About me - Gus Bruk

Hello and thanks for stopping by, if you came here I guess you are a little bit curious and would like to know who’s is this chap, what does he do and where does he come from and what’s this blog all about? So without wasting any more time let’s get going!

My actual real name is Gustavo Silveira, I’m an ordinary guy which probably shares the same passion as you do, maybe the only difference is that I like to document it and share. I was born in São Paulo, Brazil in the early 80s, I grew up near Interlagos race track.

GROWING UP

Growing up as you would expect in a country like Brazil the main sport (if not the only) is football, I would play as a kid all day almost every day. My dad is a big football fan, although more of a quiet guys now I would say he was a fanatic guy at some point of his life. He played semi-professional and was a really good player but a knee injury and other circumstances prevented him to become a professional football player, but the passion stayed there.

He wouldn’t miss a match on television when Corinthians Sport Club (curious enough Founded in 1910 by five English railway workers inspired by the London-based Corinthian Football Club) was playing. Sadly for him, I wouldn’t have inherited the same football talent, in fact not in any sport, until I went racing go-karts with him and his work colleagues.

Somehow I did really well during the race mostly likely because of my weight advantage but from then on I decided to take things a bit more seriously and go racing professionally, there and then a whole love for racing cars started. We would race my whole youth in Brazil, obviously not without the financial challenges the sport brings, but we’ve managed to do well given the circumstances we had. The memories, the experience and the passion are the things which have stayed with me and still fill my heart with love for the sport today.

MOVING TO UK!

When I completed 18 it was time to move on, racing cars was inconceivable, we struggled to fit the budget to race go-karts now racing cars was not an option and so it was time to start University. During my first semester, an opportunity appeared to come to London to study, work and move on. I didn’t think twice!

The UK being the pinnacle of motorsport I thought it was my last hope and the only option. After all I thought if nothing works out at least I would learn English and expirience life living abroad, so I very quickly packed up everything and arrived with a bag full of clothes and another one with all my racing gear, hoping that one day I would be able to race again here.

I’ve managed to contact a couple of teams and even land a testing session at old single-seater series called Formula Palmer Audi in a bid to raise sponsorship within the Brazilian community in London but I didn’t achieve anything in that field so I decided to kiss goodbye to motorsport temporally and focus on developing my professional working career.

During those years out of motorsport, I used my spare time to developing my skills, train, travel a lot and occupie my self as much as possible in a bid to forget motorsport for while. I worked in all kinds of different jobs, you name it all pubs, bars, kitchens, catering and restaurants, eventually moving to the wine industry then to the food industry where I find myself today, working for a large meat packer.

MY RETURN TO MOTORSPORT!

During all this time I’ve been trying all kinds of sports to fill the adrenaline gap, I did jiu-jitsu (which I love) climbing, tennis, rugby, cycling (which has become another passion) football and running, I even adventured myself in a half iron man which it was a great challenge. They all did well in keeping me healthy and mentally fit.

But motorsport is like an addictive drug once you’ve tried there is no way back, although I’ve left everything behind it has always been on the back of my mind, a return to motorsport. Now a few years down the line I feel blessed to be able to enjoy motorsport again as a hobby, with less pressure and not to worry about proving myself to anyone. It all started again back in 2018, I went back to racing semi-professional

go kart again. In the middle of that year I tested a Ginetta G40 for the first time with Want2Race and it all snowballed from there to the point that I decided to buy a racing car last year (2020) (you can watch it here) and have fun around race tracks in the UK. It’s being an interesting journey coming back to motorsport after a long while and feels good going fast around corners and relearning all over again and getting that adrenalina rush.

THE START OF BLOGGING!

I first started blogging in the hype of Instagram back in 2014/2015 sharing my journey to my first Ironman it was nothing too serious only sharing my daily routine (mostly cycling) and from time to time I would also post random things like travelling, fitness and healthy food.

I always got good interaction from followers I even meet and made good friends with completely random people on Instagram, some of them I’ve spent much time and still good friends today.

All of that plus the simple fact of being able to connect with good genuine people that share the same interest/passion it’s incredible, it served as fuel for me to continue sharing my passions and this how I ended up here today.

SQUEEZING THE THROTTLE

Blogging/Vlogging while having a full-time job and working with different time zones makes things very challenging, hard to keep a steady flow of content going. I’m must admit I’ve been very irregular in generating content and it’s purely because work consuming a lot of time and attention at the moment but I am dedicating more of my evenings and weekend time to create more. My plan is to squeeze that throttle on and off the track! I’m just going to keep on doing what I do and sharing my experiences which hopefully you enjoyed till this point and add a whole new level of different content. I hope you will like it.

Thanks for reading! Gus.