keep trying to convince a team to take me on but it's definitely nice to know that Chris has my back in a worst case scenario - you can't put a price on that kind of friendship!
Wish me luck! :)
