Silver Hatch is the imaginary race track that’s home to UK’s most famous animated race car, Roary. Roary the Race Car is a popular UK programme aimed at preschool-aged children. It is broadcasted by Milkshake!, a block of children’s television programmes on the channel Five. It can also be seen on Nick, Jr. in the UK, an offshoot of the popular Nickelodeon channel. The show is created using state of the art animated technology, from computer generated imagery (CGI) to stop motion animation to help create a real sense of speed for the race cars.

The programme surrounds the adventures of Roary, the number one racer at Silver Hatch, and his friends. These friends include the other vehicles that populate the racing tracks, as well as the human characters that help run the place. While there are many more cars than people in Roary’s world, the people who are there are an important part of the show, and are close friends of the title character. Here are the characters that make up the human population of Silver Hatch:

         Big Chris

Every race track needs a good mechanic. Plus a commentator and someone to start the races, of course. In Roary the Race Car, these positions are all filled by Big Chris. This is the main human character in the show who lives in Rusty the Caravan and has a fondness for doughnuts. He acts as a father figure to the cars, since he’s the one that spends the most time with them as they need to be worked on and fixed up. Big Chris takes a special liking to Roary, and calls him his number one star. Of course, Roary happens to sport a number one on him that’s set in a yellow star. Big Chris tries to help Roary win races against his rival, Maxi. He never resorts to cheating, though, but his help usually ends in disaster. It’s all there to teach kids positive lessons, though, and the point gets across quite well. Like all the characters in the programme, Big Chris has a memorable catchphrase, his being “You bend it, you mend it.”

    Mr. Carburretor

Just as Big Chris believes that Roary is the best racer at Silver Hatch, Mr. Carburretor feels the same way about Maxi. This generally makes him a sort of rival to Big Chris, though the two do work together. Mr. Carburretor is the owner of the race track and spends his time cheering Maxi on. He has no hard feelings to the other cars, though, and congratulates any of them who win a win. Maxi is simply his preferred race car. He is a flamboyant Italian man whose catchphrase happens to be shared with Maxi, “Mama Mia!” He constantly yells at Big Chris for being late, but otherwise gets along with the other humans working at Silver Hatch.

            Marsha

Whenever Mr. Carburretor gives Big Chris a hard time for being late, Marsha is the one that’s there to back him up. Of course, when it comes to cleanliness, she’s the first to tell Big Chris he’s a slob. Besides being a clean freak, Marsha is a race Marshall, as well as the unofficial administrator of the Silver Hatch racetrack. She doesn’t take a particular interest in any of the race cars, but makes a strong female presence among a cast of mostly males. In addition to her job at the race track, Marsha is a fitness buff who loves to go running. In one episode, she ran around the race track in 10 minutes and 20 seconds. She was beaten, though, by Big Chris, who ran around the track in 10 minutes and 15 seconds, but only because he was chasing a rabbit that had stolen one of his coveted doughnuts. Her catchphrase is “Gears to go, brakes to slow!”

       Farmer Green

Farmer Green is a smaller character that lives in a farm near the race track. He can often be seen waving to the cars as they race, and is an owner of a green flatbed truck. In his spare time he likes to create biodiesel fuel, which sometimes doesn’t work at all. He, too, has a catchphrase, like the cars and humans in the show. It’s “Green by name, Green by nature!” and sums him up pretty well.

Compared to the number of cars in the show, the number of human characters is slim. However, they are important to the show nonetheless, often putting a human face to the vehicles, especially Roary and Maxi. Each of Roary’s human friends are created using the same CGI technology as the race cars, giving the whole programme the look of animated shows and films that have become increasingly popular in the past decade. Each of the characters are voiced by prominent British voice artists and actors. These actors add true depth to the characters and include highly acclaimed actors like Peter Kay.