As I began writing this article, my girlfriend looked over my shoulder and affectionately scoffed: "You're not a racing car driver. You're a lawyer. Racing on the weekend doesn't make you a racing car driver."

To avoid confrontation, I decided to agree with her. So, for the avoidance of doubt, the following definitions apply in this article: 'lawyer' means any person whose profession is to give legal advice and assistance to clients or represent them in court and in other legal matters. 'Racing car driver' means any person (other than a lawyer) who races cars.

My name is Michael Crichton. This is my story.

I moved from Australia to London in March 2007 in search of fortune and glory. What I found was the corporate department of a magic circle law firm. I spent three years there having fun – and sometimes not having fun. During this time, there were ups and downs, but ultimately I enjoyed it. I gained some excellent experience, made some friends and learned a lot about being a lawyer. I also learned I don't like corporate law that much.

Anyway, I thought I had better get out of the circus before I became just another guy whose head was bitten off by a lion. To that end, I was lucky enough to secure a nine-month secondment at the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) working as a lawyer in commercial and sponsorship law. It was a fantastic and positive place to work and gave me some much needed commercial experience. LOCOG made me a better man in so many ways.

Knowing that my grey office at the magic circle law firm was not my spiritual homeland, I left the firm once my secondment had finished. I then rode my motorbike to the Swiss Alps with a couple of mates to 'find myself'.  Due to excessive contemplation, I crashed my motorcycle on a hairpin on a mountain pass in the Italian Dolomites and fractured my ankle. Luckily, having worked as a corporate lawyer for the past three years I had lost the ability to feel pain, so I was able to ride back to London without too much bother.

Upon my return to London I secured an in-house legal position with Live Nation (the global entertainment company) specialising in commercial law.  I started in September 2010. Things were looking up; I was (and still am) working at a fantastic company and doing exciting and interesting work. Plus, my office was now pink – an added bonus.

Despite this, there was still something missing from my life: motor racing. Ever since I was a young lad, it has been my dream to be a racing car driver. Some say it's because I have never grown up, but I say it's because I never let go of my dreams. Either way, now was my chance.

I did a bit of research, and started looking for a suitable racing class. I found Formula Vee, which is an entry-level open wheel racing category which competes at all the major tracks in the UK (including Brands Hatch, Donington and Silverstone, to name a few). Importantly, it was also (relatively) cheap and I only had to sacrifice a house deposit rather than win the lottery in order to play the game.

I think at that stage my friends thought I was either joking, delusional, or both, and their eyes rolled whenever I would bleat on about becoming a racing car driver (which was quite often, to be fair). Undeterred, I pressed on, and in March this year I signed up and took the test to get my racing licence.

By luck I came across GAC Racing, a highly successful Formula Vee racing team which builds championship winning cars. It had space for another driver, and before I knew it there was a racing car with my name on it. Literally.  My teammate (Mike Epps) is a young gun racing car driver (a real one) who has progressed up to Formula Vee from karting. I am most definitely the older 'number two' driver, much like Mark Webber is to Sebastian Vettel at Red Bull Racing.

I have structured my racing affairs so that GAC Racing takes care of the car and I take care of myself. I ride my motorcycle out to each race, in a similar fashion to Tom Cruise in the excellent but critically panned 90s film Days of Thunder. GAC Racing transports the car to the track and fixes it when I break it (which has happened fairly often).

In order to keep a record of my progress through the 2011 season and my friends up to date with how well (or how badly) I am doing and to satisfy the egomania that pulses through my veins, I decided to start a blog. Every time I drive the car I write a blog entry describing my racing adventures, along with any musings that I might have had along the way. I also include onboard video footage and photos of me prancing around in my racing suit.

michaelcrighton2I'll be honest, it hasn't been the smoothest start to the 2011 season. I have had four new engines since starting racing in April and there have been tears, drama, suspense, jubilation and ecstasy (not necessarily in that order), all of which I have attempted to capture in my blog.

I didn't get to race in the first round because I blew an engine in qualifying. In my first race I came 21st after blowing an engine in practice and spinning off the track on the first lap of the race in spectacular fashion. In my second race I came 12th, after avoiding a massive collision on the first corner and nursing a substantial hangover throughout the race due to a wedding the night before (not recommended).

These results follow the mathematical pattern known as the Theory of Racing Relativity, which suggests that in my next race I will finish third ("The sum of the digits contained in the finishing position of a racing car driver in one race multiplied by a factor of three and subtracted from the number represented by that finishing position provides, all things being equal, the finishing position that will be experienced by that racing car driver in his/her subsequent race.")

If (when) I do actually win a race, I am looking forward to saying, 'not bad for a number two driver' over the team radio as I take the chequered flag. Except for the fact that we don't have a team radio.

I love driving my racing car with a passion that even I am surprised by. I call my car the Little Yellow Lion. Sometimes as I am driving around a racing track flat out with the engine roaring, negotiating corners with the tyres struggling for grip and the G-forces pulling me sideways, flying down the straights, overtaking other cars and being overtaken, I take a moment to reflect on how unbelievably lucky I am to be doing something I enjoy so much. It doesn't really matter how I do this season; the fact that I am so happy to be doing it at all makes it worthwhile.  

Actually, that's not true; I will be pretty annoyed if I don't start dominating soon, because the Little Yellow Lion is a car capable of winning – and I don't really like being the weakest link in the chain. The GAC Racing team principal, Alan Woodward, manages my expectations by cooing into my ear certain phrases, such as: "Patience my child. Patience" – he understands my fickle ways.

So, what are the highs of being a lawyer by weekday and racing car driver by weekend? Well, I have managed to combine an interesting law job with doing something I love on the weekend, which is an achievement in itself I think.  And the lows? I am not a global phenomenon yet. 

So it looks like I am a racing car driver. And I am a lawyer. There must be a drafting error in those definitions at the beginning after all.

Michael Crichton works in-house at Live Nation. Click here to read his blog.