7 July 2010

Racing at Croft

We left school at 9am for the relatively short hop to Croft. Usually we would all travel in the school minibus but this would not be the case as major vandalism of the seats prevented us from carrying the whole team. A massive thanks to the parents who took their own cars and then supported us throughout the day! The car slots in over the top of the seats and is then tied firmly down. Leaving this job to the boys was my first big mistake of the day as the car promptly fell over on the first bend. I had asked Geek to keep an eye on the car and if it moved to tell me! How he did not notice a large Greenpower car nearly sat in his lap is beyond me!

We arrived at Croft with no more drama. Mr. H’s singing keeping those lucky enough to travel by minibus amused for the journey. After a couple of laps of the paddock we eventually sent Radar to find our pit garage, which we learned was being used for scrutineering. The car was assembled on the apron and presented for scrutineering. Apart from a couple of “you can’t do that”, “yes we can” conversations, the car flew through scrutineering which is always a relief! The car was moved into the garage and the team set up camp for the day. Tea was produced by the gallon to keep Mr. H, Dr B, Radar (who is learning!) and our two SAS students, Tasha and Rachel happy for the day. The drivers also opened up their pack ups and I have never seen so much food eaten in such a short time!

This is when our car was rescrutineered! Michael had wandered into our garage and started to find fault with what had been passed five minutes before. This included the angle of the rollbar support and the over centre catches on the battery box. I have to say that there is no specific rule for either of these in the regulations. To alter the rollbar angle will be a major job now but would have been easy when we started the build! This is despite loads of Seagull kit cars still being raced with no rollbar triangulation at all!

A Greenpower race day is never boring with something going on all the time. This was again the case as some desperate teams constructed amazing structures from borrowed or stolen materials to try and pass scrutineering. One particular team seemed to be having a particular hard time with scrutineering and everybody was watching to see if they would eventually be allowed to race. It was with some relief that they got the green light after some major bodging and scrounging. More of this later!

The Team

The 1.00pm race start was quickly approaching so Geek was loaded into Blade with Radar pushing him out onto the start line.

On the Start Line

The pit wall was crowded for the start and as 1.00 arrived the race got underway. Some very steady driving on the first lap saw us near the back of the pack but this was only short lived as Geek gained in confidence and started to make his way through the field. We knew that everyone would be in for a tough day as a strong wind was hard against us up the back straight which is also slightly uphill. This quickly saw the demise of several cars and the recovery truck was busy all day.

Meanwhile the race continued and the first driver change was due. David was suited and booted and a surprisingly quick pit stop (considering we had no practice) saw Blade quickly back into the fray. We were then approached by a fine gentleman who informed us that we had a flat tyre. An emergency sprint up the pits by Mr. H (who does not do running!) and Dave was brought straight back in to the garage. Although we tried to pump up the offending tyre, it would not have it and an emergency tube change was needed. We think we lost at least 10 minutes with this. Back into the race! The car was lapping consistently around the 3 minutes mark and steadily moving up the field.

Racing

Meanwhile……! Our poor neighbours were having all sorts of problems! Not only having to contend with a duff motor and trip switch which stopped the car at the same place everytime on the Croft hill. They also had to put up with over enthusiastic scrutineers who insisted on testing the brakes everytime the car was in the pits (which was often!) much to the disgust of the team and especially the teacher in charge who was becoming increasingly irate and probably needed cooling down more than the motor!

Our next pit stop came around and Pockets was popped in the car. The plan being that he would drive until two hours where the batteries would be changed. This was not the case and a very slow Blade had to be brought in early for new batteries. A fantastic coordinated stop by the teams youngest members Joe and Matt saw Blade quickly back into the race. Pockets gave way to Kingy and again some very consistent driving saw us move into 5th  position. With 50 minutes to go, the Hare was slotted in. Unfortunately he did not live up to his name and was more like the tortoise! Problems with the gears were the reason for several slow laps! Eventually after a couple of emergency pit stops Blade was back up to full speed. This drama had relegated us into 7th place. Giving chase we overtook the car in front and were quickly catching the 5th place car.  However it was not to be and we finished in 6th place (one away from automatic qualification) achieving 78.2 miles which at the time of writing is on the cusp of qualification for the final.

We were delighted with our day out especially so since the car had not turned a wheel before the race. Plans for improvements are underway and this unfortunately will mean cutting up the bodyshell to solve some of the aerodynamic problems we have!