Budget Rallying

What does the typical 21 year old kid do in his free time? Well, other than having problems with a love life and spending countless hours on the phone trying to fix it, the typical 21 year old has little else on his plate.

And then there's Alex Kelsey, from New Zealand. He's terrible at school due to a condition of dyslexia , but when he found his true calling in motorsport, he was all set. He's raced a modified Subaru Impreza in a rally stage, and he's the youngest person ever to have come away with a rally stage win in the New Zealand National Rally Championship.

Aside from the driving, he's also an ace mechanic, and a master welder. Want proof? Check out his MC2 Peugeot rally car, which he has fabricated from a bare shell, all the work done in his home garage. MC2 (aptly named Mad Creation 2) is a Peugeot 207 bodyshell, with a screaming Formula Renault V6 engine under the hood.

"It needed to look good, it needed to sound good, and it needed to be easy to work on and cheap to maintain," he said in a recent interview with New Zealand's 3 News. Alex did all the fabrication work on the car himself, from the custom roll cage to the suspension, to reworking the body and fitting carbon-Kevlar panels for weight savings and more strength.

The wheels are discarded items from Ford's WRC team. The brakes are retrofitted from a Subaru WRC car, so his MC2 is fully covered from all sides. Alex built the car over an 18 month period, scavenging parts and painfully making them fit together properly.

And he cant wait to get it into competition. Makes you wonder, what are you doing at his age?