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With four and a half months to go before the start of the 2008 season the Circuit Driver Caterham Academy can already boast two full grids, with 56 drivers new to motorsport signed up and ready for the off.

Each has committed to the uniquely successful Caterham Academy concept which has since its inception in 1995 introduced in excess of 600 competitors to the sport. In addition to a road-legal 1.6-litre Caterham Roadsport - theirs to keep - each will be put through their racing licence 'ARDS test', is registered for the Academy championship and entered for three speed events and four races.

In addition, each will take part in a technical seminar, benefit from set-up and test days and a car-control 'clinic', and receive invaluable technical assistance and advice at each of the events.

"It is extraordinary value for £16,995," says Caterham Motorsport Director Magnus Laird, "and that is precisely why we are able to announce two full grids so far in advance of the start of the season. The Academy always produces fantastically close and exciting racing and is quite simply the very best place for track novices to learn their craft. We are already holding a dozen deposits for the 2009 Academy."

Next year marks the reintroduction of Ford power to the Academy after a gap of more than a decade in the shape of the 1.6-litre Sigma engine. "The new Ford engine, combined with Caterham's latest 'metric' chassis, makes the '08 Academy car the first of a new generation of Caterham competition cars," adds Laird. "Over the coming years they will be introduced through Roadsport B to Roadsport A."

The 56 Academy competitors next year come from backgrounds as diverse as it is possible to find. Among those on the grid will be an airline pilot, a musician, a silicon chip sales manager, an NHS trust chief executive, an advertising agency director and an accountant.

Among the youngest competitors are 22-year-olds Gordon Sawyer, a panel beater from Crawley, and Nottingham-based student Chandni Piplani, who is the only female racer in the two groups. Among the oldest are Ray Gilliland and Keith Ashworth, both 56.

Having already been successfully exported to Portugal, the Academy concept is being adopted next season also in the Netherlands, where Caterham's Dutch agent, Van der Kooi Sportscars, will run a championship.