The MINI Challenge enters it’s 8th year with the usual high expectations of close racing, colourful cars and colourful characters. The Rockingham event  on 17/18th April starts the season with a bang, 3 MINI Challenge races to get competitors championship aspirations well underway.

The MINI Challenge is made up of 2 classes. Club Class is based on the MINI Cooper with 135bhp, treaded Dunlop race tyres and race suspension.

The experienced hands have now left and a new crop of Club drivers have arrived all with high expectations but form will be difficult to predict through the season as the new Club drivers get to grips with the challenge of MINI racing.
 

Reining UK MINI Challenge Champion, Martin Depper, has won the chance to represent British fans at MINI United competing within the German MINI CHALLENGE  to be held at this years MINI UNITED festival being held at Silverstone on 23rd / 24th May.

The fully funded drive gives Martin the opportunity to race the New MINI CHALLENGE John Cooper Works car against the experienced field of regular German challenge drivers.

Martin commented "I’m really pleased to be able to race in this event and enthusiastic about competing against some of Germanys finest; although the car will be new to me I will have the advantage of racing at a track I know well. It’s a shame my UK MINI challenge competitors couldn’t race, however I will be proud to fly the flag and will do my very best for them".

The MINI Challenge welcomes Joey Powis to the grid for 2009 as winner of the Race Star Scholarship.

After two long days of competition in the North East of England, 21 year old student, Joey Powis was named as the winner of Race Star 2009. Joey drives away with the top prize of a full season of racing in the Mini Challenge Championship, racing the Double Six Racing prepared number 6 car. First up will be the need to pass the MSA Race License before taking part in the Official Mini Challenge test at Rockingham on 25th March. It will then be on to the first race meeting of the season at Rockingham on 18th April. You can follow Joey's progress on Race Star TV with Video blogs, in-car footage as well as racing action will be broadcast on the Race Star TV web site.

The search for the winner of Race Star 2009 has reached the semi-final stage. The following 24 drivers have all made it through to the semi-final and are in with a shout of claiming the top prize of a full season racing in the 2009 MINI Challenge. The top 24 were selected following participation in Round Two of Race Star at Croft at the end of January. Timed laps, auto test times, theory test score and instructor ratings were all taken into account to ensure that the competition was fair and that the right drivers lined up for the semi-final.