TOURING CAR DRIVERS DROP IN ON ROCKINGHAM COMPETITION WINNERS
TWO hundred and eighty very excited children got to meet three of their heroes from the HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship after they made a surprise pit-stop at a Rutland primary school (Thursday, July 9).
Stephen Jelley, James Nash and Liam McMillan dropped in on Brooke Hill Primary School in Oakham to meet the youngsters, after a small group of Year 6 students won a competition organised by Rockingham in partnership with the BTCC.
Schools from across the East Midlands were invited to attend the official BTCC Media Day at Rockingham earlier this year and were asked to produce a newspaper covering the pre-season build-up to the UK’s top motor racing series.
Primary school students were given access to many of the star drivers as well as more than 300 race professionals ranging from mechanics, engineers and team owners to PR personnel to help gather all the information they needed.
In the end it was six students from Brooke Hill Primary School who beat off stiff competition from nearly 200 fellow cub reporters and photographers from Rutland, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire and Leicestershire to earn the VIP visit.
Year 6 Teacher Karen Hosmer, who is also the Gifted and Talented coordinator at Brooke Hill Primary School, said: “The children worked very hard on their newspaper at both school and at home during the holidays.
“The whole experience has been fantastic and the children have thoroughly enjoyed taking part in the competition. We were really pleased to have won the competition and the whole school was very excited about the visit from the drivers.
“We had such an amazing time with the drivers, who were absolutely brilliant with all the children. They have left a lasting impression on the whole school and certainly gained a few more fans on the way.
“All the drivers are a credit to their teams and to the BTCC, and we would like to thank everyone at Rockingham for organizing such a fabulous day for all the children, who will remember this day forever.”
The drivers were given a guided tour of Brooke Hill by the six winners before taking part in a special assembly involving all 280 children! The drivers answered questions from students of all ages and were then interviewed by the winners for the school’s in-house radio.
The youngest members of the school presented the drivers with model cars they had made while all the children had the opportunity to sit in a real racing car courtesy of Liam McMillan’s Maxtreme team.
David Johns, Editor of Britain’s biggest motoring magazine Auto Express – one of the BTCC’s sponsors – had the very tough job of heading up an expert panel to judge the competition on behalf of Rockingham and the BTCC.
Mr Johns was looking for an entry which had original ideas, good news stories and diary pieces – and most of all brought through the personality and enthusiasm of the pupils who attended the media day. He chose Brooke Hill for all the above reasons.
He said: “The standard of entries from every school was truly outstanding. The BTCC is famed for its ‘open access’ policy with the public and the children took full advantage of this in the race paddock, meeting the star names and a variety of other very senior figures to produce extremely well thought-out and presented pieces of work.
“Brooke Hill, however, scored strongly on all the areas we looked at and are much deserved winners. Really well done to them – there are definitely a number of potentially very good journalists there!”
All three BTCC drivers who attended Brook Hill for the prize-giving ceremony were also suitably impressed.
Team RAC BMW star Stephen Jelley from Leicester, said: “The whole BTCC Media Day event at Rockingham was a golden opportunity for the children to show what they’re made of and they did not disappoint.
“Their questions and interviewing techniques were well planned and that really showed with the end result. In fact, a few journalists we have to deal with week in, week out at BTCC race events could probably learn from some of the children from Brooke Hill!”
Maxtreme SEAT driver Liam McMillan from Wisbech in Cambridgeshire, added: “Brooke Hill responded magnificently to the task they were set in the competition. Let’s be clear – all the schools over-delivered on the levels of thought they put into their projects and whoever Auto Express voted as the outright winner was really going to deserve it.
“I’m just starting out in my touring car career and, who knows, maybe in years to come some of the pupils who took part in the competition will be coming up to me in the paddock as full time BTCC reporters and photographers!”
Newport Pagnell’s James Nash, who races a Chevrolet Lacetti for the Wellingborough-based RML team, added: “The levels of creativity and attention to detail was phenomenal. It’s great to see children of this age excelling when presented with an exciting yet quite considerable challenge.
“Bearing in mind the very high standards that Auto Express applies, Brooke Hill can be very proud of its achievements. I know all the drivers will be looking forward to seeing the children back at Rockingham for BTCC race day in September.”
In addition to the visit from the drivers, Brooke Hill Primary School also won a superb Fuji Film digital camera for the best news article. The other winners were Sherwood School in Warsop, who also received a Fuji Film digital camera for the best individual photograph and Langham C of E Primary School received HiQ goody bags for the best headline.
All the children who entered the competition received a free ticket for themselves and an accompanying adult, to come and watch the drivers battle it out at Rockingham in the penultimate rounds of the championship on September 19/20.
Rockingham Director, Charlotte Orton, said: “This is the third year we have organised such a competition in partnership with the BTCC and once again we were absolutely thrilled with the response we received from schools.
“Everyone clearly put a lot of time and effort into producing their newspapers as the standard of entries was very high, making the judging process very difficult for the expert panel of judges.
“We have all enjoyed reading all the entries and we would like to thank everyone who entered the competition. We hope they take advantage of their complimentary race day tickets and look forward to seeing them again at Rockingham in September.”
Advance tickets for Rockingham’s BTCC meeting are on sale at rockingham.co.uk or can be purchased via the ticket hotline on 01536 500500.
Race day tickets cost just £23 for adults while weekend passes are £28 – a saving of 20 per cent on gate admission prices. The circuit operates a free admission policy for children aged 15 and under.
