Car Throttle Is Sponsoring And Racing In The 2018 Caterham Academy

I’m not sure there’s a name for feeling an equal mix of excitement, pride and moderate terror, but that’s where I’m at right now. Why? Because this year, I’m making my racing debut.

But the story goes beyond just me and my tentative steps into the scary but awesome world of motorsport: the reason I’ve been thrust into this fortunate situation is this year, Car Throttle will be the title sponsor and media partner of the Caterham Academy.

That means for 2018, the series will be dubbed the Car Throttle Caterham Academy, with every single car carrying Car Throttle branding, along with logos from our sister title WTF1.

The media partner bit involves me living with my very own racing car - the 125bhp Caterham Seven you see on this page - taking part in every championship event of 2018, and reporting back to you. Hopefully not regaling tales of woe.

I’ve already completed my ARDS (Association of Racing Drivers Schools) test and taken delivery of the car, and will be getting to grips with the circa-600kg, road-legal racer at a handling day this weekend. After that, there’ll be two sprints to get entrants used to competing, before we take on a five-race programme that’ll run from June to late September.

My favourite bit about the Academy concept? You have to be a newbie to enter. It’s for novice drivers only, with Caterham putting you through your ARDS and guiding you through these early stages of your racing journey. When the red lights go out at our first race at Brands Hatch, everyone will be in the same boat. And that’s pretty cool.

Make sure you read more about Caterham and the Academy, to find out what I’ve let myself in for…