Yep, the racing bug has bitten me. The last two months since the previous Radical SR1 Cup round at Snetterton have felt like very long ones indeed, and I’m itching to get going again.

Over that summer break I’ve been mulling a phrase you hear every now again that ‘racing isn’t a real sport’. As much as I love playing cricket and football, neither can quite match the intensity of being wheel to wheel with others at over 100mph and with no margin for error. If you love the competitive nature of playing sport, you will love racing. It’s the hardest sport I’ve ever experienced, and also the most addictive.

Soapbox dismounted, thankfully the season finale at a Brands Hatch basking in late summer sunshine is now upon us, and there’s a true end of term feel around the place.

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There’s still a championship to be won (fingers crossed for my team mate Dave Morgan - team orders won’t be necessary as I don’t usually get near him in the races), but for those without a shot at winning it, like yours truly, attentions will already be turning on what to do next year.

So what do you do next after a season in the Radical SR1 Cup? It’s not an entry-level championship that will leave you high and dry with a car you can’t use; you’re in the Radical ‘family’ now.

If this is your first year in the SR1 Cup, you can do the championship again. Done your second year? You’ve several options. You can enter into the Radical Sprint Championship, a series predominantly featuring the bigger, faster, more powerful SR3s (and a car that’s the next rung up the ladder should you wish to upgrade your SR1 for one), but also with a class for the SR1s. This allows you to head off racing at Radical Festival at Spa-Francorchamps, too.

Once you're in the Sprint Championship, you can swap your control tyres from the SR1 Cup for a set of slicks. At this point, things really get interesting. I should know; Radical let me have a go in the Sprint Championship back at Snetterton in July. Lucky me.

Well, I was supposed to try slicks, but initially the weather had other ideas… With slicks though also comes the option of full which were needed for qualifying. Clearly it was easier to drive on full wets than the usual SR1 tyres that are used in both the wet and dry, but still I was not quick enough and qualified in the middle of my class.

Then the drama really started. The torrential rain had given way to bright sunshine, and in the time between leaving the paddock to heading to the assembly for race one the ongoing Formula 4 race had dried the circuit out. This meant a mad dash back the other way for slicks.