Racing hopeful's TV appearance

11:39am Wednesday 13th August 2008

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A TEENAGE rookie racing driver from Bromyard with ambitions of standing on the podium alongside the likes of Lewis Hamilton appeared on Dragons’ Den on Monday.

Eighteen-year-old Robert Hall and his dad David put forward a proposition to five of Britain’s most successful businesspeople on the popular BBC2 series.

They hoped to get £50,000 in exchange for 40 per cent of any winnings youngsters picked up over the next 10 years.

Peter Jones showed an interest in the idea when he said he could see the opportunity of using Robert as part of Red Letter Days – a company that provides adventure and activity gifts he co-owns with fellow Dragon, Theo Paphitis. But he was not keen on the idea.

As a result the father-and-son team left empty-handed, but Robert said he thought appearing on the programme had not done him any harm.

“It was a fantastic experience to go down there, a once-in-a-lifetime thing, because you’re never going to go back on,” he added. “It was a bit daunting and we tried our best to put our point across but they didn’t quite understand where we were coming from.But we said you’re always going to gain from going on the show so we just took it as it came.”

Robert, who works for his dad at Bromyard Tyres, needs financial help to meet the £150,000 annual running cost of entering the national Formula Ford championship.