HPV NEWS

RACE TWO - "THE BEND"

The St Joseph’s College Human Powered Vehicle program wheeled back into gear after an 18 month layoff with the second round of the 2021 Australian Human Powered Vehicle Pedal Prix season at The Bend Motorsport near Tailem Bend, South Australia being its first event. Not only was this our team's first event since before Covid, it was also the first time that a Pedal Prix event had been held at this location. The teams raced for six hours on a 3.4km circuit that had hosted the V8 supercars only two weeks prior.

Competitors travelled to Tailem Bend on Saturday afternoon having completed six training sessions since the beginning of the year. There was a certain level of trepidation within the squad of 29 riders, with over half the students participating in their first ever event and the other half having not raced for a lengthy period of time. There were seven categories on the track on the day with racers consisting of students in Grade 5 through to professional talent I.D. programs making up the 181 competing vehicles. The college entered the Mallee Missile HPV for our Year 11 team in the S3 category, with Virtuous comprising students in Years 9 and 10 as well as Genesis with students in Years 7 and 8 competing in the S2 class with 49 other vehicles.

The day itself was fairly breezy and the 3.4km track length did prove hard to master for some. All three of our squads set a good pace early, maintaining strong speeds during each four lap stint. As energy levels dropped, there were some challenges however, the team in Virtuous showed that they will compete very well in this season's championship whilst the Genesis riders learnt the ropes of racing very quickly. The Mallee Missile team also started well and provided strong competition to those around them throughout the day.

The Virtuous crew were able to establish a strong position early and improve on it throughout the day to finish in a very credible eighth place out of the 49 vehicles in their S2 category for students in Years 8, 9 and 10. This is the first time that a college vehicle has placed in the top 10 in its category. The team placed in 66th position overall, in front of many vehicles with much older and more experienced squads than themselves. The Genesis team placed 38th in the same category and 146 overall, a great result for a team of first time racers that were the youngest in their class. The Mallee Missile team were able to scrape into the top 100 on the day with a 97th place finish and a respectable 26th in their class. Again they were the youngest group in their competition and hadn’t raced for over a year so they will definitely improve before the next competition.

Despite a late return time of 10:00pm and a few scrapes and bruises from the day, all riders finished happy and should be content with the effort they produced. A big thank you must go to the numerous families who supported on the day by cooking and preparing food as well as offering extra supervision, Mr John Fleming for organising the weekend and Ms Danielle Duscher and Mrs Jennifer Gibson for attending an event for the first time.

We also had the support of our 2021 sponsors for the first time with Magenta Accounting & Finance, DGM Excavations, Mildura Battery World, Mildura Locksmiths, LRT transport, WoW : Working on Within and Mildura Excavations all having the stickers displayed for the first time this season. Our next race will be a 12-hour event at The Bend on July 31 meaning there is plenty of time for training between now and then.

Mr Marcus Parker

Learning Pedagogy Leader