2010 TRS Rookie

Birth date: 8 March 1993 (16)

Home town: Wellington (Karori)

Team: Neale Motorsport

Engineer: Andrew “Andy’ Neale

Sponsors: Miles Toyota, HotChilly

Website:

Jamie McNee is a quietly confident 16-year-old who made his debut in TRS Lites in Hamilton last season.  Back for a full season, the teenager  from  Karori in Wellington has secured the guiding talents of Andy Neale – the Christchurch-based race engineer that took Andy Knight to the TRS title two seasons back.

Andy Neale also has an engineering role with Trevor Sheumack’s ETEC Team so Jamie is benefitting from working alongside Andrew Waite and Nathan Morcom on chassis set up and data. The driver coach and engineer got to know Jamie through the Racing School at Ruapuna and Neale rates the youngster’s ability.

Neale should recognize potential because he is himself an accomplished racer and has European training as an engineer. Back in 1994 Neale finished runner up to Ashley Stitchbury in the New Zealand Formula Ford Championship and also took an overall win in the National FF Winter Series.

In Britain Neale gained valuable set up knowledge working for the BAR F1 team as well as spells in Formula 3 and Formula Renault as a mechanic. He also worked on a Swift FF that won the British and European titles.

Jamie has chosen well because 39-year-old Andy Neale was the strength behind Andy Knight and last year produced race winning performances from both Nathan Antunes and Scott Pye.

Jamie has followed the traditional New Zealand career path in motorsport – a good grounding in karting, followed by single seater experience in Formula First and Formula Ford and then on to the slick tyres and wings of TRS.

He was introduced to karting at the age of seven by an uncle who was involved in the sport.

A former NZ Karting champion Jamie has successfully progressed through the junior categories and arrives well prepared for the season ahead having just completed his NCEA level 2 exams at Wellington College.

From karting Jamie progressed to Formula First with the Sabre team in 2006 and gained a couple of wins in the Winter series. Two seasons of FF with John Crawford’s Motorsport Solutions Team saw him placed eighth overall and fourth overall in the national series.

The opportunity to try the new TRS Lites category at Hamilton last year resulted in a good run to second place behind Mitch Evans in the final race of the season. This year his sights are set firmly on the Rookie prize. His Rookie rivals in 2010 are his old rivals Mitch Evans, Stefan Webling and Australian newcomer Nathan Morcom.

Jamie McNee will race with the support of the Miles Toyota Group who have dealerships in Christchurch, Tauranga and Whangarei; and Hot Chilly, a Wellington based company that specialise in Heat Pump and Air Conditioning systems for the residential and commercial sectors.