What a day! Team were super organised but nervous about the reintroduction of pit stops and driver changes. They absolutely smashed the pit changes with very little practise and nailed it every time.
Race one: All three cars got off well, safely and pushed hard. Keep up got off quickly and kept pushing and quickly moved up the ranks to the top 10. Chase kept up the pace and was not far behind. We reintroduced our third car for the first time in three years due to covid. And it was going really well but a driver issue caused the car to have to run through the pit for an extra time so we lost some time there.
Race two: We almost lost keep up when setting up the car with the new batteries ready for the race as a battery terminal was incorrectly fitted by a team member and caused our speed controller to melt and catch fire! Luckily we saved the wiring and we had a spare speed controller so the team got to work. An efficient change and race ready again with 20 minutes spare. Again a great start by all and some quick places made up. Keep up was flying and zoomed off. Chase and team spirit two were following closely. With the driver issue sorted for race 2 which allowed team spirit to fulfil its potential. Keep up got up to 1st place at one point but lost battery power quicker than expected. Some investigation needed here. Maybe more damage caused by fire than we thought?
Race results! 52 cars in our category:
Race 1
Keep up 6th 31.2 miles
Chase 7th 31.2 miles
Team spirit 2 13th 28.2 miles.
Race
Keep up 8th 35.08
Chase 5th 35.16
Team spirit 2 11th 32.73
So amazing position results overall but the most impressive thing is our race mileage. This is what counts. Our school personal best in the 10years I have been doing it was 33.6 miles. So to have two cars go over the 35mile mark and the third nearly match our previous record is incredible results. My prediction is that we need to get over 30miles this season to qualify for the national final. So potentially we may have all three cars in the final already!? Fingers crossed!