My name is Andrey Musaev and I am a lawyer, an “office monkey”, so to say, most of my life passes in the office at the computer. I’m 33, born in Sakhalin, have lived through a move to Moscow, mortgage, local trains from Moscow region to the city, home improvement, work in big corporation, divorce, private business and a lot more. I rejoiced when my son was born and when I had a new happy wedding! I don’t earn a million a week (or even a month) and I live modestly. My physical condition is average, have some excess weight. I have never had a blog before, never even posted photos in the Instagram. To put it simply, I suggest to generalize these characteristics into one concept of “the ordinary man”.

Passion for racing (the background)

When I was a kid I was fond of cars. Even though Soviet cars in the remote area didn’t have much variety, besides, my father had no vehicle of his own (he is an athlete and we lived in a village where it was possible to move around on foot without problems), it didn’t stop me. I drew different models of motor transport, paying attention to fine details.

Modelist–konstruktor

During 1988-1994 my mother subscribed for me to the Modelist-Konstruktor magazine and, though I have no engineering or technical mentality (I have a humanities-centered mind), I examined with interest exotic buggies, karts, pneumatic cars and other equipment, created by the Soviet designers and engineers. On the last page there were always printed 4 historical or foreign cars with descriptions – I used to cut them out and carefully glue them into a 72-sheet notebook. Once I have read an article about a racing mini-car which a father built for his son from improvised materials and a motorcycle engine. I couldn’t sleep for a month, I wanted it so much. There weren’t many opportunities in life, and I tried go-karting for the first time rather late in life.

The first Time–Attack

Back at high school we had a course in automobile engineering where we were taught the theory of the construction of cars (ZIL-130, GAZ-53A and Lada) and traffic regulations. For the practical course we could get behind the wheel of GAZ-53А and Lada 21066. Among students there were activists who went to car enthusiasts’ club and worked on cars at the school garage. Among these activists the teacher of automobile engineering often picked instructors, including me (for practice with other students on the above-mentioned cars). In senior class several students have been picked for participation in university competitions (students of the 11th classes of schools and students of technical colleges where they were taught automobile engineering). Along with theoretical part (answers to questions on traffic regulations and test on knowledge of the technical construction of cars) there was the practical part – timed driving on partially iced route on GAZ-53A. It was my first experience of Time-Attack))) Following the results of competitions, in 2001 I have received the driver’s license with the A, B and C categories.

My cars

All my personal cars had some temperament and sports character. At times I owned and drove the following cars:

However, the compromise of civil use, always, of course, outweighed, and there was no opportunity to have the separate racing car, and there were no sports facilities, either.

“Sofa”-racing

Until now everything that connected me and autosports (or similar sports) can be counted using fingers of two hands:

• Watching F1 and GP2 races on TV
• Reading articles and news at www.f1news.ru and www.championat.com
• Playing Gran Turismo 5 on Playstation
• Photo together with Vitaly Petrov and F1 Renault race car at MIAS 2010
• Visiting F1, GP2 and GP3 in Sochi, Blancpain Sprint, DTM and WSR at Moscowraceway
• Go-karting twice a year
• Master-class on Audi TTS (Audi R8 was unavailable because of rain) at Dubai Autodrome (thanks to Nina Musaeva for the gift and Kristina Demenko for all arragements)

As you can see, most of this stuff could be considered as “sofa”- racing. But sometimes I had a great wish to be in a paddock, to experience racing adrenaline on a track, fighting for a position or the best time. I wanted to experience emotions and to learn to drive GT cars as well as formula race cars and fast sport prototypes.

The first step (important lessons)

Someday I decided to take a step forward, towards the dream. Any step forward, just to start. In July 2015 I got an opportunity (leasing) to drive Mercedes-AMG C63 2015.

In 15 days after I got it, I’ve had a traffic accident (thank God, almost without people injured). After calculation of total damage (about 4,5 million rubles) and the analysis of experience of driving such a car, a clear understanding has come to me that even with incredible technical capabilities of the car (excellent steering, powerful brake system) and a sufficient driver’s experience, there is always a risk of a ridiculous accident on public roads. The vivid statistics of crashes of powerful cars in Russia and all over the world proves the fact that often the capabilities and the potential of the sports cars exceed the physical abilities of the drivers and require special training.

Today, with the active support of my beloved wife (hi, Darling!), I’m starting an interesting experiment.

Purposes and aims

The purpose of my experiment is to get new experience and to answer the questions:

a) can an ordinary man after 30 begin a racing career without complete ignoring the main work, to become a racing driver (in this blog I will use this word in its universal, broad sense of the word) and to take part in amateur (and maybe semi-professional) auto racing championships?

b) is it possible to achieve these objectives without parents’ / own millions (underline as necessary), during the next 5-7 years?

c) are there opportunities in Russia for achievement of the specified purposes by an ordinary man?

d) what is required for the win and whether I will be able to win?

First of all, this blog will serve me as an incentive for development, I will have to publish new posts for potential readers, and for this purpose I need to acquire new racing skills. Secondly, it could be my diary, where my steps are described and analysed. Finally, I hope that it could become the platform for obtaining new information for both parties (I will share my observations and conclusios with the readers, I will collect, sort and process the information, and in turn I hope to get valuable advices from you on my further development).

Well, let’s fasten seat belts…

This post is also available in русский.