Apprentices Finish the Year in Style!

The final for the Apprentices Soapbox Derby took place on 19th June 2005 – and what an event it turned out to be, with all entrants expertly and confidently negotiating the track, and the youngest team – Yahoo securing a trophy for 3rd place in the

Junior category, whilst Prodrive took the prize for the category of best presented car.

In the blistering heat of a June day, the members of all four teams turned up at the Mansel Lacy venue in Herefordshire; some the night before to check out the track, others bright and early Sunday morning. All, however, keen and eager to do the final tweaks to their carefully engineered Gravity Racers.
The competition was tough to say the least, with the car that would become the ultimate winner having onboard technology not out of place in an F1 car!

The four teams, all apprentices, had produced their very own individual Gravity Racers. All these cars were sponsored by the Learning and Skills Council from the Milton Keynes, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire regions, as part of a Skill and Marketing scheme for Apprentices.

A bit of background on the team entries will give you a flavour of the high standards the apprentices had set themselves.

Car no. 12 – LSC (Learning and Skills Council) Corporate Entry
Team: Rob, Dug, Dave, Alex
This car was built as a prototype for the skill and marketing programme in Oxford and Cherwell College, by the’ older’ apprentices. It looked fantastic and was beautifully engineered, so provided good act to follow.

Car No. 13 – Prodrive
Team: Mark, Adam, Tom Noble, Tom Hinton, Luke, Peter.
These cars was designed and built by apprentices at Prodrive in Banbury. Their main areas of focus for their apprenticeship are Fabrication, machine operator, electrician and race mechanics. All the work involved in completing this entry was done in their own time with some late nights sustained only by Pizzas.

Car no. 14 – Bicester Cove
Team: Zach, Darryl, Jason, Adam
This car was built by apprentices from different companies with the team members travelling from as far a field as Essex. Skills areas covering hydraulics, composites, Machining, Motorsport prep. All have the common link of Oxford and Cherwell College. Adjustable camber and toe in on all wheels being just one of the devilish plans to achieve a fast time

Car No. 15 – Yahoo

Young Apprentices ‘fettle their car between races’

Team: Mark, Tony & Frank
This car represents the future of apprenticeships as the team consisted of pre 16 year old students on a Young Apprenticeship course at Oxford and Cherwell College. As well as studying for GCSEs, along with any regular Year 10 students at school, these boys have opted to come to college for 2 days a week to do an NVQ leading to a level 2 in engineering. Whilst being an exciting and good fun project to have been involved in, it has given them some invaluable hands on experience in the field of engineering. If they hit problems with their design and build, they simply had to solve them, in order to stand any chance of being credible competitors on the day.

Programme of Events.
There were 24 teams competing in all, with a few late entries on the day. Of these 5 were Junior entries.
The Races were done in two stages - 10am and then again at 3.30pm. There were four rounds, so each team had the chance to improve their own team time with each run down.

Tony, one of the Young Apprentices in action

The two toughest parts of the course to negotiate, for all the competitors without exception, were around the tyre chicanes, situated at the top of the run and then again half way down. It was here that any weakness in either the design of the racer or the driver’s skill would become apparent. If you came down to fast, you were in danger of losing control and clipping a tyre. If you were too cautious, you would lose valuable time.

The first run down for all our teams was a very respectable one and the times gained, we were not unhappy with. Even so, you always look to improve, and as the racers were inspected in our pit areas, conversations were animated on planning tactics for the next go down.

Unlike some of the competitors, all the teams completed all the races, and whilst we didn’t make the fastest runs, we were certainly up there giving those that beat us, a good run for their money.

A great time was had by all. Gaining two prizes on our first attempt at this event, has only made us hungry for more. No point in the winning teams resting on their laurels; I think we will be back with a vengence next year.…. So watch out!