The last qualification race of the year was the Greater London heat, held at the Top Gear circuit, Dunsfold park. There was a substantial grid for both the F24 & F24+ races, so with a number of 'big name' schools present, we were not expecting a fantastic result. Team Fusion were debuting their new car, Rotary Racer had a new driver & The Pod Movement were mainly after driver experience in traffic.
As with this race last year, the drive down was foggy, but the forecast was good. The sun was shining well as the cars went through scrutineering & there was very little wind. Team Fusion had to perform some remedial work before getting through scrutineering, but managed to get out for a brief practice. Unfortunately, their practice ended with a steering problem, but Seaford College offered to take the car back to school & rebuild the steering. Both the Rotary Racer team & The Pod Movement had been testing batteries before the race & found them to be well down on capacity, so a good showing was looking even more in doubt.
For once, Y-Pod?! didn’t manage to get on the front row of the F24+ grid, so we were starting from the middle of the field. As we expected, ‘Simple Trug’ shot into a clear lead with Y-Pod?! soon half a lap behind, the rest of the field was strung out behind with only ‘Super Swoosh 3000’ in real contention. After a few laps, ‘Super Swoosh 3000’ came in with chain problems, so our second place was looking fairly secure. At the half way mark, Joe handed the car to Alex and things started to get a bit more interesting as ‘Super Swoosh 3000’ was now back out on the track & lapping fast. Given the state if our batteries, we were unable to make any impression on ‘Simple Trug’ who took a well deserved win, we managed to keep second, and maintain our joint 3rd position in the F24+ championship.
With a bit more planning, we managed to get both Rotary Racer & R-PodSssc on the front of the grid and as the flag fell, they both quickly pulled ahead of the field. Rotary Racer managed to pull past R-PodSssc on the main straight but some inspired driving by Issy, saw R-PodSssc re-take the lead before the end of the first lap. There then followed a tense half hour as both school cars repeatedly swapped the lead, taking it in turns to be held up with slower cars. After the first round of pit stops, R-PodSssc had managed to pull out a lead on Rotary Racer and that was how it remained for the mid portion of the race. Seaford College eventually returned with a repaired car for Team Fusion and they rejoined for the last hour of the race, by this time, the batteries on R-PodSssc were failing this allowed Rotary Racer to take the lead. Things were getting tense with several fast cars on the circuit & us wondering if R-PodSssc would make the end of the race, Team Fusion were lapping reliably and regularly overtaking R-PodSssc. Thanks to their sophisticated electronics, Rotary Racer had been able to conserve energy & were lapping steadily at the front.
As the race drew to a close, many cars on the circuit were slowing, Rotary Racer kept lapping steadily & took a well deserved first place, along with the fastest lap of the day, R-PodSssc managed to hold onto second, only missing out on the fastest lap of the day by a few fractions of a second. Despite only being on the track for a quarter of the race, Team Fusion achieved a reliable run with two cars behind them (including one from Seaford College) - with 7 teams not even managing to even make the race, it is a credit to Team Fusion.
In recognition of the assistance they gave, Seaford College were awarded the 'Spirit of Greenpower' award - an amazing effort to help the school – a big thanks from all of us.
