Automotive engineering students from the Harper Adams University’s ‘Rallying the Wright Way’ programme are not just gaining proper hands-on rally experience on events including rounds of the Protyre Motorsport UK Asphalt Rally Championship, but they’ve gone on to start a career in motorsport – including securing placements at M-Sport.
Created post-Covid out of the ashes of the Harper Adams Motorsport Team, ‘Rallying the Wright Way’ is an applied education programme giving Harper Adams students the opportunity to develop professional skills through running a competitive rally team.
Based at the university campus in Newport, Shropshire, the team’s M-Sport Fiesta R2T is prepared and run entirely by the students, with higher profile rallies selected to give them a serious logistical and mechanical challenge.
‘Rallying the Wright Way’ founder and student mentor Charlie Wright drives, while Adam Westerby navigates.
“The programme’s ethos is to give students a real-world motorsport experience,” says Charlie.
“We function like a professional team, with a team manager, co-ordinator and mechanics, and we have planning meetings and post-event briefings. This structure allows students to acquire essential skills such as time management, critical thinking and other assets that you need for a prosperous career in motorsport.
“And it’s a huge success, with five students in the last three years finding a placement at M-Sport, for example.”
And the standard of the car’s preparation didn’t go unnoticed at the R Kings Down Rally, as the Harper Adams University Fiesta R2T won the Dynamic Fluids Best Presented Car Award.
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