Boystuff Magazine - Issue 03

Contents The Inspirational Billy Monger A nine year old’s view of British Touring Cars An interview with junior racer Tony Rodriguez The story of Kristian Kostov News Libera Hope album review Sambeau the musician Jack Pell’s Lego racing team

Editor’s note So then, we’re already a little over halfway into the year and what an absolutely incredible opening to 2017 we have had. From some incredible songs to a whole host of sensational junior Motorsport from the Junior Saloon Car Championship, Fiesta Juniors and the Ginetta Junior championship there really has been a lot going on. My own co-editor, Michael Birchall, went into hospital with a burst appendix and had to spend three days within the confines of the hospital room and whilst he’s on the mend, he’s not yet ready to return to the magazine so you guys are stuck with me for the second issue in a row - sorry.

Anyway, whatever you spent the first half of 2017 doing I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you all have an excellent second half to the year as well. So, without further ado let’s get into issue three of Boystuff Magazine. Enjoy!

- Jordan Hines

BILLY MONGER - THE INSPIRATIONAL RACING DRIVER Article written by Bethonie Waring for Boystuff Magazine.

It’s less than three months since the horrific accident at Donington Park that led to him losing both his lower legs, but Billy Monger is already back in the simulator.

In those three months, Billy has inspired people across the world with his determination and passion for racing. The accident, in which he collided with the rear of a stationary car, will most likely have a huge impact on his future career, but that won’t put a stop to his racing.

Like most youngsters, Billy’s motorsport career began in karts.

He was eight years old when he made his competitive karting debut, competing in the 2008 British Open Championship Honda Cadet series. It took a while for the Surrey-born driver to get up to speed but by 2009 Billy was regularly finishing inside the points. The following year he was crowned Super One National Honda Cadet Champion.

Over the next three years, Billy gradually worked his way up through the ranks.

In that time, he took a second Super One British Championship title, a Henry Surtees Memorial Weekend win, and the Buckmore Park Chairman’s Cup. On April 3rd, 2014, Billy was at Brands Hatch, alongside his father, in the British Touring Car Championship support paddock.

The Mongers had decided to enter Billy into the Ginetta Junior Championship as a privateer after he competed in the Scholarship. It was a huge step forward, and entering as a privateer put Billy on the back foot in a field full of big teams like HHC Motorsport and JHR Developments. He said at the time that he was going to us the year to gain experience and learn from the more experienced racers around him, but that didn’t stop Billy fighting at the front of the field.

Billy took four top 10 finishes from the first eight rounds, before joining Total Control Racing for the final two rounds of the season.

TCR wasn’t the only team interested in Monger, though. The teenager joined JHR Developments for the 2015 Ginetta Junior Winter series, the beginning of a strong partnership between driver and team.

Monger took a win and two podiums from the four race winter series, finishing second overall.

Billy returned to the Ginetta Junior championship in 2015 with more experience and a strong team behind him. After his winter success, he was one of the favourites for the title, and he didn’t disappoint.

Starting the season as he meant to go on, Billy took a win from the first race of the year, meaning he’d start the second from pole. He looked certain to make it two from two when he was pushed wide by Jamie Caroline late in the race, finishing 14th.

He bounced back, taking a third place at Donington Park, a second place at Thruxton, and another third at Croft.

By the season midpoint, Billy was third overall, but a way behind Caroline and Senna Proctor ahead of him.

The fight to close the gap started with a pole at Snetterton, his first race one pole of the season, but he couldn’t convert the pole into a win. Caroline found a way past Billy on the second lap, snatching the win and demoting Billy to second place. Race two, though, Billy took the race win whilst Caroline fell down the order to eighth, securing his second victory of the season.

Billy couldn’t continue the momentum, retiring from the next race at Knockhill before taking a string of finishes in the bottom half of the top 10. By the time he arrived back at Brands Hatch for the season finale, Billy was sixth in the championship.

Billy qualified third, but was promoted to the front row of the grid for the penultimate race of the season when championship leader Caroline took a penalty. It didn’t take long for Caroline to make his way up through the field, and he briefly knocked Billy to third. But race leader Proctor fell back to sixth three laps before the end of the race, promoting Billy back to second.

That earned him another front row start for the final race of the weekend, but a jump start forced Billy to serve a drive through penalty. It dropped him to the back of the field, and he finished the race 17th.

He finished fifth in the championship.

With two years car racing experience under his belt, Billy now wanted to take the next step in his career. Still with the support of JHR Developments, he switched to the British Formula 4 championship, which was also on the TOCA package.

Although he’d first tested in an F4 car in the November of 2014, it wasn’t until late in the preseason that he was announced, which meant he had limited testing ahead of his F4 debut.

Like his first season in Ginettas, 2015 was about learning for Billy, though he was still aiming to take a podium before the end of the year.

He took three points finishes in the opening two rounds, before heading to Thruxton.

The weekend started badly. Retiring from the opening race put Billy on the back foot going into race two. Starting 18th on the 20 car grid made it unlikely he’d be finishing inside the points, but that didn’t put Billy off. By the end of the opening lap, he’d climbed up to 11th, and by the end of lap two he was firmly inside the points in eighth.

Retirements ahead of him allowed Billy to edge up the field, and he finished the race third, his first podium in single seater cars.

Starting the third and final race of the weekend from the third row of the grid, Billy topped his previous result with a second place finish.

It was a strong form Billy wasn’t able to continue at the following round , Oulton Park, but he took another two points finishes from the weekend. He ended the first half of the season with 57 points and just outside the top 10 in the standings.

The second half of the season was even more rocky. He took no points from Snetterton, and only two from Knockhill. But things looked like they might turn around at Rockingham.

Billy would start on pole from the final race of the weekend. He was forced to defend hard from championship protagonists Petru Florescu and Max Fewtrell but, when the two Carlin drivers started to battle one another, he could breathe a little easier.

Fewtrell found a way past Florescu and quickly managed to close in on Billy again. Billy spent the second half of the race driving in his mirrors to keep Fewtrell at bay and was poised to take his first single seater win when, at the start of the final lap, a mechanical problem struck.

An oil pressure failure slowed Billy down, and Fewtrell and Sennan Fielding were both able to get past. He was able to get going again, and finished the race

third. It wasn’t quite the result he had been hoping for, but his first podium and best result since Thruxton five rounds earlier.

Billy finished the season 12th, with 10 points finishes and three podiums.At the start of this season, the British F4 organisers introduced the Challenge Cup. Designed for drivers that couldn’t afford the full season, Challenge Cup racers would compete at selected rounds and have their own podium. Staying with JHR for a third season, Billy joined this championship.

The plan was to build on what he’d learned in his first season in the championship, with team principal Steven Hunter saying at the start of the season that they were preparing for a serious title bid.

Billy kicked off proceedings with a trio of points finishes at Brands Hatch, including an overall podium in the second race. He also took a trio of Cup wins from the weekend, putting him firmly at the top of the new category.

The momentum carried over to round two at Donington Park. After qualifying seventh, Billy fought his way to third, another Cup win.

Race two of the weekend, of course, ended in disaster, but this isn’t the end of Billy’s story. Billy is set to make his return to racing as early as this November.

He is one of the first recruits to Frederic Sausset’s “Un Volant Pour Tour” Academy. Sausset, a Le Mans racer and quadruple amputee, set up the Academy in the hopes of getting a number of disabled driver line ups at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The aim is that Billy and other Academy members will be racing in the endurance race in 2020.

His first outing will be the Estoril round of the VdeV Endurance Pronto Series at the start of November 2017.

(Editor’s note - since the writing of this article, Monger has tested a specially modified Fun Cup race car at the Brands Hatch Race Circuit in Kent, England.

The test was successful and Monger highly enjoyed the experience)

Our model is wearing cool camouflage clothes brought from JD sports.

A nine year old’s view of the BTCC My mum was lucky enough to win tickets for the Btcc at Oulton Park. It was a long journey from the south coast but so worth it.

On the Saturday we spent most of the day in the paddock looking at the cars and looking out for the drivers.

I managed to meet Rob Collard, Jack Goff, Tom Ingram and Nicolas Hamilton.

The racing was really good as well! We watched a lot of the support races including the Ginetta GT4 Supercup and Clio Cup UK. The highlight of the weekend for me was meeting Billy Monger.

As a car/racing mad 9yr old it was amazing to meet him and I got my picture taken with him He really is a nice guy and I found it hard to believe that 4wks before he could have lost his life.

Meeting Billy made me realise that, yes, racing is dangerous but if you have the passion and belief in yourself you can overcome everything and achieve anything.

Oulton Park was amazing and I can't wait for the next race I can attend...

-Cameron Threlfall age 9

Pictured right: Cameron with double BTCC race winner and all round legend, Dave Newsham. Driver of one of the BTC Norlin Racing Chevrolets.

An Interview with junior racer Tony Rodriguez JH: So Tony, you've been karting from a young age, what was it that made you want to get into Motorsport?

TR: It's just the excitement you know? Of being out on track, battling for position with the other cars, it's just exhilarating!

JH: Now, you need a budget to go racing and you have lots of sponsors on your car - that obviously helps but are your parents a main source of funding as well?

TR: Sort of. They are able to help me a little bit but it's mostly down to the sponsors, which we have a lot of on the car. (For any companies interested in sponsoring Tony, please visit the TJ Rodriguez Racing Facebook page) JH: You get quite a lot of time away from the track, what do you like to do to relax?

TR: I do a lot of gaming, on the simulators stuff like that. I also like to play Xbox and football with my mates.

JH: Do you think that using the simulators gives you an advantage on race day?

TR: Yes. It's very good for learning new tracks like Snetterton, which I've never driven and there aren't that many videos online so the simulators really help me to learn racing lines and so on.

Tony’s number 15 Junior Saloon Citroen Saxo race car

JH: Here at race events you're restricted as to what you can wear for safety reasons but away from the track are there any particular Brands or styles you like to wear?

TR: No, not really. I just like to be comfortable and be myself on the race track and off it.

JH: And finally, what's the ultimate Motorsport goal for you?

TR: British GT for sure!

Despite this being Tony's first time at Snetterton, he managed to finish 12th and 10th in the two races and this put him 11th out of 20 in the championship at the time of writing. He has since moved up in the championship order after a strong weekend at the Croft Race Circuit in North Yorkshire. To find out more about the Junior Saloon Car Championship, visit juniorsalooncars.co.uk

- Jordan Hines

Kristian Kostov - The Bulgarian Singing Sensation Competing in the Eurovision Song Contest is not easy; not only do you have the responsibility of representing an entire country, you also have to sing live in front of millions of people watching not only in Europe but from across the world. Despite the pressure of this, 17 year old Russian-born Kristina Kostov managed a brilliant and massively popular performance but before we get into that, let’s learn a bit about him.

He was born in Moscow, Russia on March 15th 2000 to a Bulgarian father and a Kazakh (a region of Turkey) Mother. As a child he learned Bulgarian and English from his father, quickly becoming fluent in both and he is known for managing to sound like a native when speaking English.

Kostov wanted to be a singer from a very early age and in 2014 he finally got the chance to realise his dream upon auditioning for the Russian version of hit British TV series “The Voice: Kids”. After performing well in the auditions, he was mentored by Dima Bilan, a successful Russian singer who himself had won Eurovision in 2008. Kostov made it all the way to the finals but was unable win.

After this success in Russia, he moved to Bulgaria with his parents in order to audition for their version of “The X-Factor”.

The Bulgarians immediately found favour with Kostov who flew through his audition with the song “When I was your man” and the now 15 year old demonstrated his singing skill in a diverse range of genres such as “Halloween”, “First love”, “Movie Soundtracks” and “Disco Hits”. Kostov was able to make his way through each round of the competition with ease until the Semi-Final where he nearly got eliminated. Of the four contestants in the semi-final, two would progress straight to the final whilst the other two would have to compete in a showdown against each other for the third place in the finals. Kostov ended up in that showdown but was able to win and earn his place in the finals with the song “Jealous” by Nick Jonas.

Pictured right: Kostov in 2016

The finals saw each performer having to sing three songs, including a duet. Kostov chose to sing “Call me” by Russian band “Lyube”, “Farewell my love” as his duet performance which he performed with Vasil Naydenov and “If you have given” for his final song. After the tree performances, Kostov ended up as runner-up to Christiana Louizu.

This lead to him being able to sign a record deal with Virgin Records in early 2016 and on October 7th of the same year, his debut single, “Ne si za men” (English: You’re not for me), was released. It was initially only released in Bulgaria and it peaked at thirteenth on their records sales chart. It was eventually released in English under the name “You got me girl” on January 13th 2017. The music videos for both the Bulgarian and English versions can be found on YouTube and have amassed a total of 2,558,923 and 321,336 views respectively at the time of writing.

Since then, Kostov has featured in several other singles but his main achievement was his representation of Bulgaria at the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest. It was announced on March 13th, just two two days before his 17th birthday, that Kostov would represent the country with the song “Beautiful mess”.

Kostov rehearsing for Eurovision 2017

Kostov dominated his semi-final, scoring 204 points through the televoting, a full 39 more than second placed Hungary, and scoring 199 points from the Jury, a full 50 ahead of second placed Netherlands.

The final ended up as a very close two-horse race between Kostov and the Portuguese contestant Salvador Sobral. As the jury cast their votes, it was incredibly close with there being as few as 14 points between the two at several moments but in the end, Sobral scored 382 points to Kostov’s 278. With the televoting points still available it wasn’t all over for Kostov yet though. Sadly, he scored 337 points which is an incredible achievement but Sobral scored 376 points which gave the Portuguese man victory by a margin of 143 points.

This was still Bulgaria’s best ever result in the Eurovision Song Contest and Kostov was the first ever contestant to have been born in the 2000s so he still has a lot to be proud of. With an incredible voice and still being only 17 years old, Kristian Kostov still has a very long and prosperous career ahead of him.

-Jordan Hines

The News There has been an awful lot going on over the past few months, here’s some of the best news stories from the first half of 2017:

SCHOOLBOY SHORTS CONTROVERSY HITS UK SCHOOLS There has been a number of protests by schoolboys across the UK this summer over not being allowed to wear short trousers in hot weather. The UK has been experiencing bouts of heatwave this year with temperatures reaching up to and beyond 30 degrees Celsius. However most secondary level schools only allow the wearing of short trousers for PE lessons and sports. This is in sharp contrast to a lot of primary schools, where short trousers are allowed.

One group of secondary schoolboys in Devon borrowed skirts from their female colleagues and wore them in protest, only to be excluded from the school as a result. Another group went to school in their underwear. Eventually the schools capitulated to their demands and have now allowed the wearing of shorts when the weather allows for it.

It is now expected that every school in the UK will update their uniform codes to allow for the wearing of shorts in hot weather. Here at Boystuff Magazine we wonder if there will be any further protests whilst these changes are implemented? Let us know if there are any!

51000 On entry list for Scouts The Scouts is one of the most popular groups for children across Britain however, there are currently 51000 children waiting to join.

Bear Grylls, the chief scout said that it is a “challenge” to recruit more volunteer leaders and whilst there is a record high 154,000 adults that volunteer, they aren’t able to volunteer enough time and it is estimated that a further 17000 volunteers are needed.

Scouts are a valuable asset to children aged 6-18 and it would be a huge shame to lose them. Our own Michael Bircahll is involved with his local scout group and here at Boystuff Magazine, we urge you all to help as much as possible.

11 Year Old James Clarkson tackles every UK National Hunt course In an attempt to raise money for charity, James Clarkson, an 11 year old schoolboy from Devon, ran a total of 50 miles by completing one lap of each of the 34 national hunt racecourses in just five days.

He succeeded in his goal by raising £8000 for the Injured Jockey’s Fund.

Credit also has to be given to Clarkson’s father who travelled a total distance of 1659 miles to take his son to all of the courses!

Jamie, 11, pictured outside the Wetherby Racecourse

Album review: ‘Hope’ by Libera Released internationally on May 26th of this year, ‘Hope’ by the Libera Boy’s Choir is already proving rather popular. The album features fourteen individual tracks, all of which are of professional quality and all of them sound amazing. It really is difficult to pinpoint a highlight of the album as each of the tracks is typical Libera - simple, understated, yet brilliant.

A couple of the songs - ‘Home’ for example - have been released as EP (Extended Plays) before but all the songs have yet to be featured on an album until the release of ‘Hope’. The fourteen songs total one hour and one minute of play time with track lengths varying from three minutes and one second all the way to five minutes and forty six seconds.

The album is so far proving highly popular with reviewers and customers as it has a full set of five star reviews on Amazon Music UK although sales figures haven’t been quite as good as previous albums. In 2014, the Christmas Album peaked at number two on the Classic FM charts with two eighth places and a nineteenth for their other albums. ‘Hope’ wasn’t able to crack the top three on the charts but it still sold well and is proving popular with fans, many of whom are claiming it to be Libera’s best album to date.

-Jordan Hines

Pictured right: The cover for the CD version of ‘Hope’.

A simple McKenzie hoodie coupled with some tracksuit bottom and trainers from JD sports completed this look

Sambeau the musician Samuel (Sam) Walsh, better know as Sambeau, is a growing song Composer/Remixer from East Cork, Ireland.

Born on September 23rd 2002, he is one of the youngest music composers ever to live, starting to compose music at only Twelve years old!

With plenty of emerging talent Sam has decided to bring in sales through iTunes, YouTube, Spotify and many more Some of Sam's popular remix's are Shape of you ( sambeau remix) , You dont know me ( Sambeau remix) and his original featuring famous Irish rapper Pat Flynn , What goes around comes around, that has amassed a total of 4905 views on Sambeau’s YouTube Channel.

- Ross Walsh

(Editorial) Across the 5 videos on his Youtube Channel, Sambeau has amassed a total of 12190 views with ‘What goes around comes around’ being the most popular with 4905 views and his remix of Lukas Graham;s ‘7 years’ being the least popular with a still respectable 556 views.

- Jordan Hines

Jack Pell’s Lego Racing Team My interest in motorsport started a couple of years ago when I went with my Dad to watch the touring cars . I really enjoy watching touring cars as well as the support races and I have my favourite teams & drivers in each series.

From the first time I watched the F4 races I liked Billy Monger and now support him every time I watch. We were at Donington when Billy crashed and when my Dad told me what had happened I was very upset and hoped that Billy would be ok.

I also really enjoy playing with Lego, my favourites are the ‘Speed Champions’ series. I have several race cars and play with them all the time. In support for Billy I have added #BillyWhizz stickers to some of my Lego racing cars. I got the idea for this from when I watched the British GT at Rockingham.

All the cars had #Billy Whizz stickers and I thought it was good to see all the support there was for Billy so I asked my Dad to help me make some stickers for my Lego cars.

I really want my Dad to take me go karting as when I’m older I would like to be a racing driver.

I hope Billy is recovering well and will be back racing soon.

Jack Pell, Aged 9

Football crazy! Some nice, simple sportswear once again from JD Sports