My particular interest is Greenpower electric racing for schools.  Our church approached our local school to see if they were interested in getting involved.  They were, and we designed and built our first electric racer in 2003.  I always wanted to do some motorsport myself but lack of funds always stopped my plans.
 I now find myself team owner/designer of a prototype single-seat endurance racer in a national series.  If anyone in CIM wants to get involved in an excellent motorsport/engineering 'detached youthwork' opportunity I can recommend Greenpower.  By the end of the 2005 season we will have two cars (one in F24 and one in F35) with a team membership of 24 young people + a considerable support team of parents.

I think motorsport often gets a bad press as it is considered 'less than environmentally friendly' - I prefer to view my motoring interest as a pursuit of engineering efficiency.  Motorsport should be the best place to develop efficient technologies for the future.  If anyone is interested in getting involved and using their motorsport/engineering skills to work with their local school take a look at Greenpower.  It would be great to have a group of Christian teams within the Greenpower community.  I'm happy to tell anyone how we went about our team/car development, tips, materials etc.....

I've attached 2 pictures of 'Team Barracuda's' car at Goodwood in the 2004 final where we started a lowly 50th and surged through the field to come in 5th netting us the 'Most Improved Car Award'.  Not bad from a grid of 76 - at one point we ran as high as 3rd.  We covered 148.8 miles in six hours - five pit stops for battery/driver changes - six drivers.  240w (0.3hp cont. 0.9hp peak) 24v wheelchair motor + 4 car batteries (2 on car, 2 on charge) motor + batteries standard supplied by Greenpower - top speed so far 37.2mph.  Top car is doing 45mph on same spec. - we are hoping to close the gap in 2005.

 After competing in the 'Race of Champions' 1 May, our car is going to be upgraded to the  Formula 35 - 16+ age drivers + pit crew 530w motor (0.7hp cont. 1.9hp peak). Our second car will be a new one for Formula 24 and our existing under 16 team.

 Anyone interested?  Check out the specifications on the Greenpower web site......

Regards,
  Andrew Bradley