Race Report

With the new Greenpower season nearly upon us it was all systems go in order to ready our new car “Fireblade” in time for the first heat in Kent. With only a week to go Fireblade was still a bare chassis but some late nights and Saturday mornings from the team managed to get her ready for a short first run in the gymnasium at 8:00pm the night before the race! Fortunately, she ran perfectly – finished with 11 hours to spare! The plan for the Kent heat was always to run Franc N. for the full race and to take Fireblade for scrutineering and a few gentle shakedown laps.

The new race-team van was fully loaded with both cars and the minibus full to capacity for a pleasantly late start (by Greenpower standards!) to the trip down to Bayford Meadows karting circuit in Kent. Early rain and cloud quickly cleared to reveal a superbly sunny but breezy day that kept Franc N's solar panels very productive indeed! Back in May during the half term break we staged a mock race day with the team and Franc N – that practise certainly paid off as the team organised themselves very efficiently; getting Franc through scrutineering rapidly and in good time for the practise session. Meanwhile Fireblade was receiving plenty of admiring glances from the other teams before she went to her first scrutineering session – nervous times! After a few minor tweaks the scrutineers awarded Fireblade her all important sticker – success! Meanwhile Franc was out of track for practise to allow drivers old and new to familiarise themselves with the circuit and the particularly tricky narrow pit lane.

The start of the race was especially exciting with Franc N. on the front row and the full grid setting off at once instead of the usual row-by-row start. Although Franc was overtaken by the first corner we did lead for a few metres! The short circuit and large field made for some heavy congestion at times and there were a few close calls at some of the corners. The race was going and Franc running well so we sent Fireblade out for a few gentle shakedown laps - she ran so well we sent her out for some more! She quickly showed her potential in the hands of driver Ross and was soon lapping on the pace of the current leaders. Meanwhile Franc was running in 10th making scheduled stops for driver changes and a battery change just before half-way. Fireblade was involved an incident whilst avoiding another car which caused her to hit the tyre barriers but no damage was done to driver or car. As a result we decided to rest Fireblade for a while. Later in the race, once a few other cars had, unfortunately, stopped with blown motors and other problems the circuit was less busy so we put Fireblade back out again for some quick laps.

At the end of the 4 hour race, Franc had completed 195 laps and finished 11th - dropping a couple of places close to the end. We were awarded the IoM3 award for Innovative Use of Recycled Materials. Fireblade completed 89 laps in total and was awarded the trophy for fastest lap - an excellent sign for the future.

Read the official race report and see final standings on the Greenpower website:

• Greenpower Kent 2008 Race Report

Race Pictures