Back to school for Brendo

During March, Brendan and Rhianon took rallying into the classroom at Ballarat Secondary College, Wendouree Campus, (Vic), where Rhianon is a teacher.  Rhianon had organised a day for 130 year eight students who are studying the unit of survival.  The main aim for the classes was to introduce the students to the sport of rallying, but  also to show how crews survive rallying accidents due to the safety features in the cars.

The day started off with Brendo presenting the students with a PowerPoint presentation about his rallying career to date and showing the students footage of all of the cars he has driven throughout his short time in the sport. This presentation lasted for about 30 minutes and then the students rotated around four different stations in groups.

{mosimage}Station one was where the students had the opportunity to look at five different rally cars which Rhianon had organised to be displayed at school. These included Subarus, a Datsun 240Z, a V8 Ute and a Porsche. The students sat in the cars, looked at the safety equipment in the cars, such as roll cage, fire bomb, harnesses, etc.

Station Two was a computer internet quiz which asked questions from different rally websites. There were 20 questions on the quiz and at the end of the time, the student with the most correct answers was given a prize. During this time the students also logged onto Brendo and Rhianon’s website.

Station three gave the students the opportunity to look at all of the components of rallying. They tried on helmets, boots, race suits, looked at licences, route charts, pace notes and lots of other rally essentials.

At Station four the students were able to watch some DVD’s of rally crashes, in-car footage of Rhianon and Brendo and some spectacular rallying footage.

{mosimage}At the end of the session the students had all had a fantastic time and thanked Brendo and Mrs Smyth (Rhianon) for the fun learning day they had experienced. Let’s hope this brings some more of our youth into this great sport of ours!