Yesterday I turned 25 and received the best birthday gift I’ve ever got – an email from Air Asia letting me know that I was the winner of their Korean Uberfan competition! After confirming that I accepted the prize and the terms and conditions of the competition, as well as sending along a photo (the request was for me in Lotus gear or me with their drivers so I killed two birds with one stone) the announcement was officially made on the Air Asia Australia Facebook page today and I could finally start telling people!

Thanks to the help of the awesome Sidepodcast community, Another F1 Podcast (just who did win that flamewar?), my friends on Facebook, my followers on Twitter, my brother posting a thread on a car forum he frequents and various other methods that I’m probably not even aware of, I started leading the race for likes on my photo within 36 hours of it being posted, quickly overcoming people who had a three day head start. I remained in the lead for almost two weeks, even after other contestants noticed how many likes I was getting from Sidepodcast listeners and then came here to write guest posts of their own!

I was only overtaken by an incredibly massive effort by two other contestants on the final day of the competition. I topped out at 302 compared to their very impressive efforts of 440 and 398. A big, big thanks to all 301 of you (because one of those likes was me!)

I was the only one sharing my photo with a cardboard Heikki!

People started giving me their commiserations as we waited for a winner to be announced but I still had a small hope that the second judging criteria – that of creativity and originality of the photo – might still help me win the prize. After all, of the three front runners, I was the only one sharing my photo with a cardboard Heikki!

I also hoped that my Lotus Racing shirt from last season would let the judges see just how much of a fan I was – I had to go all the way to Italy to get that shirt!

Knowing that the winner would be informed by email I kept checking my phone all day Monday. I started to lose hope as I went to bed on Monday night but it didn’t stop me from hitting the Synchronise option on my phone every few minutes on Tuesday! At 9.20am an email arrived with the subject “Korean Uberfan winner!” My heart started racing but then I stopped and thought ‘what if this is just letting me know that someone else won?’ I’m always so pessimistic!

The email began:

Amy,

Congratulations,

The judges have reviewed the entries in our Korean Uber Fan promotion, and have decided that you are our winner!

Oh my god! As I continued reading I learned that they were asking me to keep it quiet until they officially announced it. Due to them needing to post about another competition they will be running, it took 24 hours for the announcement to go up and it felt like the longest day of my life. Such amazing news and I couldn’t share it! I’m not sure how I got any work done for the remainder of Tuesday, I had Korea on my brain all day.

I will get more details about my prize soon but all I really need to know is that Air Asia are going to fly me to Korea and I’ll have paddock passes from Team Lotus for the whole weekend for me and a friend! I’ll be taking Sidepodcast regular Pamela with me, I bet she had no idea when she met me 12 months ago at a Sidepodmeetup that in 2011 we’d be going to four races together.

The Korean Grand Prix may still be six months away but that’s fine with me because apparently people enjoy the anticipation of a holiday just as much as the holiday itself and I wouldn’t complain about being this happy for the next six months! I’ve already started reading old tweets and blogs from F1 folk from around the time of the Grand Prix last year to give myself an idea of what to expect. I may just be a wee bit too keen!

I’m really looking forward to reporting back from Korea for everyone so keep watching the Air Asia and Air Asia Australia Facebook pages. As far as I’m aware Air Asia are sending Uberfans to every race this year so you’ll get to read all of their reports as well. If you get the chance to enter any of their Uberfan competitions all I can say is grasp it with both hands and you could find yourself in my position too!