Somehow I don’t think this Formula Ford car was meant to come round that corner at that speed and at that height, let alone BACKWARDS!

Oh… Yes, you’re right.

It’s a mark of how far the safety systems deployed in motorsport have come, that fatalities are thankfully so much less common nowadays, and today has shown just that with a number of incidents.

Lets start with a near miss. Michael Schumacher comes close to forcing his former team-mate and all-round good egg Rubens “Faster than The Stig” Barrichello into a solid concrete wall. I know Schumacher was “outed” as The Stig a couple of series ago, but to take revenge like this is a wee bit too far:

Now, take a look at this from the Superleague Formula. The guy apparently got away with nothing more than a broken leg:

Over in America, a guy called Elliot Sadler was able to climb out of his car after hitting a wall so hard, the engine detatched from the front of his car:

Finally, it seems that even motorbikes have become safer, either that or it was just VERY fortunate that of the two guys involved in this, one suffered a concussion and the other a broken collarbone:

Crazy.

The smell of petrol, burning rubber, and proper door-to-door racing. Amazing crashes, spectacular saves, and singlehandedly keeping the manufacturers of gaffer tape in business, the BTCC is certainly one of the most exciting forms of racing around.

At most of the circuits, the pits are open to the public, so you can get up close to the drivers and cars as well as watching them spin, slide, crash, bash and generally do everything they can to avoid actually finishing a race.

The Championship has suffered some heavy blows in recent years, with the loss of manufacturer teams Seat and Vauxhall’s VXR entry, but fears for the future of the series have been allayed thanks to the return of Honda to the grid, and the introduction of Chevrolet.

That said, last year’s popular (despite being a dirty red) champion, and Autosport National Driver Of The Year, Colin Turkington hasn’t managed to fund another year with WSR, and he’ll be a great loss. Also missing from the grid this year is Scotsman Jonny Adam, who debuted for Motorbase last season, and helped nudge Jason Plato into that superb bit of driving in the clip above.

While the Kirkcaldy driver isn’t involved this time around, fellow Fifer Gordon Shedden returns for Honda after a frustrating time last year. Having left Team Dynamics after the first race last year to be replaced by James Thompson (himself later succeeded by Johnny Herbert), Sheds then signed up for Clyde Valley Racing, only to see the team’s sponsors fail to pay up leaving a funding shortfall that forced them out of action in double-quick time (he did manage a second place finish for them at Knockhill, though!).

At the moment there are fewer cars entered than last year, but the field still looks as strong as ever. The ever-reliable Jason Plato was a late entrant for Team Silverline last year, yet ended the season a close second to Turks, and he lines up for the team again this year, albeit with the backing of Chevy and a new car, the Cruze replacing the competitive Lacetti.

He’ll line up alongside Alex MacDowall, a graduate of the Clio Cup support series, who posted some quick times in the pre-season.

The biggest threat is likely to come from the rear-wheel drive BMWs of Airwaves and last year’s champions WSR (formerly Team RAC).

Although Turkington is no longer on the scene, WSR have brought their former driver Rob Collard back from Airwaves after an impressive 2009 campaign. He’s been paired with Andy Neate who last featured for Team Nuts in 2005, and who has come back from a broken neck suffered in a horrendous crash at Silverstone in the 2008 Britcar 24 Hours.

Replacing Collard at Airwaves is Mat Jackson, another fan favourite, who had a successful season alongside Plato at Silverline last time out. Ulsterman Stephen Kane makes a welcome return to the team and championship after a year out.

With Vauxhall having withdrawn their support of Team 888 at the end of last season, Team VXR is no more. 888 continue this year though, and have ensured feisty Italian stallion Fabrizio Giovanardi has a place on the grid this year. Never one to shirk a challenge, expect him to be near the front of the pack despite only signing up on the eve of the season.

Two-time Champion Gio will be joined by last year’s Clio Cup Champion Phil Glew in the black-liveried Vectra’s of Triple Eight.

There will be another two Vectras on the grid, with Triple Eight having sold cars to the enthusiastic Dave Pinkney, a former chairman of Luton Town Football Club, and who will run his own Pinkney Motorsport team in ever distinctive colours.

The other Vectra has gone to former works driver Andrew Jordan, driving for Pirtek Racing. Pirtek are an established name in the Australian V8 Supercar, and will support Jordan’s independent entry while father Mike, a former BTCC driver and team-mate of Andy in 2008, will provide advice from the sidelines.

Having run the Honda Integra and Civic over the past five years, Team Dynamics this year have backing from Honda UK, and welcome back a brace of drivers to the team. The aforementioned Shedden will be partnered by Matt Neal, who he partnered in years of yore. Neal is making a return to his father Steve’s team after a largely frustrating spell with Triple Eight/VXR.

Team AON return for a second season in the Ford Focus, with Tom “Sonic” Chilton leading once more, alongside former VXR man, Tom Onslow-Cole. AON were coming good towards the end of last year, and will be running the only brace of LPG cars this year, so will be hoping to be further up the order. AON will have the backing of Ford .

Tom Boardman is another man returning to the grid having made his debut as the youngest-ever BTCC driver in 2001 when, aged just 18, he drove privately entered Peugeot. Tom will be entering this year’s BTCC under the family-run Special Tuning banner.

Martin Johnson (no, not that Martin Johnson) will be running the Astra Coupé formerly run by Arkas with Tech-speed, for a second successive year, while Tech-Speed have integrated John George’s JAG Racing to their team, John pairing up with the ever-popular Paul O’Neill, the pair both racing ex-Dynamics Integras.

Keeping the Honda theme going, Matt Hamilton returns with his independently entered Civic Type R. Matt debuted at Rockingham last year, and the Derby University student will be looking to build on his performances since. Matt will be racing with TH Motorsport, who looked after John George in recent years.

In another Honda will be Lea Wood, running an ex-Gareth Howell Integra. Wood has previous experience in the Clio Cup, but steps up in another family-run team.

Finally we come to two new entries this season. First, lets tackle the new BMW pairing from Forster Motorsport. More used to the Mini Challenge, Arthur Forster and Martin Depper will have to get used to the RWD 320si but with the success of Airwaves and WSR in recent years, they may just make their way towards the front of the grid.

The final entry, thus far, is AmDMilltek. Running a Mk5 Golf, Team owner/driver Shaun Hollamby hopes to add a second car during the season, with Simon Shaw expected to pick up the second seat. It was 1989 when the BTCC last encountered a Golf, so it will be interesting to see where the Golf places come the end of the season.

There’s a BTCC fantasy league running at http://www.fantasydrivers.com/ Get yer team sorted!

Fortunately the illness also came after the London trip… which was now so long agao I can barely remember the highlights. Hmm, let’s see…

On arrival at the super-shiny and super-huge T5, we cleverly bought four tickets for the Heathrow Express. Only to be presented with this when after the third had printed:

Technology fail. After seeking human intervention we were swiftly sorted out and able to continue on our merry way to our cheap hotel 5 minutes from Paddington Station. Handy, and also very cheap. Did the job though!

Nothing much exciting happened on the Friday night, so I’ll skip on to Saturday. When not much happened.

Dave joined our merry crew before we split into two groups – Edd, Dave and myself doing the cool stuff while Gary and his sister Gemma proceeded to get lost lots having no clue how London works. The cool stuff wasn’t particularly cool at all, to be fair. A quick trip down Carnaby Street, a wee wander round some of the touristy stuff, the highlight being walking into Hamleys. I was wearing my ultra-cool Dangermouse t-shirt, and was welcomed by the dude on the door with a cheery “‘ello Dangermouse, good to have you with us!”. Mega.

Ooh, ooh! We also managed to stumble upon the Dons pub, the Rob Roy, purely by chance thanks to my navigational skills. Win. I was, though, disappointed to find it dead both times we were in. Even at 10pm on a Saturday night. Boo.

What else happened? Not a whole lot. Sunday saw us head back towards central Lahndahn Town to partake in some food/shopping antics, and for me to Geek out over the musical heritage. Yes, I do have a photo of Wardour Street made famous by The Jam’s “A-Bomb on Wardour Street”. A photo of the street from the What’s The Story album cover was also taken. Oh yes.

Then there was the gig. That Wembley’s a bit impressive is it not?! We timed it perfectly to see Kasabian who were excellent. Oasis were… Oasis. I’ve seen them 13 times now so there were no surprises. It was certainly better than the Murrayfield shambles though. Getting back to Paddington was easier than anticipated as well. Bonus.

So, that was London. Then followed a few days of work before three weeks of bed. Not particularly nice, though I’d recommend it to anyone who needs to lose some weight.

Thankfully, I recovered in time to go on a three-day course, which I passed, and then have another busy weekend. One of the few football matches I’ve made it to away to Alloa, followed by comedy in Glasgow and thrills ‘n’ spills at Knockhill. Yay!

The football was poor, but the meal and comedy at Jongleurs were of acceptable standard. Dave also enjoyed, but his girlfriend, Gemma (not Gary’s sister!), didn’t seem too impressed. Too many wanking jokes I think. Stayed at their place on the Saturday night, then Dave and myself headed through to Knockhill where we were impressed to see local boy Gordon Shedden come second in the first BTCC race. Mon the Scots.

Keeping the theme going, Aberdeen’s very own Glynn Geddie manged to win his class and finish second overall in the Porsche Carrera Cup race that followed. Sadly the later races weren’t so successful with Sheds and another local boy, Jonny Adam, having various issues. Jonny’s fire extinguisher randomly deciding to cover him in foam was quite amusing though, even if it did put him out of race three.

More recently, on Saturday night no less, I went to the theatre. Yes! A theatre! I’m officially cultured! Edd and I made a late decision to see Quadrophenia, and despite being sat way up in “Ye Gads!” it was found to be thoroughly enjoyable. The band were rather good too, although the bass solo in My Generation completely failed to impress me. I’m just picky, though.

Hmm, this was a bit longer than intended, but I think that’s all the excitement for the moment. Apart from the motor, but we’ve already covered that. I’m currently trying to come up with a name for it. Ritchie is the best (read: only) suggestion so far, but I’m not keen.

Another busy weekend looms. No football for me, as I’m off to New Deer for the Wizard Festival, where I’ll see my good friends Proud Mary. Nice one.