Jan
13

National Pedal Car Olympics 2014

Author // Gadget
Posted in // Scouts

Rain, sun, temperature at -3, frost & mud up to your knees, it must be the 2nd weekend in January!

Yes it was that time of year again when we head off to Thriftwood Campsite for the National Pedal Car Olympics. In the last 3 years we have taken 3rd, 1st and 1st. How would our 4 Teams of Scouts get on this year? Colin at Thriftwood had promised us a Trophy if we won 3 years in a row (our Scouts reminded him at every given opportunity!).

We eventually left Friday evening (I’m sure Point 5 operates in a different time zone!) and as we arrived at Thriftwood the rain started, we had our evening meal then back to the site to put the tents up. It was up early Saturday morning as breakfast was at 7:30 and the races started at 9 o’clock. The rain stopped and the sky cleared in time for the first events. It was the usual format of the 9 races over the course of the weekend. All four teams had a good split this year and had 6 on Saturday and the other 3 Sunday morning.

This years event was made a lot harder by all the recent rain we have had. The Sprint, Relay and Pursuit courses were a lot muddier than normal and the Endurance course was the worse we have ever seen it. Unfortunately the girls team had the Endurance race on the Sunday by which time it was a total wreck. It’s all character building!

By the time we went to bed Saturday night the temperature had dropped due to the clear skies and the ground and tents were covered in a thick layer of frost. Sunday morning the reading in the car was -3. Well done Scouts we don’t recall anyone getting up saying they had been freezing cold all night (apart from Twitch), must have been the layers of mud they were covered in acting as insulation.

With all the races over there were just the 2 finals to go for the Individual and Pursuit races. Joe had made it through to the Pursuit finals (top 16) but was beaten in the first round having clipped the corner of the track. It was then on to the presentations with awards given for the individual and team places for each event before the overall Team results. Joe took 3rd place in the Endurance race. It was then time for the overall team results, how had we done?

Team Bravo – Joe, Jacob, Sam & Will took a brilliant 2nd place, so Colin got away without having to buy us a trophy, we’ll be back for it next year!

Results below, this year there were 59 Scout Teams:

Team Alpha – Jasmin, Lauren, Geena & Olivia – 14th Place

Team Bravo – Joe, Jacob, Sam & Will – 2nd Place

Team Charlie – George, Shaun, Ned & Oliver – 32nd Place

Team Delta – Presley, Tobin, Niamh & Jack – 47th Place

It wouldn’t happen without the amazing bunch of people at Thriftwood, so a huge thank you to Colin and his crew and all those in Doris & Dave’s Diner for the catering all weekend.

Well done to all the Scouts, we are proud of all of you. When not racing they all supported each other, we even had comments from Thriftwood that everywhere you went all you could hear was 14th Broadstairs being screamed.

On behalf of all the Leaders, thank you Scouts for a great weekend. Bring on 2015!

We had a problem with the mount for the video camera but have managed to salvage a few bits, we’ll put them up later

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Below are a few pictures, managed to get it down from the 839 we had taken!

Comments (2)

  • geena
    January 7, 2015 at 7:28 PM |

    Can’t wait for this year!!!:-)

  • olivia
    January 24, 2014 at 12:38 PM |

    it was great also it was sooo mudy i bearly move !

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