- 17-year-old Elliott Fewster learnt to drive with Young Driver and is now leading BTRDA Rallycross Championship (junior category), despite being diagnosed with dyspraxia from an early age
- Elliott’s mum: “We wanted to show other young people how Young Driver can help change your life.”
Elliott Fewster was diagnosed with Development Coordination Disorder – otherwise known as dyspraxia – from an early age, yet, despite his condition, training with Young Driver® from the age of 11 not only provided him with the tools to pass his test in double-quick time at 17 (recording just one minor fault), but also the confidence to take on the highly competitive sport of rallycross.
Now leading the junior category in the BTRDA’s Rallycross Championship, Elliott only passed his driving test in May this year, and according to his mum, Sonya, “…he now has independence and is a confident, well-prepared, safe young driver.”
Elliott’s incredible journey towards driving and motorsport success has been all the more impressive given the challenges that dyspraxia presents to anyone wanting to drive. Described by the NHS as causing a person to perform less well than expected in daily activities, and also affecting coordination skills when learning to drive a car, many dyspraxia sufferers shy away from taking driving lessons, especially in cars with manual gearboxes.
But from the start, Elliott clearly found driving liberating. As he told the Yorkshire Post recently: “I was rubbish at everything else. I wanted to find something that I was actually good at.”
And Elliott’s first experience in a car came at the age of 11 when he started to train with Young Driver at one of the company’s nationwide network of venues near his home in East Yorkshire. It was here that his natural talent behind the wheel was revealed, spurring him to taken on the Young Driver Challenge in 2019, where he managed to reach the national final in Birmingham, despite being one of the youngest competitors.
“We’re immensely proud that Elliott’s passion for driving started with Young Driver,” said Ian Mulingani, Young Driver’s managing director. “We see so many kids – some as young as nine – enjoying refining their skills behind the wheel, but when they have to overcome other challenges, as in Elliott’s case, it’s doubly rewarding to see. The fact that he’s developed not only into a highly competent and safe driver on the road, but also into a skilled competition driver, proves that honing these skills at an early age can have considerable benefits when you’re old enough to hold a driving licence.”
In a happy coincidence, Elliott now competes in a competition-prepared Suzuki Swift, the road-going version of which is the staple of Young Driver’s current 170-strong fleet of dual-controlled training cars used across its 75 UK sites.
For more information about Young Driver go to www.youngdriver.com