Melanie Returns to the SEAT Cupra Championship

23 February 2004

Byfleet racing driver Melanie Healey, who won the 'Mintex Most Improved Driver of the Year Award' in the 2003 Holiday Inn SEAT Cupra Championship, will return to the series this year driving her Spur Garage Leon Cupra R, with additional support from Secure Valeting.
 
Melanie, 23, was one of only three drivers, and the only female driver, to finish all 12 races in the 2003 Holiday Inn SEAT Cupra Championship, with her best result being a superb 8th at Rockingham (in front of a circuit record crowd of 44,000 spectators).  Her spectacular airborne antics through Rockingham’s Turn 1 Chicane in qualifying became the subject of the winning picture in a national amateur photographics competition run by Green Flag, sponsor of the British Touring Car Championship!
 
A keen Crystal Palace FC fan and devout "shopaholic", Melanie is in her final year studying Motorsport Engineering at Brooklands College.  After she submits her final dissertation in May, Melanie intends to concentrate on racing her Leon Cupra – and the experience gained racing last year will be of great benefit.
 
Melanie said: "My aim this year will be to keep improving. My speed and confidence improved the more races I did last year, and I also know the circuits, the Leon Cupra, the SEAT officials and many of the other drivers, so I’ll feel right at home from the very start of the season which psychologically is an advantage too.  The only circuit on the SEAT calendar that I haven’t raced on before is Knockhill, but I’ve tested and raced at Donington, the other new circuit on the calendar."
 
The 2004 SEAT Cupra Championship is a 12 race series – 10 races of which are part of the TOCA Tour / British Touring Car Championship package, and two races will be held at a special  'Racing Rivals – Live 2004' event at Donington Park.  The 2004 SEAT Cupra Championship's total prize fund is almost one million Euros, including a works touring car drive, worth half a million Euros, for the winner - making it the most well rewarded motorsport series in the UK.
 
See series calendar for SEAT Cupra Championship 2004

Related Story 12.02.2004 - Young Portuguese Drivers Joins the SEAT Cupra Championship