The Last race of the season was the F24 and F35 National Final at Goodwood Motor Circuit, Chichester on Sunday 14 Oct. We started with R-PodS is in 8th position, Rotary Racer at 9th, and Team Fusion at 54th.
We persuaded the organizers to let us take C-Pod to show off in the display so once again we had four cars present at the final.
The F35/Streamliner race was well supported & team R-Pod had made a ‘bubble’ for R-PodS (using Rotary Racer’s broken canopy from last year). Despite a slow start, R-PodS was in third place when it failed to appear on the pit straight as expected. We heard over the marshals’ radios that there had been a collision on the far side of the circuit. It turned out that Ruby had clipped the front of R-PodS when overtaking & spun in front of the car, Ruby was out of the race but to our amazement, R-PodS was totally unscathed. We were expecting to have to straighten the car out but it continued & held onto an exciting second place.
The main F24 race was uneventful, R-Pods was lying in a steady 6th place with Rotary Racer not far behind. Team Fusion had overheating motor problems & despite a frantic motor change with R-PodS spare motor they were forced to retire and accept last place. Rotary Racer were struggling with intermittent power switch problems but managed to keep going & move up to 8th place. R-PodS was going well until one of the pit crew spotted that the car had been moved to top gear, dramatically increasing the current draw. It took several laps before we could bring the car in & sort out the problem, by which time we had used far too much energy & had to conserve all we could, coasting as much as possible. We struggled on & managed to keep hold of 10th place which was remarkable considering how slow we were going at the end.
