Real Race Experiences For All Our Students
At the National Motorsport Academy (NMA), we offer real race experience to all our online Engineering students, either directly through the NMA race team, or through a placement with the many other race teams and series up and down the country. This ensures NMA students have access to hands-on, professional experience that can’t be acquired in the classroom.
We like to make sure our students get involved in everything, from car preparation and setup, to race strategy and execution, meaning they get to experience first-hand what it takes to run and be part of a successful racing team, whilst learning valuable skills that can be applied to their future careers in the industry.
Meet NMA Students' Dave & Daniel
A recent example of this would be in April, when two of our Motorsport Engineering students (Dave Norris & Daniel Davison) attended the Donington Historic Festival – one of Europe’s biggest celebrations of retro motorsport. The 2-day event featured over seven decades worth of racing machinery, with all sorts of classic cars on track –including Jaguars, Ferraris, Alfa Romeos and more. These all raced in several different events.
This blog is to highlight how their weekend went as well as show the exciting opportunities that came soon after…
Here's how their weekend went
Dave and Daniel, spent the weekend working for Kudu Automotive – an independent specialist garage offering first class car servicing.
Across the weekend Kudu Automotive ran 3 different cars that took part in three different events;
A Ferrari 328 GTS 1986 – This raced in the Ferrari Club Classic Series by Myles Poulton
A Opel Commodore GS/E 1975 – This raced in the HRDC Gerry Marshall Trophy by Peter Fisk
A Jaguar E-Type 1963, This raced in the Jaguar Classic Challenge by both Myles Poulton and Peter Fisk.
Below are some facts on each car..
Dates: 1985-1989
Engine : 3.2 L Tipo F105CB V8
Transmission: 5-speed manual
Amount produced: 7,412
Country: Italian
Fact: The “328” numbers in the model title referred to the total cubic capacity of the engine, 3.2 litres, and 8 for the number of cylinders
Dates: 1975-1977
Engine: Spark-ignition 4-stroke
Transmission: Automatic – 3 Gears
Amount produced: 156,330
Country: German
Fact: It is the six-cylinder variant of the Rekord with styling differences.
Dates: 1961 – 1974
Engine: 3.8 L 6 Cylinder
Transmission: 4-speed manual
Amount produced: 15,498
Country: English
Fact: Its combination of beauty, high performance, and competitive pricing established the model as an icon of the motoring world.
What did they get up to?
Across the weekend, Dave and Daniel helped run the 3 different cars as they participated in their various series.
The main duties included
Preparing the cars for their races
Checking tyre pressures
Refuelling
Performing safety checks
And much more.
How did the team do?
On the whole, Kudu Automotive experienced a mixed weekend on the racing front. We’ve broken down all their results below below.
2023 Superformance Ferrari Club Classic Series
Race 1 Result – 9th
Race 2 Result– 12th
Race 3 Result – 11th
2023 MRL Jaguar Classic Challenge for pre-66 Jaguar cars
Race Result – DNF
2023 HRDC Gerry Marshall Trophy
Race Result – 22nd
A mixed weekend on track, however the weekend is more about celebrating these incredible cars, rather than fierce competition, so there’s a lot to be proud of!
How Did This Experience Benefit Dave & Daniel?
This experience came of huge benefit to both Daniel and Dave.
Dave will now be working for Kudu Automotive on race weekends, as well as potentially helping to build a Ferrari with Kudu as a project! We’re certainly excited to see what comes of this!
Daniel has also benefitted from the experience as he has recently been offered a full time role with Kudu after we advertised the position via our Virtual Learning Studio (VLS) platform.
Daniel is now in his third week with Kudu and is excited to attend more classic car meetings such as the Silverstone Classic and the Goodwood Revival, as well as attending test days and other race events.
All things going well, both Dave and Daniel should be attending the Le Mans Classic towards the end of June which we’re really excited to hear about!
A big thank you to Dave and Daniel for letting us join them at Donington! Take a look below at some images from the weekend.
(If you’re a fan of historic fans you’ll want to see these..)
