Kitcar International Finals

Posted: 18/10/2016

The following report comes from Mr Broadbent after 'The Chicken' Kitcar team took part in the International Finals over the weekend of 15th and 16th October 2016.  

Team Chicken have had an amazing season this year and have won six trophies in four races and dominated on the track, making them the team to beat at Rockingham during the World finals.

   

 Some 150 teams from all over the planet attended the races and were travelling in from as far away as Brazil, USA, Poland, Ireland, Scotland, Portugal and South Africa. This was going to be an awesome weekend of racing, and with high hopes, Team Chicken set out.

Saturday was the Kitcar International Finals and the Bromsgrove team were on the front row of the grid with well over thirty Kitcars behind them, all looking straight at Aled wearing the mascot chicken costume as he held the car and driver steady on the starting line. When the flag came down, the race started and we all waited for the cars return after the first busy lap. It did so in true fashion and we settled in for a long race. Two perfect pits and reasonable weather meant we were consistently in 4th place around the circuit and that’s how it stayed by the end of the race, just missing out on a podium place by ¾ of a mile in distance. The other three teams above us must have pushed as hard as possible to get the distance and beat us to the top spots but this did not deter us from making sure this did not happen again at the F24 World Finals on the Sunday.

Sunday arrived and although a touch deflated about almost breaking into the top three on the previous day, we knew that this was the day we needed to get things right as we raced against eighty other teams for next years seeded rank and to become the furthest Kitcar in F24 history (which currently stood at 33.8 miles in one and a half hours).

Race one started in torrential rain and as Aled pushed the car off the grid line soaked, we settled into a difficult race with poor visibility, and with seventy-nine other cars being driven by 12-16 year old students competitively, this meant the first few laps would be hard on our drivers. The racers spread out as the race progressed and the weather stopped as quickly as it had started. We made our usual two faultless pit stops before completing the race in the top forty overall and 4th fastest Kitcar…again!

Drastic measures called for ‘madrastic’ action and the team worked tirelessly to put a faster sprocket onto the motor in order to push for the extra mile we needed. In Race 1 we completed 33.8 miles, and with a quicker cog we may have had a chance. However, this would mean that the batteries would drain faster so to help with this we pulled out our secret weapon… Trumeter’s Ammeter. Along with varying the speed depending on the reading from the meter, we would be able to slow if needed so that we could just use up the batteries without over doing it on the hill or against the wind and then accelerate to victory with the rest of the course.

 Race 2 started and with our fastest and lightest drivers in and the tech now working flawlessly, we started in a positive manner pulling away from all the other Kitcars by some margin. After the first few laps we were way ahead and needed good pit stops and perfect use of the tech in order to keep it up. Both pit stops were fast and calculated and as we remained at the top of our category, we noticed that the car was slowing during the last third of the race by a second a lap which didn’t bode well for our standings. However other cars were dropping harder and falling behind and as the race progressed we climbed from 42nd to 27th and eventually won the Kitcar category for this race with over 34 miles and beating the current record….it was now up to the exact distance of the other cars to see if we had won the Kitcar category. We were 0.06 miles behind the race leaders (their best time was from race 1) and so we came a very respectable 2nd fastest Kitcar in the world and 27th overall out of approximately 300 other teams moving from 49th to a new 27th position in the standings.

I would like to thank the following for the driving, engineering, commitment and efforts throughout this season: Mr Matthews, Aled Luckman, Ellie Chan, Will Edwards, Tristan Stephen-Jones, Sam McCabe, Alek Florov, Scarlett Bond, Harry Fussell and Champion Pongpaew who brought home yet another trophy for design technology and a good handful of medals too.

Could I also thank this year’s sponsors Gorilla Glue UK, Digital Speedos.co.uk, Trumeter, BAL Aluminium and Bay Plastics. The hunt for next year’s sponsors of our TWO race cars 'The Chicken' and new car 'The Egg' begins.