PR is a vital cog in motorsport. It keeps teams and drivers in the limelight, maintains contact with fans and can play an essential part in attracting and retaining sponsors. That’s where Andy Champness comes in. Based in the North West, Andy has been working for the last twelve years in the public sector specialising in communications, PR, media relations and events management. But a chance email to the team manager at Special Tuning UK following the opening round of this season’s British Touring Car Championship led to him being taken on as the team’s Media Relations Manager.

Andy covers all rounds of the British Touring Car Championship and in this report he brings you an insight into his weekend with Tom Boardman and the Special Tuning UK team from Snetterton…

Friday night is spent hastily packing the essentials for the weekend – notebook, camera equipment, iPhone …and clean underwear (thanks Mrs C). The plan is to have an early night, but, as usual it never quite happens that way!

Snetterton, the Sat Nav says is a four and half journey so it’s a very early start from where I live in deepest, darkest Lancashire in order to arrive before the first Free Practice session on Saturday morning.

First port of call is to the Special Tuning UK garage to say my hellos, pick up a bacon sandwich if there’s one going spare, and find out if there are specific photos to be taken that day (today Tom wants some of his truck). Then it’s off to the Media office to register and pick up the (fetching) day-glow, hi-vis tabard required to get trackside, before I wander off to find the best vantage points on the circuit for pictures in time for the first of the day’s practice sessions.

One of the smallest outfits in the series, there are still lot of people behind the scenes at Special Tuning making things happen and keeping everything running smoothly. Originally drafted in to write the race reports and increase the profile of both team and driver, I’ve now also become the team’s photographer, although my pictures pale into insignificance compared to the brilliant images that the BTCC professional photographers take. I’m lucky too that I now have the support from BTCCCrazy photographer Pete Mainey who supplies the team with any shots of Tom’s SEAT Leon that he’s taken over the weekend. Having unrestricted access to the team and the garage area though gives me a unique insight into the world of touring car racing and allows me to take more unusual images that you might not ordinarily see in motorsport publications but which can be more endearing to fans. It’s also presented me with a few perks too, having been lucky enough to experience Tom’s driving first-hand from the passenger seat for three exhilarating laps around the Brands Hatch Indy Circuit which you can read about at http://www.tomboardmanmotorsport.com/111.html.

We’ve made some good in-roads with our PR but have only scratched the surface. Although the figures are still to be calculated, we estimate that between the first race of the season and the mid-season break our PR has generated well over a million opportunities to read, see or hear about Tom and the Special Tuning UK team. But as BTCCCrazy reported last month, money is the route to racing, so the hope is that more sponsors come forward to support the team. I love being involved in the BTCC series and it would be great to devote more time to it but right now I have to juggle my work with the team with a full-time job. This is a passion that one day I’d like to turn into a career.

Free Practice and Qualifying are usually where the iPhone comes in handy, as it allows me to view the live timings (provided by TSL-Timing) to monitor Tom’s progress without having to be in the garage. However, the lack of 3G network coverage at Snetterton puts paid to that!

Between Free Practice and Qualifying I head to the Media office to type up my notes (if I don’t do it now, I won’t be able decipher my scrawl later on!). If I have the time, I’ll also have a quick look at the photos I’ve taken. However, I love watching the support races so I finish off as soon as I can and head back to the circuit to watch the action.

After each session and race, I speak to Tom to get his thoughts on events and I’ll also speak to Emlyn, the Team Manager, about the technicalities and gently remind him to ‘tweet’ from @SpecialTuningUK on Twitter. And luckily things here are going well for Tom. Despite not being at the test here a few weeks back, he’s on the pace straight away and come qualifying, he’s running in the top three for most of the session having cleverly prepared a wet set-up beforehand. Unfortunately though a window of opportunity opens for the other drivers and Tom slips down the order into tenth. But this is still his best starting position of the season so far.

By the end of the day, the early start has caught up with me, so I head for the B&B where I’ll review my notes before catching up on such much needed sleep.

Sunday morning and it’s another early start to beat the thousands of spectators making their way to the circuit. In the garage there’s a good atmosphere with everyone very relaxed following the previous day’s qualifying result. With space in the garage at a premium though, I head for the Media office again and its indispensable internet connection!

Once the pit-lane opens and the cars head out for the circuit, I make my way with the team on to the grid, camera in hand, to take pictures of Tom and the car (and of course the lovely grid girls!). It’s always a fairly intense time for any team and it can provide me with some distinctive images.

When it comes to the races, I’m always torn about where to watch – I love watching from the garage with the team going through an array of emotions, but equally I love being trackside right at the heart of the action. Race one sees Tom finish in eighth place, another valuable top-ten points finish and he’s happy with the result. Race two though, as I’m sure you know was disastrous, with the SEAT Leon shunted off track before being collected by Paul O’Neill’s Honda Integra and ending the race for both drivers as well as that of O’Neill’s team-mate, John George. In these situations as much as I want to get Tom’s view of what happened straight away, it is better to allow him to talk it through with the race engineers first – and get the expletives out of the way! Once he’s assessed the incident, Tom comes over and we discuss what happened, and I get my quotes.

Much to the surprise of some of the other teams and the race commentators, the SEAT Leon was back on the grid for the third race. Given that they had only an hour and half to repair the massive damage to the car, it was an immense feat by the mechanics. Having not finished the second race Tom would start from the back of the grid. But this only fired him up and in true Boardman style he flew out of the traps and despite driving a car not handling to the best of its ability, he finished the race in a remarkable eleventh place. This brilliant drive and the mechanics’ unwavering belief that they would get the car out despite the damage sustained in race two gives me a great angle for the press release!

As BTCCCrazy followers will know, Tom is now contributing a Blog to its website. Snetterton was the first of his insights into the race weekend and I lend a helping hand sitting down with him and reflecting on everything that’s happened over the last couple of days.

Always looking for a good photo opportunity and any final reflections any of the team might have on the weekend I wait around as the garage is dismantled and the queues of traffic leaving the circuit dwindle, before heading to my car for the long journey home.

Five hours, four coffees and three toilet stops later I arrive home where I’ll polish off the press release (and a well-deserved beer!) and sift through my photos and choose a suitable image to accompany the press release.

The race report/press release is then sent on to Emlyn and John Boardman (head-honcho at Special Tuning UK) for approval, before being sent out to the press and other media outlets and uploaded with the photos on to Tom’s website (www.tomboardmanmotorsport.com). The press release is also emailed to ClubSEAT for inclusion on their website (www.club-seat.co.uk).

Whilst it’s long hours on top of an already long week, it’s really rewarding and I’m very fortunate to have the opportunity of being involved in the UK’s premier motor racing series with such a great team.

Roll on Silverstone!

Email: andychampness@hotmail.com

James Mappin is the editor-in-chief covering the British Touring Car Championship. You can contact him at james@btcccrazy.co.uk, on twitter @BTCCCrazy or on his personal twitter account @jamesmappin.