Ever since I can remember, motorsport has been a significant factor in my own life, and also the lives of the rest of my family. My father Neil raced motor cycles since I was born, and so, I spent a lot of my childhood at race tracks providing him with moral support, and whatever other help I could. It was not until the age of 10 that l finally got my own chance to try my hand at motorsports competition. It was a tough development for my mother to accept, but eventually she succumbed to the pressure and allowed my dad to buy me my first motocross bike, a PW80. Motocross became my game for the next four years until, at the age of 14 and a bit, I was denied a competition license for National motor cross because I was “too young.”

Fast forward seven years, and I returned from a year of “exploring” the UK and my two-wheel ambitions had by this stage, changed to four-wheel ambitions. My father had since moved across to sports car racing, and although not quite as exciting and adrenaline filled, it was far safer than his two-wheel exploits in the past.

In January 2002, the time came to enter my first car race at the David Piper International at Zwartkops Raceway, Pretoria, in a Fiat Abarth 131. As the story goes, the rest is history. Eight years later, I look back proudly over my three South African Sports Car Championships, and look forward to whatever 2011 might bring.

But as I sit here, I feel the need to discuss my other motorsport addiction – online sim racing. In 2008, I raced for the Nissan Junior team in South Africa’s Production Car series (touring cars). My race engineer at the time happened to be quite a computer savvy guy. One afternoon, as we waited at the airport for a flight to a round of the championship, the “fool” decided to show me a “game” he had recently discovered. The game was Live for Speed. I was clueless as to the world of sim racing, but nevertheless, became totally addicted from my very first laps with a mouse as a controller on his laptop in the departure lounge.

http://www.iracing.com/the-way-i-see-it