The Goodwood Final

What a weekend! What a dramatic race!

We arrived at Goodwood yesterday with a clean scrutineering check and a car which the organisers had tipped to do well. We had no idea of the dramatic race we had ahead of us!

After some admin delays which cut short our practice session it was decided to alter the gearing to its previous settings. With 2 hours until the parade lap a large part of the car was dismantled, altered and reassembled in record time.

 

With the car ready to go, it was time for the parade. The boys really looked the part, the retro helmet and wired scarf (kindly provided by Ben's Mum) completing the look. 

 

It was now time for the race. We were starting at the back of the grid, a consequence of our relatively poor mileage at the Southwest Heat, but we got off to a great start, gaining six positions in the first lap. The second lap however was not as great, some extremely reckless driving from another team lead to us being rear-ended by a rival car, The driver was OK but pretty shaken up, the car was fine with only superficial damage.
The car continued at a reasonable pace for the rest of the first half of the race with the next driver taking lap after lap. It was soon after the battery change at the halfway point that disaster struck. The car had stopped on the far side of the track and a backlog of other recoveries meant that we had a long wait to get it back in to diagnose the problem. It turned out to be the seed controller, it had completely burnt out! There was no other option but to do an epic repair job, substituting in a relay box for the controller. This would give us a simple but effective electronic system, but leave us vulnerable to an even more catastrophic motor burnout.

With the best part of an hour spent out of the race, our hopes for a good position were dashed, but we could still see the end of the race on our wheels so we loaded up another driver and got back out there for the final leg. With the car stationary for so long there was still plenty of juice left in the batteries and we put in some flying laps and our final position of 72nd really didn't reflect the skill and ability of the drivers and engineers, but that's motor sport for you.

Despite the disappointing finishing position, the boys can be really proud of their performance. When the chips were down and all seemed lost they pulled together as a team in a way they hadn't before and didn't give up the fight until the very end. With the addition of picking up the best presented team award, it was back to the campsite for some well deserved rest.

Green Day

This Friday will be Green Day at Richard Lander. What started as an idea for a non-uniform day where everyone has to wear green to promote the greenpower car has become an unstoppable behemoth of an event! It has become a showcase for the local press, not only for the car but for all the environmentally aware activities throughout the school. We will also be visited by Andy Clarke, composite designer for Jordan and Mclaren F1 teams as well as being involved in the construction of Thrust SSC, the current holder of the World Land Speed Record.

RAF Portheath Test Day

The extremely helpful people over at RAF Portreath have agreed to let us use their runway for testing the car and we spent the afternoon putting it through its paces. With peak speeds pushing 30mph on the down slope and plenty of juice left in the batteries at the end of a long session we are more confident than ever about turning in a great performance at Goodwood in less than a fortnights time.

After Open Evening

Open evening went really well, many of the prospective new students were keen and many of them had parents with engineering links which is great. The boys were a bit tentative when they were talking to parents at first, but they soon warmed up and were a credit to the team and the school. Here is a picture of the motly bunch: