Yesterday was the penultimate British GT weekend at Donington Park, and it was one of those days that reminds me why I love following this championship so much. There is obviously the racing, the noise, the speed and the cars themselves, but for me, British GT has always been about far more than what happens when the lights go green. It is the people around it: the friendships, the familiar faces, the drivers, and their support team, essentialy everyone who makes up this slightly mad little racing family that makes going back to the paddock feel like coming home.
It was especially lovely catching up with everyone yesterday, and even better when pretty much everyone I know and was there to support ended up standing on a podium at some point during the weekend. There is something very special about watching people you know succeed, especially when you have followed their journeys and know how much work goes into getting themselves and their cars to that point. But despite all the podiums, celebrations and racing, one of my favourite moments of the day happened away from the track and had absolutely nothing to do with championship points: it was watching Ross Gunn spending time talking to a young fan.
Now, I am completely biased where Ross is concerned because he has been one of the Aston Martin drivers for a long time and someone who Immun’Age has sponsored alongside other factory drivers, but I genuinely think he has to be one of the fastest guys out there at the moment that I have seen race live. His career has taken him through karting and single-seaters and into the world of GT and endurance racing, and he has built his career through talent, determination and taking the opportunities when they came along. He won the British GT GT4 Championship in 2015, has raced at the very highest levels of GT and endurance competition and has represented Aston Martin on some very big stages internationally. There is an awful lot of experience sitting behind that visor, and when you watch him out on track, you can see exactly why he has made it as far as he has.
Yesterday, though, none of that mattered during the Pit Walk: not the lap times, the trophies, the championship points, or the fact that he was about to climb back into a race car and go hurtling around Donington at speeds that would make most of us reconsider our life choices. For those few minutes, he wasn’t the professional racing driver, he was simply Ross, sitting there talking to a young lad who clearly thought the world of him and that got me thinking about what those moments actually mean.
We sometimes forget what it is like to be a young fan: you see these drivers on television, you watch their onboard footage, you follow their results and you stand behind the barriers watching them fly past at ridiculous speeds. To a young fan, they aren’t simply another person in a racing suit, but somebody they admire, whose car they recognise and whose achievements they probably know far better than their 6 times table (somehow always a hard one for me!). These drivers can seem almost untouchable – then suddenly that person is in front of you, giving you their time and talking to you as if they were your next door neighbour and time possibly stands still… This is one of the things I love about GT racing because, for all the professionalism and competitiveness, there is still a real sense of family within the paddock. These drivers and teams are there to win, obviously – nobody is turning up at a British GT weekend just for a track drive and a cup of tea. They are fiercely competitive, they fight for every tenth of a second, every position and every point, and once that helmet goes on, they are there to do a job.
But away from the racing, there is often a willingness to stop, have a chat, sign something, pose for a photograph, answer a question or simply to give someone a little bit of their time, and I think that is so incredibly important. Because time is probably one of the most valuable things any of us has, particularly on a race weekend when drivers have schedules, briefings, engineering meetings, media commitments, preparation and all the mental concentration that goes into getting into a racing car and performing at that level. So when a driver chooses to give some of that precious time to a young fan, even if it is only for a few minutes, it can mean far more to the person receiving it than the driver might ever realise. For Ross, it may have been a few minutes in his day, for that young lad, it could be a memory he carries for years.
He may not remember every result from Donington. He probably won’t remember who finished fourth in a particular race or what the fastest lap was. But he will remember that Ross talked to him while signing the poster. He will remember not only being given that attention by someone he genuinely admires, but more importantly, he will remember how it felt to have somebody he looks up to treat him as though he mattered. And perhaps that is the bit that is so important, because when you are young, having someone you admire talk to you can make you feel 6 feet tall. Someone gave you their time; someone you value decided that, for those few minutes, you were worth stopping for – that’s a pretty powerful thing to give somebody.
I wonder if drivers have the time themselves to realise how much those little interactions can stay with young fans: for them, it is part of another busy race weekend. For the child standing there, it can become one of those stories they tell over and over again. “I met Ross Gunn and he talked to me.” Years later, they might still have the photograph, still remember exactly where they were standing and still remember how excited they were. That is the stuff you don’t see on the timing screen.
It is also why I think the family side of GT racing is so important. The paddock can be incredibly accessible compared with many other professional sports, and there are drivers who understand that being part of a community means giving something back to it. They don’t have to spend hours doing it. Sometimes it is just a few minutes, a smile, a conversation or a photograph, but those little things matter, and yesterday, Ross gave one young fan exactly that: a little bit of his time – something which could be absolutely priceless to the person standing in front of him.
So yes, I loved catching up with people I hadn’t seen for a while, the atmosphere around the paddock, watching some seriously talented people doing what they do best. and seeing everyone on the podium yesterday. But sometimes the moments that stick with you aren’t the ones involving the chequered flag; sometimes they happen when one of the drivers gives a young fan their undivided attention – and that, more than anything, is the bit of British GT that makes it feel like a family.
