The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Fresher than ever.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 5,900 times in 2010. That’s about 14 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 110 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 160 posts. There were 79 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 191mb. That’s about 2 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was April 29th with 140 views. The most popular post that day was Drivers Profiles.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were rfgrc.co.uk, grandprix-online.com, simracingireland.net, formula-simracing.net, and en.wordpress.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for backmarker brigade, racing snail, crashcast fm, back marker brigade, and snail racing.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

Drivers Profiles April 2010

Drivers June 2009
3 comments

About April 2009
3 comments

Sponsorship August 2009

Historical Media June 2009

GRCS9

Simon Smith had an unusually topsy turvy latest two rounds to GRC Season 9 resulting in three of the four races, him being upside down!

Silverstone got off to a shaky start after qualifying 17th but in avoiding all the lap 1 and 2 drama’s Smith suddenly found himself battling at the front of the field, coming home a shocked and delighted 5th! Smith then qualified fifth for the feature race and was running there until lap 2 when he was hit by an out of control Alain Cottini and rolled over his Volvo! Smith rejoined at the back of the back and desperately clawed his way up the order only to misjudge an overtaking move on Tim Spurr and half spin his BMB which in turn collected… you guessed it Alain Cottini! After all that Smith laid 26th and put in the career race of his life to ascend to a fantastic 9th after a missed opportunity for a potential podium.

Donnington however was Smith’s lowest point of season 9. The sprint race saw Smith qualify midpack but gain a rocket start up the field to 7th before spinning off on the opening lap and getting beached in the grass. After climbing back into the points down in 17th Smith then made a mistake on the second last lap and beached himself in gravel this time and ended up a pointless 23rd! Race 2 saw Smith qualify 5th again but at the same corner but this time lap 2, Smith was pincered by two cars and speared off into the abyss again. Simon, bit between his teeth climbed upto what was at the time 12th but with several ahead yet to pit but then caught a curb and over she went again – into the barriers upside down! With a broken car, Smith desperately tried to limp to snail home and just about scraped a 17th. With Paul Huggett absent at Donnington and only collecting a few points at Silverstone, it had been a trying few meetings for BackMarker Brigade.

Seaosn 9 closes at Monaco in 2 weeks time!

RDLMS

Race Department’s LeMan Series Season 2 got underway and the snails were back in action. Craig Johnston was joined by Ryan Walker and Dan Long for another assault on the GT2 class. Ryan Walker took the first leg and placed the team 4th in class until at the driver swap a hardware failure put pay to all of Walker’s fine driving work around the Monza circuit.

“It was a shame as we’d come on leaps and bounds from season 1. Ryan, Craig & Dan drove superbly in practice and made a great team.”

Jody Fannin and Jamie Rush are confirmed as standby’s and additional drivers for the longer events. The final hour of the broadcast, hosted by Simon Smith, can be downloaded from the website.

GRCS9

Simon Smith shocked everyone when he came home in a stonking 5th in GRC’s Season 9 sprint race at Toban Raceway on Monday! Infact the server was so shocked he was in 3rd place for most of the race, it went into meltdown while he was running 6th in the feature race and stopped the evenings events early!

Smith ran 3rd for most of the sprint race embroiled in a frantic battle with Jorge Ampudia until the final lap when Smith lost out and then suffered a puncture at the very last corner and dropped to 5th. Things were going equally well as Smith rose to 6th in the feature race before the server crashed. Paul Huggett too enjoyed points with an 18th in the feature race.

“It was fantastic to battle for the podium and it was shame to see it slip out of my grasp but grabbing my first top 5 in the main league was still a fantastic achievement and a personal highlight for me.”

This now places Smith an amazing 9th overall in the division 2 league with Paul Huggett moving to 26th. BackMarker Brigade are 8th in the constructors.

GPOCL

Simon Smith took 9th in Brazil and 7th at Abu Dhabi to take a new record of not only finishing every single race of the 2010 season but also scoring in every single race too! The superb display of consistancy rewarded Smith with 6th overall at the seasons end, 94 points and cemented his place as top BMB driver in the league this year. Joint with Alex Cooper, the team came 5th in the constructors!

“I’m delighted at my own performance, its been a fantastic season full of racing from start to finish. I couldn’t have asked for more. I’m busy making the last batch of highlight videos before making my own season highlights reel and reliving every moment! Roll on 2011!”

GPO Sprint 2010 Final Results

6) Simon Smith (94pts)

7) Craig Johnston (61pts)

12) Alex Cooper (36pts)

17) Dave Carr-Smith (25pts)

19) Maurice Zondag (24pts)

21) Maurice Willems (20pts)

32) Paul Frampton (2pts)

35) Gary Cooper (1pt)

-) Emmanuelle Baako (-)

GPO Challenge 2010 Final Positions

36) Lee Palmer (7pts)

38) Danni Fugl (4pts)

-) Jordan Norwood

-) Douglas Simoneli

-) Gary Gray

Starting this Friday the ATCC championship ran by Keith Barrick is off and running and this will be shown via MultiBC on their own website and hopefully on Race Departments front page too. This will run fortnightly. Check the forums for the race times in your area but beware Europeans, its an American ran event!

Following on from that on 13th November, RDLMS kicks off with the 6 hours of Monza. Simon Smith will be there from midaday to survive through it with you all and best of luck to drivers Ryan Walker, Craig Johnston and Dan Long who line up for BackMarker Brigade on the GT2 class.

Also over at Grand Prix Online, SimRaceTV will be broadcasting the final two rounds of the challenge championship. Interlagos is this saturday and Abu-Dhabi in two weeks time, both kick off at 7.15 GMT.

Of course GRC’s coverage continues Monday’s at 8.10 GMT.

Busy snail!

GPOCL

Simon Smith just about scraped through the American GP at Road America on Sunday with 9th place and 2 points after a very difficult race.

Smith started in the midpack but clouted Vinodh Moodley half way round the first lap and dropped to last with a damaged car. However Smith had planned not to stop and so soldiered on with a heavily battered car. Luck was on his side as the tough and demanding circuit claimed almost half the field and Smith came home a lapped 9th, the final finisher! Paul Frampton was running in the points early on and had moved into 10th but was one of the last retirements with an accident.

This leaves just two rounds left and should Smith score in both of these, he’d be the only driver (as he is already) in GPO’s history to score in every race of a season.