Mental Health Awareness Week, which draws to a close this weekend, has once again been vital in raising awareness of the importance of mental health issues and support networks in the UK – a cause which top touring car team Motorbase Performance is proud to stand squarely behind.
Striving to highlight the significance of mental health awareness as part of its participation in the country’s premier motor racing category, the Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship, Motorbase is utilising its platform to support the promotion of mental health causes.
Mental Health Awareness Week, which began this past Monday and runs until Sunday, 15th May, is a key date on the calendar for one of the UK’s most serious health challenges and this year the focus of the awareness week is to help tackle loneliness and the wider issues associated with it.
Figures show one in four adults feel lonely some or all of the time, with no single cause, but neither is there any one solution. The longer loneliness persists, the greater the risk of mental health problems surfacing and arising, and so Mental Health Awareness Week – which is led by the Mental Health Foundation – has been aiming to highlight practical steps to avert problems developing.
To discover more, visit https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/campaigns/mental-health-awareness-week where the Mental Health Foundation explores everything to do with loneliness – why it matters, what it feels like and ways in which individuals and society as a whole can respond.
This season in the BTCC, of course, Motorbase driver Sam Osborne – son of team owner Pete – is competing as No.77 in the Apec Racing with Beavis Morgan entry in memory of late racing driver Tom Walker, who tragically took his own life in 2018 and raced as No.77 in the VW Cup.
Prior to the current campaign, Sam raced with a ‘77’ decal on his car in remembrance and to also show support and he continues to do so on the rear of his Ford Focus ST – a message reading #77TomWalker – along with a decal supporting mental health charity Mind.
Pete’s other son Jamie, who drives in BTCC feeder category the MINI CHALLENGE, is also racing as No.77 this year and the family as a whole is determined to do as much as possible to highlight awareness of mental health challenges and the variety of struggles people face.
Pete Osborne – Motorbase Performance Team Owner and Team Principal:
“As a team we place a huge amount of importance on mental health awareness, particularly with our links to Tom [Walker] who I used to sponsor in the VW Cup, and so I am very proud Motorbase is supporting such a vital cause. Mental Health Awareness Week is incredibly important to help highlight the serious difficulties so many people face, and the support networks which are available.
“People need to be able to talk, to share their feelings and concerns without being judged, and anything we can do at Motorbase to promote this and to provide support we will do. You never know the struggles people might be facing, even if they seem happy on the outside, so I really do hope we can help to bring that to light and do our bit to assist in some way.”
This weekend, the BTCC and MINI CHALLENGE will both be in action at Brands Hatch Indy Circuit in Kent – Motorbase’s home track. All three BTCC races, which will feature Motorbase’s NAPA Racing UK drivers Ash Sutton and Dan Cammish and Apec Racing with Beavis Morgan racers Sam Osborne and Ollie Jackson, will be live on television.
Round four will begin at 11.30 on ITV4, round five at 14.10 on the main ITV channel and round six will start at 16.15, back on ITV4.
