News & Events

Greenpower Corporate Challenge

26 April 2010

The last weekend of April saw three teams from Thurso High School travelling the 728 miles from Thurso to Goodwood Race track for the Greenpower Corporate Challenge. As a sponsor of one of the electric cars that Thurso High School students have built and race, Nuvia was invited to enter the Corporate Challenge to compete against the top 15 schools from last year’s finals and other corporate sponsors such as Bentley and Jaguar Land Rover.

Formal racing commenced with a 90 minute session opener for the schools. The race attracted 24 entrants including all three of the Thurso cars who finished in 6th, 9th and 16th place.

After a very quick change of batteries it was time for the 4 hour Corporate Challenge endurance race. Nuvia’s representatives were Operations Director, Ken Robertson and Thurso-based Project Manager, Paul Stewart. There were 30 entrants in all including a team from a Polish university who had only travelled 50 miles more than the Thurso team!

The Nuvia sponsored Roadrunner was going well until the first change of driver, where Paul Stewart took over and promptly had a power failure at the first corner and had to wait for the recovery trailer to get back to the pits. The Thurso student pit team set to work on the car and got Paul back out on the track as quickly as they could. Paul continued racing for the next 40 minutes before coming into the pits for new batteries and a change over to Ken Robertson who, in his 40 or so minutes managed to work his way back into contention after the initial setback had seen them at the back of the field. Ken came in for the final change over to the experienced Thurso School drivers who brought the car home in 21st place only two places behind the Jaguar Land Rover team!

Though slightly disappointed with the finishing position everyone agreed that it had been a great day. Both Ken and Paul were really impressed by the dedication of all the pupils and support staff involved, by the pupils’ knowledge of the cars and their ability to get them going again when problems occurred.

Photo: The Thurso High School teams with Paul and Ken and their cars

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