It's the end of the month and last Friday, April 25, Emily and I hiked to London and found ourselves searching for a hotel I'd booked the night before.

Club Quarters was right next to St Paul's Cathedral and just three minutes walk away was the Grange Hotel, host venue of the first ever National UK Blog Awards. 

I discovered these unique awards by pure chance last year. I entered Motortrades Insight into the Automotive Organisation category. Thousands of people voted for blogs across all categories of the National UK Blog Awards. Those with the most votes became finalists and Motortrades Insight was very quickly shortlisted for this prestigious new award. 

And then, just to make it tougher, the judges were to decide which of these finalists had the best blogs. Two of the eight would be highly commended and another would win. 

The judges: Perry McCarthy, a former Formula 1 driver and The Original Stig from Top Gear; and Adnan Ebrahim, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Car Throttle, known for its comedic and viral motoring videos on YouTube.

The awards were amazing. The people were bubbly, the atmosphere was fresh and vibrant and the luxury goody bags even had wallpaper, toothpaste and tea in. Optimistically sat right behind the judges on the end of the third row from the front, it proved extremely convenient when I heard 'And the winner is... Motortrades Insight'. I was so happy I did not even hear the music track which was played as I walked onto stage. I will find out - it could prove to be a good luck charm for the future. 

My picture being taken with The Original Stig, Perry McCarthy, and Adnan Ebrahim, Founder and Editor-in-Chief at Car Throttle.

I continued to write a variety of original stories, focusing on the quality of the content - both written and pictorial. I've been fortunate enough to have interviewed a vast number of significant figures in the automotive industry - always asking lots of pressing and quirky, sometimes crazy questions. Importantly, I feel I've always respected interviewees. I'm no Jeremy Paxman! The automotive industry is gigantic in real terms, but the number of people a journalist can interview is more limited and I feel my initiative and pro-active approach to finding stories and asking questions that matter, including on important topics such as car safety, have benefited me, hugely. I think for any writer though, to inspire positive change in the world is the most satisfying aspect of the job. I hope I've done that, at least in small ways. 

Didier Leroy, Michael Vernon Robinson, Simon Jones, Edmund King, Luca Fioravanti, Mark Ovenden, Chris Evans, Ernst Reim, Brandon Faurote, David Hilton, Andreas Mikkelsen, Craig Breen and Alex MacDowall - just some of the big names I've spoken to since Motortrades Insight began. 

And it's not just the interviews that have shaped Motortrades Insight into the successful online magazine we see today, but the sports news too. I love doing pictorial comparisons of Formula One cars and I've found these to be hugely popular with racing fans. 

Perry McCarthy told me the award was 'well deserved'. And Sarah Griffiths, writing for Creditplus, sent her best wishes to Motortrades Insight. 

"Congratulations Motortrades Insight for winning the UK Blog Awards 2014. We believe what makes this blog work is the quality of content and that they rarely deviate from their mission (stated in their About Us section), which is to bring their audience “a spectrum of industry news and views from across the entire UK Motoring sector”. We are fans of the categorisation and the site layout which directs users to their popular content: Hot Picks and Top Stories. You can also easily subscribe to their news." 

And you may have noticed a slight change in our name to Motoring Insight. It's a small change which we feel is important to reflect our content as the online magazine grows. 

I would personally like to send huge congratulations to Stoneacre Blog and Creditplus Blog for being Highly Commended. And I'd like to say well done to all the other finalists: Motor Heads, Motor Mistress, Carwitter, Racing and Waiting and MEB the Motor Centre.

I would especially liken to thank my girlfriend Emily, my Dad, my brother Simon, web developer James, owner Steve, Perry McCarthy, Adnan Ebrahim, Gemma Pear, Becki Cross and everyone who initially voted for us to get to the final. It's been quite a journey and I honestly never expected to win the UK Blog Award for Motortrades Insight. I love writing and the Motortrades Insight team are incredibly grateful for this award, which is already propelling the online magazine to new heights. 

Danny

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