By: Sabina Akterina

"Motorsports can be funny" – it is exactly the phrase of the beginning of my personal knowledge of absolutely new European series for me, Porsche Carrera Cup Italia.

The year before the Tsunami RT team launched the photo contest "Motorsports can be funny". By condition the winner received the possibility to visit one of the series round with the team. We named this trip PCC Tour.

When it's just your "luck" in all the contests and prize draws all the time, it was more than surprising that I got the right to spend the racing weekend with the team. All I knew about them is that they defended the colors of the Ukrainian flag, that the team boss was a stern woman, that they raced Porsches, and I also knew their great content managers Irina Boyarskaya and Alexander Lesnikov.

A separate story is related to them, by the way. In brief, I entered the world of motorsports not without their participation some years ago. I remember Alexander’s words before I went to the race: "Sabina, if you become the part of motorsports, you'll either pass by or sink in it as in a bog, and you won't be able to get off anymore." I didn't accept these words seriously at that moment: I don't care about your motorsports when the whole world is based on economics and politics. That's what you have to be involved in! And I also began to read "Capital" of Karl Marx... As you might expect, I delayed it on the hundredth page, I changed my preferable suits to gumshoes and jeans, my briefcase accumulated the thick hoar of dust, and now I spend almost every weekend in close vicinity to the racing cars and sometimes even inside them.

Should I describe you my mood when I knew that my photo "Cooler than on a pole" had got the first place?! Each motorsports fan can understand me. Pre-racing jitters were particularly sharp when the dates and the round of PCC Tour had been defined. Yippee! It's Italy! It's Vallelunga! Italy is one of the countries where the motorsports culture is highly developed. Here the races are loved in such a manner like Italians can do (really, I have no personal experience in it, but they say that it's a very hot and ardent process). So I started to pack the suitcase inspired by this thought.

A theater begins with a coat-hanger, and our Roman Holiday – with the airport. We were met by the "stern boss", the manager and the team engineer: all are women! And we proceeded to the track with our female group. I was trying to realize that the racing team was governed by women. They say that a woman on a ship means disaster, let it be, but when a woman steers a ship it certainly means success. Now Tsunami RT fights for the Champion's title!

Do you think that's all? No way! It's strange that I didn't lose myself into drinking, because all the information I got is difficult to perceive. For example, the Ukrainian team based in San-Marino competes in the Italian Porsche monocup. There are Ukrainians, Greeks, Germans, Frenchmen, Italians, Russians and other nationalities, I already forgot. And it has to have the official language as in every autonomous unit but it's not always English. It is accompanied by the expletive Greek... exple-tive Gr-e-ek! Do you understand?!!! There are also Russian, French, Italian and some more languages and all these are in view of the literary standards. In general, my brain refused to accept any other language except Russian after the first day. I supposed I missed a lot and I had to complete the information I had not understood with the bright video sequence.

Finally it was the time of the racing days when everybody began to speak in one language on the track that could be understood without words. Start of the race! It means jagged nails, nervous tic and torn out hair. I prepared myself, and, believe me, without any alcoholic doping!

The team occupied only the second line in the first race that slightly distanced it from the title. Every point is worth its weight in gold here. But a miracle happened, and the female energy did its part. The main competitor didn't finish as for the points in the second race that preserved the chances. There were still two more rounds till the end of the season! The struggle was still tense.

I went to the airport flooded with the podium champagne where we had one more adventure – we were late to the connected flight... But it was another story...

As McQueen said: "Races mean life, and all the time before them is only the anticipation." Tsunami RT team, thank you very much for the gifted piece of life in this racing weekend!