The Chicken Races Again

Posted: 19/09/2017

On Sunday, 17th September, Bromsgrove's GreenPower team attended their final heat at Castle Combe in Wiltshire to test and improve on what has already been an excellent season. This was the last time to fully test the car before the remarkable finals at Rockingham next month on the 7th and 8th of October.

With an already guaranteed place in the finals for both days (Kitcar/F24 finals), and a current standing of first Kitcar and 15th place overall, the day was reserved for trying out some new strategies.

Race one saw the team put their smallest members of the team into the car on the usual gear strategy but were surprised that one of their rivals beat them by approximately a lap. When the car came in we saw that the driven cog had worked its way loose and was on the verge of falling off. Lunch for Team Chicken was fraught with fixing the problem and upgrading to the next gear system, which is something we would never thought of about doing two years ago. The part in question was the almost legendary 18 tooth drive cog we had made four years ago…just in case! With this is mind, staff suggested the smallest drivers using the computer to measure the current draw but the team decided that the seniors, who were both heavier and taller by quite some margin, had a go. 



Race two got underway and already the car was much faster and after a few laps, Team Chicken were top Kitcar and moving slowly through the field. Two faultless pit stops saw us move higher up the standings but over the last two laps the second place Kitcar started to gain on us. With approximately three laps to go, Bromsgrove were a minute ahead; two laps to go fell to 30 seconds ahead, and then on the last lap when our students started celebrating prematurely, we were passed as our car slowed down on the last two bends leaving us in second place by 18 seconds and 0.11 miles behind.

This proved to us that the car will last on this gear ratio with smaller drivers and hopefully lulled the rest of the other teams at Castle Combe into a false sense of security because we know we have more to play with.



Well done to the team for being outstanding drivers and behaving so impeccably on the day:

Will Edwards, Scarlett Bond, Alek Florov, Hamish Sutherland, Luke Weller, Lucy Jenkins, Francesca McCaig and Ellie Chan. I would also like to thank an unsung hero who has been helping the team rebuild broken car parts and with general maintenance for the past three years without a mention; Tristan Stephens-Jones, a brilliant, hardworking member of the team.

Thank you to our sponsors who have not heard from us over the summer due to the quiet period, and who have helped keep the car cool and together over the past two seasons: BAL Aluminium, Gorilla Glue UK, Speed Cycles, Digitalspeedos.co.uk, Trumeter and 4QD.

With the finals just around the corner on the 8th and 9th of October, parents, staff and pupils are invited to attend Rockingham (if in the area at that time - Corby, Northampton). For more details please visit the Greenpower website and look in the events section or contact Steve Broadbent in ADT.