“It should be a great event,” I was told on the phone by the Henry Surtees Foundation. “We’ve got Oliver Turvey and Sam Bird coming and lots of karters as well.”

This was about a week before the Foundation’s 2012 karting event at Mercedes-Benz World. The Motor Sport team consisted of art editor Damon Cogman – who is known as ‘Crasher Cogman’ on office karting trips, and myself – who weighs, cough, 16 stone.

A phone call to Aston Martin works driver Darren Turner (Is there food? Yes, mate. Great, I’m in) and British GT driver Riki Christodoulou later and the team was looking more professional. Not quite professional enough, however, as we only managed an 11th-place finish. This was perhaps more down to the magnets Cogman and I seemed to be wearing on our bumpers rather than any lack of pace from the Pros in our ProAm team.

Despite being reminded, once again, that professional racing drivers really are quite good, it was a fantastic event and it helped raise £33,905 for the Brooklands Museum Trust and the Kent/Surrey/Sussex Air Ambulance.

The Foundation has just released a date for this year’s event – Tuesday June 25 – and is asking people to register their interest. The day isn’t cheap (a team entry for the two-hour endurance race costs £1000), but it is for an extremely worthwhile cause and you get to say that you raced against (or ‘got lapped by’ in our case) professional drivers.

To register your interest please visit www.henrysurteesfoundation.com. And remember, if you get punted off in June it’s probably thanks to that ‘Crasher Cogman’.