"Try to meet all with peace and ease." Catherine McAuley

HUMAN POWERED VEHICLE PROGRAM

HPV

Darcy Noonan was the fastest student in the Australian Super Series 24-hour race at Murray Bridge in South Australia. This an outstanding effort for our Year 11 student, who is also one of 2024's College Vice Captains.

 

Only two cars were faster than Darcy, and they were in the 'open' category. Darcy’s time was even faster than last year's open winner.

 

Outstanding effort, Darcy!

 

The College Human Powered Vehicle team competed in the 24 hour race at Murray Bridge on 16 and 17 September. This was the 25th anniversary of this event taking place in Murray Bridge, and with 152 teams competing on a 1.71kilometer circuit, it is fair to say that there was always plenty happening. The college entered four teams in this year's event: the Mallee Missile in the S3 (Years 10–12) class mixed, Resilience in S2 (Years 7–9) mixed and Virtuous and the Sunraysia Star in S2 open categories.

 

It was a warm weekend with temperatures in the mid to high 20s on the Saturday and reaching 30 degrees by the Sunday. This made for some fast racing, and all four of our teams acquitted themselves very well. Below is a quick snapshot of our overall results:

  • Darcy Noonan – Fastest lap of an S3 rider (Years 10–12) in the top 15 shootout. 1:52:4 seconds (average speed 54.7kmh)
  • Darcy Noonan – Fastest lap in race S3 Mixed (Years 10–12) – 2:03:790.
  • Mallee Missile – Winning team (Darcy Noonan, Ethan Gibson, Jack Pollard, Arnold McCoy, Willow Dimasi, Emmalee Beggs, Ruby Burns, Alaura Cooksley) S3 Mixed. 443 laps (757 kilometers)
  • Jett Johnson – Fastest lap in race S2 (Years 7–9) – 2:08.053
  • Resilience – Winning team (Heidi Gibson, Anastasia Mercieca, Charlize Paterson, Lilliana Bertalli, Leo Nicholson, Jett Johnson, Riley Cox, Isaiah Faulkhead) in S2 Mixed (Years 7–9). 491 laps (839 kilometers)
  • Resilience – 3rd place overall in S2 category.
  • Virtuous (Dylan Zudetich, Luke Burns, Ananthu Dinkar, Cameron Brown, Tyler Montebello, Giorgio Ribarits, Andrea Dang, Sienna Rule) – 16th/44 teams in S2. 425 laps (726 kilometers)
  • Sunraysia Star (Ella Chessells, Grace Willcock, Amelie Gibson, Lexie Paterson, Maggie Parker, Tobias Floramo, Cooper Milton, Xavier Nicholas, Cameron Beggs, Lincoln Mercieca) – 32/44 teams in S2. 364 laps (622 kilometers)

A big thank-you to John Fleming for organising the human powered vehicles, the tents, and the equipment for when we were away. Thanks to Jennifer Gibson and Teresa Hagen for supervising students during the trip, the canteen ladies for the wonderful food we ate all weekend, Daniel Loveridge for driving the college bus over, and the families who came and helped during the weekend as well as former student and participant Airlie Arnold who acted as squad coach for the weekend.

 

The next and final event will be at Maryborough on 25–28 November, and preparations for this will start soon. We will be entering three teams into this event and look forward to further success.

 

Mr Marcus Parker