One of the best pieces of advice I ever received was shared over the scream of a high-revving V10 engine. The summer before I headed into my GCSEs, my work experience took me to the British GP in 1996 where I was lucky enough to shadow the brilliant motorsport journalist David Tremayne who at the time was The Independent’s F1 correspondent.
We were standing at the back of a garage watching Martin Brundle’s car being fired up, the Jordan liveried in the same thin gold of the B&H cartons I’d started sneakily smoking on the walk back from school. The engine note – a shrill, banshee scream that got louder and louder as it bounced off the concrete walls – was what we games journalists might call , an all-encompassing thing that visibly moved me.
My mentor saw that wide-eyed excitement, the same look that’s struck me whenever I go to a race track and first hear an engine striking a note of fury, and recognised it; it was pretty much the same one he had on his face as we were being blasted by a V10, some years into his career and having heard that same note over countless race weekends. ‘Hold onto that’, he said. ‘When it’s gone you might as well walk away’.
I didn’t end up writing about racing cars for a living, even if I take every excuse I can to do so in the line of work I ended up in, but the advice has proved invaluable all the same. I’ve since discovered there are plenty of analogues between the pair of professions, too. They both ask writers to toe the line somewhere between holding their subjects accountable while also sharing their passion. Some lean one way more than another; I’ve always tried to find a balance, but am not ashamed to admit I’m an enthusiast more often than not.
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They both offer positions of extreme privilege, especially if you’re an enthusiast. It a lot of fun getting to meet and talk to the brilliant minds behind games you know and love, even if it’s also important to not shy away from difficult conversations. It is hugely exciting to play hotly anticipated games before their release, even if it’s important to maintain a critical eye. I can’t believe I’ve been lucky enough to do it for over ten years now.