Teenage quad bike racer Seth Terrell had a week to remember in France after a mad dash to get a new passport.

Terrell’s participation in the Pont-De-Vaux festival was in doubt when, with two weeks to go, his passport was nowhere to be seen.

The family turned to MP Gordon Henderson for assistance and the 13-year-old secured a replacement with days to spare after travelling to the passport office in Peterborough with mum Louise.

A four-and-a-half-hour wait, while the application was processed, must have felt like forever but the main thing was Terrell, who leads the British Championship, was going to France.

Their efforts paid off when the Westlands schoolboy finished second in class over three races, surpassing all expectations.

“To this day we don’t know what happened to that passport!” said Louise.

“He had such a cracking time, it was an absolute whirlwind of a week. He wasn’t expecting to place.

“We’d left it so late to enter, he just wanted the race to go as well as it could.

“To place, and come back with silver, he was absolutely ecstatic.

“It was the icing on the cake and made all the jumping through hoops worthwhile.

“There were 24 in the kids’ race, from all over the world. The boy who came first was from Estonia.

“People do it for the experience. They do it to say they’ve done it and if you place, so be it.

“Seth was nervous at first but once he’d qualified he was like, ‘I’ve got this’.

“It’s great because they shut down the entire village for a parade of all the quad bikes. The whole village come out and greet them, it’s like an evening of celebration.

“It was amazing to be part of. You just don’t get things like that over here.

“Being in the south east, we don’t even have a practice track. We have to travel to Ipswich.”

Terrell took up quad bikes two years ago, along with brothers Harry, 16, and Beau, eight.

What started as an activity to occupy minds during the pandemic has turned into something the entire family love, with dad Simon and Louise turning their hand to mechanics.

All three boys compete for EDR Racing, while Iwade-based sponsors DG Car & Commercial have provided personalised T-shirts.