His schoolmates had to make do with Scalextric sets and Xbox consoles, but 16-year-old Aiden Moffat's obsession with motor racing has brought him a rather more impressive piece of kit.
It comes in the sleek shape and garish colours of the S2000 Chevrolet Cruze in which the Dalkeith teenager will make history at Knockhill this weekend when he becomes the youngest driver to race in the British Touring Car Championship.
Moffat's interest in motor racing began when his mum Donna treated him to a birthday party at a go-karting centre when he was 12. From there, he progressed through karting, banger racing and junior saloon car championships. However, the youngster admits that the move into touring cars is a massive leap in the dark.
"There's a huge difference because the cars have much more power than I'm used to," said Moffat, who has just begun sixth year at George Watson's College in Edinburgh. "But I really don't know what to expect because I've not had a shot of the car yet. Saturday will be my first chance to drive it. I've raced at Knockhill a lot so I know the circuit pretty well, I can't help but be a bit nervous, but I'm pretty excited about it all."
Moffat's father Bob runs a car transporting business, but the youngster made it clear that he is not being financed by the Bank of Mum and Dad. "My parents are really supportive in everything I do, but there's no way we could afford to do this without sponsorship," he said. "We're lucky we've managed to get some on board and I'm really grateful for the help we've had. It's hard to predict how it will go. I don't have any daft ideas about winning or anything like that, but it would be good to finish the races as the more miles I get the more experience I'll have at the end of it. Really, I'm just looking at this as a learning curve. I don't want it to be a one-off and I'd like to compete in a few more touring car events this season, but I'm going to wait to see how this weekend goes before making any more plans."
Moffat breaks the age record set by the Englishman Tom Chilton, who made his BTCC debut as a 17-year-old in 2002. Chilton went on to spend 10 years in the series, claiming 12 wins. He has since moved on to race in the World Touring Car Championship.
Moffat has no firm plans for the future just yet, though. "I don't have one particular ambition," he explained. "I want to keep racing and keep progressing, but I'm not set on getting to Formula 1 or anything like that. I just enjoy racing, so we'll just see where it takes me."
His car is being prepared by the Cambridgeshire-based Finesse Motorsport. "Time will tell how Aiden gets on but we haven't put any pressure on him," said Neil Giddings, team manager at Finesse. "He knows Knockhill well, so we're looking forward to the challenge."
Moffat has just completed four highers - "I was pretty pleased with the results" - and expects to do a few more over the coming year. He expects to have a few friends supporting him at Knockhill, but he admitted that motor racing left others in his age group cold. "Some of them are really into it and interested in what I'm doing," he said. "But most of them couldn't tell the difference between a Ferrari and a Fiat Punto."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article