University News Last updated 14 June 2011
A student is proving there are other roles for women in motorsports than glamorous ‘grid girls’.
Kerrie Davis (23) is the team manager for BCU Racing, a student racing team that is currently building a race car for an international competition at Silverstone in July.
Kerrie, who is from Cannock, West Midlands, is the only woman in her year on the BSc (Hons) Motorsports Technology course at Birmingham City University, yet is leading the University’s team in Formula Student, the world’s biggest student motorsport event, run by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Teams from 34 countries worldwide are participating in the challenge which involves designing, building and racing a single-seater racing car from scratch. The competition is in its 14th year, and this year takes place between Thursday 14 and Sunday 17 July.
Although Kerrie always enjoyed working with cars, when she left school she took a customer and sales job at her local Audi dealership. However after four years she realised that she didn’t want to be selling cars - she wanted to be building them. She took the decision to give up a secure job and enrol on Birmingham City University’s Motorsports course, where she is the only female student.
Kerrie said: “At first the other students were a bit surprised to find a women on the course but they soon realised that I was interested the same things as them – cars. There’s a bit of banter between us, but as I’m the team manager for BCU Racing I can boss them about a bit!
“I’ve always been interested in cars and when I was 14 I told my Dad I wanted to be a mechanic and he laughed. Later on, I asked him to teach me about car maintenance but I found out that he didn’t know much about cars!”
Head of the University’s School of Engineering, Design and Manufacturing Systems, Parmjit Chima, said: “Formula Student is an integral part of the University’s Motorsport Technology degree course and it gives students real world experience of working for a race team, and the opportunity to develop their management, design and manufacturing skills.”
BCU Racing will be featured this year at Birmingham Techfest, which is a festival to highlight the wealth of technical innovation, knowledge and skills from across the West Midlands region. Taking place at the University’s city centre campus on Saturday 25 June it will also incorporate the UK Micromouse Championship which has been hosted by the University for the past eight years. In addition the car will be on display at the Faculty of Technology, Engineering and the Environment’s Open Day on Saturday 18 June at Millennium Point.
Birmingham City University is backing a national campaign celebrating the benefit of higher education. Universities Week is taking place from June 13th to 19th and will highlight how universities benefit everyone, whether or not they have gone to university themselves
photocaption: Kerrie Davis with the University’s 2010 entry