The Greenpower Diary unfortunately has not been updated for a while now and I am sorry if you keep coming back to it and nothing has changed! The plan is that one of the students has designed a website for the team and that information will be available on there instead of the diary. This can be found at www.thecragrat.co.uk.

Matt will put a students perspective of our activities on his site but I thought as a diary swansong that I would give you a teachers view of events leading up to and on the day of the national final.

Rockingham

The story starts before the Midlands heat held at Rockingham Speedway in July. Steady progress had been made on the car but a concerted effort was needed to get the car ready to race. As usual we had big plans for improvements from the previous year! Unfortunately new building work above the D & T Department (and a fire!) stopped us getting on with this as well as expected. We were fortunate in having a speed controller made for us by Harrison-Croft Electronic Solutions and Dave from Marell had designed a module that would display volts, amps, and motor temp on an LCD screen which would also act as the rear view mirror in conjunction with a rear pointing camera. Everything was working really well until Saturday morning when some fine tuning of the system was to take place. On switching on the car, the motor ran at full speed instantly and the throttle did not seem to work. It transpired that some components on the controller had inexplicably failed. Dave kindly agreed to have a go at repairing this for us but hopes were not high that it would be done for the Tuesday race. This was the case so as a stop gap we fitted the car with a simple on/off push button working through a relay. The unfortunate thing was the time it took messing about with this was going to be used to sort out the current display. This would be really important to us as we needed this to know how fast to go on our batteries and when to change gear. This was not working!

Tuesday morning arrived and the car was ready for its lift down to Rockingham with SKS Racing. A massive thank you to Peter for doing this for us!! The journey to Rockingham was very straightforward with Mr. Keeble and Mr. Hutchinson sharing the driving of the school minibus, with Mr. Bolger a very nervous passenger!

I am not going to go into massive details about the race only to say that the car ran smoothly and apart from a spin and a relay failing (again) we had no major problems. The batteries did not last the four hours as we suspected they wouldn’t. Having to guess the gear to run was not a perfect situation. We also nearly got wiped out by a school who cheated by taking a shortcut on a part of the circuit which was not being used and then coming suddenly back onto the proper circuit directly in front of the Rat! The car did just over 70 miles and we were pleased with this as it was just a shakedown run. I must say that the Rockingham Circuit is superb and would make an ideal venue for one of the major Greenpower events.

Needless to say our day was not over! On the way back up North, with Mr. Keeble driving, the bus lost all power. Fortunately it picked up again and we carried on. Mr. Hutchinson then drove and when in the outside lane of the A1 overtaking a lorry, the power went again only this time it did not come back on! Fortunately we were able to make it onto the hard shoulder. A two hour delay whilst a very nice man came and fixed the bus.

Preparation for the final

The next day and some decisions to make! Would the current car be a challenger? If not what would we need to do? We knew we would have until mid September to get everything sorted. It was decided that we would build a new bodyshell, change the wheels, and the size of the chain and sprockets amongst other things. We knew that we can use a couple of weeks of the summer holidays to do this and everything will be ready for the Croft heat in mid September. How wrong we were! The ongoing building work turned the department into a no go area. Dust, mess, noise etc etc!

We arrived back at the start of September with a hard decision to make. Do we try and get the car ready for the Croft race or hope that we had made the final from our Midland heat, and plan for this? A hard decision was taken to miss Croft. We then had just over a month to sort everything out and an anxious wait until the last heat to see if we had qualified for the final!

Progress on the car was steady and decisions taken about roll bars, instrument mounts, etc. The body was a real pain and although it was made on the car and in one piece, when it was cut it would not fit anymore! Time was passing and although Saturday mornings were used to continue, there were just not enough hours in the day. With just a week to go, Dave of Marell kindly agreed to come into school to try and sort the speed controller (which he had repaired and reprogrammed) especially important was the current usage which we hoped would appear on the screen. This was finally sorted at about 9.15 just as the school was plunged into darkness after Open Evening. The bodyshell was sprayed up the next evening by Mr. H and Lewis and the decals applied on Thursday. With only a few small things to finish on the Friday, hopes were high that the car and gear could be taken and stored in one of the school’s outbuildings ready for collection on Sunday morning. Unfortunately when switching on the electronics for a final check, nothing worked! Some anxious telephoning to Dave did not sort the problem and he kindly agreed to come in for another Saturday morning to sort this out with Mr. H. (Mr. H passes him tools and makes the tea!) Some stray wires and blown fuses were the cause and were soon sorted. The car was taken up to be stored right on the 12 noon deadline for school to close for the weekend. We then decided that giving the car a run around the car park would be a good idea just to make sure everything was ready for the race. With no students around, (ahem Tom and James!) Dave sat on the side bars and proceeded to drive around. This was brilliant and everything was going fine until…. A shout, thump and crash as Dave ran into a kerb with the car! The speed controller had failed again. Working only with the tools we were taking to Goodwood as the school was closed, a relay and on/off push button were added. The cooling fan had also blown and a new one wired to 12v instead of the 24v of the original. This work was finished at 2.00pm.

The National Final

The gang met at 4.30 am ready for the long journey down to Goodwood Circuit on the south coast. This time we would be travelling in style thanks to Dr. Walton who very generously allowed us to hire a coach for the day. Graham the driver would be doing all the hard work! Miss Thompson and Miss Freeman took advantage of the space and wrapped in duvets, heads on pillows, jim jams on, and sleep masks in place, they immediately went to sleep, and Miss Freeman especially, would be on the Olympic sleeping team if there was one! The journey was extremely uneventful and after a couple of short stops we arrived at the circuit at approximately 10.30. After transferring our gear and car across the track on a trailer because the bus would not fit through the tunnel, we were ready for action……not! Some work that we were unable to do on Saturday (ahem again Tom and James!) needed to be done at the circuit.

This was mainly bleeding the brake which only took a couple of minutes. Mr Bolger and Matt also did a repair to the broken bodywork caused when the speed controller failed. With this done, we decided we would adjust the safety belts and Sarah our tallest driver was put in the car. She did not fit! Because of the late finishing of the car and using Tom with his short legs for our measurements, Sarah although only 2” taller had longer legs and she would just not fit in the car. Several things were tried including putting the links above the steering column but this only made the car turn right when steering left! Eventually by removing the seat back, side bars, ammeter and adjusting the brake cable, we got Sarah to fit. Right for scrutineering! Pulling the car backwards out of the garage highlighted another problem as the wheel rubbed against the body. An inspection the next day showed that the accident had bent the steering support bar but this was not noticed at the time! A longer screw was used in the steering stop and this cured this. The unfortunate thing was that all these modifications and repairs were taking time and as we were doing this the parade was called. A decision was made to miss the parade and get the car scrutineered ready to race. Again foiled again! The scrutineering bay was empty as the scrutineers thinking their day was over had gone to watch the parade!

Crag Rat was hurried onto the track at the very back of the parade but at least the guys got chance to show off the car and the fabulous fleeces that Miss Barrett had spent her free time embroidering.

Finally tracking down the scrutineers, Crag Rat was presented and after a nervous couple of minutes was passed to race. Just as the sticker was put on the car, the horn sounded for the race to get underway. As the race starts in waves and our grid was 17 rows back we still had time to get there! Pushing the car onto the track we found that someone had moved into our grid spot and subsequently we had been shuffled back to 71st position, the last one on the grid! Once the car is out on track, there is little that the watchers can do but wait for news of progress (or not!).

Expecting a steady climb through the field, imagine our shock, when with Tom driving, after the first lap, the car went past in 10th place!! A massive improvement of 61 places! Using our drivers in rotation was the fairest way of meeting with the rules and giving everyone a fair go. This seemed to be unlike some of our main rivals who did not seem to be stopping at all. I guess that they will have their conscience to live with as the less pitstops you do, the bigger advantage you gain! We seemed to be competing with ILMT tractor for the most improved car with no one else in the running.

Anyway back to the action! Crag Rat easily lasted the two hours on he first set of batteries. Running in 10th and 9th places it was always on the fringe of the top ten. I think that this is in some part due to the excellent hospitality provided by Miss Freeman and her superb trolley although it took some desperate pleading by the circuit announcer when it was not in the pit area at the correct time. The battery change although slow, started our second two hour stint. With some extremely good driving in the first two hours by Tom, David, Ryan (except for the chicane!) and Josh, it was now Sarah’s turn. With instructions to use a higher gear for more speed, Sarah was going to do a 45 minute stint. Some excellent and consistent laps saw us move into eighth place and consolidate our position of most improved. ILMT had now moved out of the top twenty and we knew that we would only need to be seven places higher than them to get the most improved. Sarah swapped with David and again a good and consistent 45 minute run saw us move into 7th place. Part of this was misfortune which befell our competitors but with Crag Rat not missing a beat, this was testament to the excellent engineering and design on the car by the guys, Mr Marriott and Mr Hutchinson. The final 30 minutes saw Tom back in the car. Listening to the commentary, we realised that we were on the same lap as the car coming fifth. With a little look we could easily catch them. Alas! It was not to be and indeed a couple of recovering cars went past us in the last ten minutes as our batteries started to fail.

Our final position of ninth (or was it eighth?) was our best result in a national final. We also did over a hundred miles which earned a silver award. The car was the best performing from the North and has achieved the highest mileage from a Northern car under the new F24 regulations. We are also delighted to say that we won the trophy for most improved gaining 46 places from our start number.

The coach was loaded in record time and a smooth ride home saw the happy but tired team arrive back in Knaresborough at 12.15. By the time parents had collected students, most of the teachers had been up for 22 hours (except for Miss Freeman who slept all the way home) Was it worth it? You betcha!

Loads of people are involved in KJS’s Greenpower Challenge attempt and I would like to thank them all for their help!

Our Sponsors

KJS

Pit Crew and Young Engineers

Drivers

Future plans? Watch this space!

Mr Hutchinson