A midweek trip to Aintree for this year's Greenpower Races on Wednesday 25th September. The Greenpower Education Trust is a UK based charity which gets young people enthusiastic about science and engineering by challenging them to design, build and race an electric car. The Greenpower challenge uses the excitement of motorsport to inspire young people to excel in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (the STEM subjects).
Each September Aintree is the northwest venue for their race programme, which sees 90 minutes of practise, followed by a 90 minute race for the 11-16 year olds (IET Formula 24), a midday 60 minute race for the 16-25 year olds (IET Formula 24+) followed a second 90 minute race for the younger competitors. Whilst all cars use the same motor and battery packs, the teams use their ingenuity to create custom built bodies, within strict built requirements, although for those teams just starting out a standard kit build is available.
The participants at the Aintree heat are predominately from the North West, although teams from other parts of the country, and indeed overseas, travel to the Merseyside circuit with competitors in the F24+ race hailing from Portugal, Poland and even a team from Argentina. Not the first time Argentina has been represented on the Aintree Circuit of course, as the great Juan Manuel Fangio did battle in the Formula 1 races of the 50s and 60s, albeit with a few more horses under his bonnet.
Volunteers are in great demand for the event as Scrutineering is a busy part of the set up in the morning, and then cars have to be pushed safely around the paddock and onto the starting grid. Companies such as Siemens (the main sponsor) provide personnel to help on the day, and my own company Amey provided 6 staff members on their annual Community Involvement Day to assist with the smooth running of the event.
Heavy rain the previous day had left a lot of debris on the track so 4 of us headed to Bechers armed with brushes and spent an hour clearing stones and grass from the roadway. Then it was time for the marshals briefing and then to get into position to allow practice to get underway. I left my work colleagues carrying out scrutineering and I headed to Bechers Out, my marshalling spot for the day.
One aspect of these electric races is the batteries do tend to die towards the end of each session, so you get a steady stream of cars slowing to a halt and needing to be picked up by the two recovery trailers being driven by John Hardon and Phil Howarth. For most of the sessions though the cars are giving a good account of themselves,with 30+ mph laps not uncommon for the more aerodynamic cars. Other mechanical troubles show themselves too with bodywork failures, lose connections or punctures causing a swift recovery back to the paddock and the awaiting mechanics.
At Bechers you are in prime spot to see some good and close, occasionally a bit too close, racing (yes we do report failures of driving standards), and I doubt even back in the 1950s you had cars entering the railway straight 4 abreast!
This year we had 34 cars in the F24 races and 9 cars competing in the F24+. The number of drivers was much higher as although the F24+ race has one driver in each car for the entire race, in the F24 class drivers must swap over after 30 minutes so you have 3 drivers for each car. Some team even had different drivers for the afternoon race.
Sandbach High School were the winners of both F24 races again this year In Race 1 their car #2 "Mr Basil Slicker" averaging 27.9mph measured over 27 laps (with a fastest lap recorded at 33.1mph) indeed the top 8 cars all averaged lap speeds in excess of 20mph. In the afternoon Race 2 they managed to get in an additional lap, although their average speed over 28 laps was identical to their morning performance of 27.9mph. Consistency from the Cheshire team.
In the F24+ class, Team Bird GP in their Car #506 "Firebird" were victorious with an average lap speed of 35mph measured over 23 laps (fastest lap 35.8mph). Indeed 6 of the 9 competitors were lapping in excess of 30 mph over the whole hour.
The enthusiasm of the participating children is fantastic to see, and I'm sure some will have been bitten by the racing bug, as well the engineering and design aspect of the sport, and you never know perhaps a future Formula E champion was in our midst.
Sean Robertson
Liverpool Motor Club
