Spirits were high at 5 in the morning as the team met to make the trip up to RNAS Merryfield. With qualification for the guaranteed from our performance at Newquay, this race was all about grid position, a good performance here would move us closer to the front of the grid. We were unfortunately missing Mr Lloyd-King who is expecting a baby any time now.
After making good time on the journey, we arrived with plenty of time to set up our paddock at a leisurely pace, giving us plenty of time to walk the track, get some data and get focused for the days racing ahead of us.
With setup and practice out of the way, it was time to get settled on the grid. We were starting from the 3rd row in a race with 31 competitors, the quality of the other cars was daunting, including the current provisional pole position car, Rotary Racer. Gareth was in the driver's seat for the start, a strong driver and more than capable for the hazards of traffic that comes at the start of the race. After gaining us several places, 40 minutes later, Gareth's time was up and we were 6th.
Next up was Ben for another 40 minutes. The quality of the cars at this end of the race were proving difficult to contend with, but Ben was more than a match for them putting in our fastest lap and taking us to 4th during his run, despite the odd light shower.
With Ben's time up it was time for the long, 80 minute stint, this time going to Becky. She soon settled into a groove, keeping pace with the cars in front, slowly eating away at their lead. It was during Becky's run that the sky really opened up, the downpours were mercifully short but heavy when they came. some of the cars began to struggle with the conditions and the front runners began to bunch up (except Rotary Racer which was ahead of the pack by a country mile) but with our wide track and cool headed driver, our lap times were barely affected.
A cold and wet Becky was finally swapped out for Jacca to continue the chase for 3rd place. Our consistency paid off eventually as MPH put in a few dodgy laps allowing both Megazord and ourselves to pass, we finally had a podium place but we were closely followed by a familiar team, Hummingbird from Plymouth Girls' School.
As the race was entering the final stages, success or failure would depend on how well the teams had managed their batteries throughout the race and Megazord was struggling. At only half a lap ahead of us they made their pit stop, allowing us to take the silver medal position but we had to stop ourselves and it had to be quick if we wanted to keep the position. Unfortunatly some dodgy pit lane marshaling lead to a blocked pit lane and our hopes for 2nd were slipping away as the car stood stationary some distance from our pit crew. We finally got the car in and the team did a great pit stop but it wasn't enough and we emerged back in 3rd place by some way, Lucky for us it was Harrison behind the wheel and if anyone could catch up it was him. After putting some distance between himself and the 4th place car, sights were set on Megazord once again. With only 20 minutes or so their lead was shrinking, we were catching them! As the last few minutes of the race ebbed away we were back to within half a lap and Megazord's batteries were failing, but sadly the checkered flag came down before we could get them, all we needed was a few more seconds as they ended up crawling across the line but it was not meant to be.
The team continues to go from strength to strength and this has been our best result ever with a race distance of 85.5 miles we have jumped from 59th to 20th on the final grid. We also brought home the IMechE 'Best Engineered Car' award to add to our impressive trophy collection.
