HERO Challenge Three scrutineers at Myerscough College, seat of Motorsport learning
75% of Motorsport students at Myerscough go on to full-time employment in the sport
HC3 hosted by prominent Motorsport college as lecturers and students help check the cars and marshal the cars
Championship contenders give their views on battle that lies ahead
Andrew Fletcher, Assistant Head of Motorsport Department at Myerscough College in Lancashire revealed the impressive percentage of the annual intake of 165 students on the Motorsport course who went on to work in the industry;
“It’s about a 75% conversion rate into motorsport employment. From the course, they have gone into GT racing, rallying, formula racing, and endurance events. Some of the students do go off into rallying; after all, we are in rally territory around here!
“I don’t know if you’ve met Adam Smalley. He races Porsche GT, he’s just won the Porsche GT Championship, aged 22. He was one of our students about four years ago. So, we were very proud of him because he’s just gone from strength to strength.
“We are very active here. One of our lecturers Danny Cole has built a rally Samba to full international spec and he’s going to compete on the Mull Rally with four of our students servicing for him. That’s what we do here. We organise the events that we need to go on. We’ve been to Germany with the electric championship, then there has been work on the British Rally Championship as well.
“We are seeing great results with our students. Between lecturers and students, we build cars and hire some of them out. Every car that we hire out we go with it with a team of students as well. The tutors or myself are with them, we camp and work on the cars, we get soaking wet and freezing cold but that’s just rallying in in the UK, isn’t it?
Richard Harrison; “I’m one of the lecturers in Motorsport responsible for standing in front of these guys and hopefully giving them a lot of experience. Personally, I’ve done a fair bit in the two-wheeled world with motorcycle racing. I teach on both the four-wheel side, and the two-wheel side as well.
“We cover everything from basic routine maintenance through to things like stripping engines down, building them back up, we take them out on events. And that’s the one thing we do differently is that we treat them as race technicians, rather than just mechanics plus the customer-facing side of it as well.
“The qualification that they come out with allows them to do that, but with the skills within our staff, it allows us to use all that experience to put more of them into the sport through our own passions, hobbies and experience over the years.
“Certainly the group size this year is a little bit bigger. We’re getting a lot of investment through from various avenues within the college. It’s really good.
“The students are moving and progressing, we’ve got students currently working with McLaren. We’ve got students that are going on into the rally world who we’ve got our links with them in sports so we’ve got a lot of different pathways. Alongside that we’ve got we’ve got guys going out into the British Superbike Championship, I’m involved with a team out there that we’ve been working with all year, and we are also taking the students with us.
“Some of them have been asked to stay on with the team. And so yeah, it’s pretty good at the minute. We’ve got lots of networking avenues and pathways that the students can benefit from.”
Josh Armon (18) student. “We’re doing the Mechanical Engineering. We are working on cars at the same time, so it’s intertwined with Motorsport. With all the mechanical principles we learn, we try and apply them into sport.
Thomas Brad, student. “Last year, we did a lot of hands on work, which was practical builds on the cars learning how to put them together. And then this year, we’ve moved on to the mechanical engineering, which is actually learning how the parts themselves are built. So learn about stress and to see how long they should last.”
Dillon Weardon, student; This is one of the few colleges that offer this course there are people from all over the place here studying, Tom’s from Rochdale, and then you have Josh from the top of the country. Then people from the Midlands. There are a lot of people from near Liverpool as well, it’s a huge catchment, you get all kinds of people from all different places. So, it’s good for diversity.
“At the end, I’m trying to move on inside race strategy and data analysis. Live performance analysis for racing teams. single-seater racing. Ideally, Formula One. Ultimately, I’m trying to be able to do data analysis and performance that is what I’m trying to get into.”
Casey Davenport 16, student; “I want to work in the pits in a race in my dream, but I’ve got to build up to that, but that’s the plan.
“I’ve been to the British Superbike Championship last weekend with college spannering for on off our lecturers, Ryan Garside who races but yeah. I’m getting more experience.
“I got into Bangor racing only recently this year. And then I decided I just wanted fast cars. So I came here and then I went to the bikes so I’m in the middle of it all right now deciding what I like.”
Ollie Didsbury, student.” It’s really fun. I think it surprised me when I first came out, it’s gonna be like a lot lower-level cars but it’s more high-performance stuff like that. There’s real enjoyment and I get a lot out of it.
“Yeah I learn a lot, something new every day, I just want to keep learning. I like rallying, it’s something I’ve grown up watching. My dream is to go into Formula One and work in the pits for Mercedes, it’s one of my big dreams.
“I’m also a Lewis Hamilton fan but I like George Russell as well. Lewis.”
As the students helped scrutineer and marshal the cars around the college from car parks to their spacious workshops, some of the championship contenders gave their thoughts on the title showdown ahead.
Harry and Dick Baines will be right in the thick of the fight, Harry is joint leader of the HERO Challenge Championship for Navigators.
Harry “We will see what happens tomorrow, I suppose but the weather’s turned on us a bit,
nice and cold, not too hot. It’s been very hot on the last two challenges, but it’s so much nicer in the car in colder weather cold weather so we won’t be sweating so much! We’ve got to keep it cool and keep it calm.”
Dick; “Anything can happen, what about HERO Challenge Two, we had a tractor and bailer!
I will do as I always do and follow his instructions. The car is OK we just parked after HERO Challenge Two. We’ve just pulled out a garage and put it back on the trailer.”
Now the crucial question is, did the farmers get the harvest in OK?
Harry; “Yeah, the harvesting was OK, so that’s that job sorted, now we can get back onto the rally and get on with the job.”
John Lomas; “Anything can happen but it’s interesting, I’ve never known it this close, 15 people between the two titles are in with a shout! I’ve not been doing it as long as some people but it’s so open. All you need is a truck, a flock of sheep, some people with trailers, and it’s over.
“I think we’ll be OK because we’re running early and normally that means you don’t get so much traffic and what it does mean is sometimes marshals haven’t got their eyes in yet!
“It’s really, really close and it’s great because it means that there’s new people, you know, which is not the same as the last two years. We are really looking forward to it and hopefully with a bit of sun because it’s been a bit wet today.