Unusually for this particular heat, the school was only represented by team R-Pod, with the cars "Y-Pod?" and "R-PodS" competing in F24+ & F24 respectively. The only change to "Y-Pod?" was to fit a 'Watts-up' device to the car so we now knew what current we were drawing, "R-PodS" was virtually untouched since Castle Combe.
We passed through scrutineering with no problems & quickly ran "Y-Pod?" up & down to make sure the 'Watts-up' meter was working properly - all was well & we were confident of a good result. Our confidence was soon shattered as the cars pulled away for the F24+ race - "Y-Pod?" was left trailing well behind with no power. We pulled the car to one side & all seemed well so we started off again, only to grind to a halt a bit further down the track. After recovering the car, we found that a set-screw had come loose & a sprocket on the lay shaft was just free-spinning.... it was easily fixed but the recovery had cost us 30 minutes of the 1.5hr race & put us into last place. Once the car was back on the track, Alex set about catching up but despite consistently putting in fastest lap times, & overhauling 3 cars, we only managed to pull back to 6th place. If we had managed to fix the car only slightly earlier, we would have managed another lap & 3rd would have been possible.... if only......
The F24 race was quickly underway & soon settled down to a text-box event with pit-stops flowing smoothly and drivers settling into a steady rhythm. We were half way into the last hour & about to change to a new set of batteries that would easily get us to the end of the race when it all went wrong. The car pulled into the pits too close to the wall so the battery trolleys couldn't be used - in the confusion, the battery connector wasn't fully pushed home - the car started off well but stopped at the bottom of the pit straight. The recovery crew did an excellent job in getting the car back quickly (thanks guys) and we were soon back on the track for the remaining few minutes of the race. After this drama, we were staggered to have equalled our corporate challenge mileage and qualified as the top Chipping Sodbury school car in 8th place.
All of the Chipping Sodbury teams had high hopes for the castle combe heat, Rotary Racer had made improvements to their car and were hoping to improve on their season opener mileage, Team R-Pod would be debuting their new F24+ car (the school’s first) called Y-Pod?, while at the same time hoping to re-live the success they had with R-PodS at the season opener, Team Fusion had got the bodywork finished on their new car, so were hoping for a good race, and the brand new team, Wacky Racers, were looking forward to their first race, and hoping they would do well.
After scrutineering, most of the sodbury cars went out onto track for practise. Team R-Pod sent out the new Y-Pod?, as it had only been finished at 10:20pm the night before there hadn’t been a chance to test it, so they were very relieved to see it speed back into view after managing it’s first lap.
At 11:00am the first ever F24+ championship round commenced, and as the cars left the start line, Y-Pod? managed to pull into first place and hold it for most of the first lap until TSR-4+ over took it on the main straight. Y-Pod? and TSR-4+ then swapped between 1st and 2nd place for most of the race until the clot driving Y-Pod? messed it all up. The driver changed up a gear going down the main straight and heard a painful crunching noise from the back, so slid off the track, looked inside, only to find that it was all fine and that the chain hadn’t come off. After managing to get going again, Y-Pod? ended up with second place – not bad for car that two weeks before the race was a bare steel chassis! Bring on the next round!
After the marshals had had a half hour tea break, the F24 race could start. The four top spots were swapped around between four cars for most of the race, Rotary Racer, R-PodS, Turbo Tortoise, and Brian. At one point, nearing the end of the race, Rotary Racer was in 1st with R-PodS in 2nd, so it looked like chipping sodbury might be on to a 1,2 finish, unfortunately it was not to be. R-PodS’s batteries died at the end of the race dropping it down to 4th place. Rotary Racer kept hold of their 1st place though, and pulled through to win with a two lap lead over 2nd and 3rd place. This win also meant that they could keep hold of the ‘Renishaw Best Gloucestershire Car Award’ for the third year running.
Despite spending some time in the paddock, Wacky Racer did well in their first race and achieved 16th place and 53 miles. Team Fusion got 23rd place and, coincidently, the same mileage as Y-Pod?
After already getting three ‘position based’ awards, all the teams were delighted when the four teams were awarded, jointly, the best presented team award, and team R-Pod was awarded the best engineered car for R-PodS. All in all a very successful day!
