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2023 Northwest Regional Finals

February 2, 2024
By Georgia

SMCC Racing teams compete at the North West Regionals Finals for the second year running.

On the 30th of January the SMCC Racing group had an amazing opportunity to enter the north west regionals final at bolton university. At this competition both Carbon Fury and Phantom (the SMCC Racing teams consisting of year 9 and 10 students) competed agianst 32 other teams .These teams from were not only made up of high-school students but primary, 6th form colleges and universities; which shows the talent and vast majority the programme of F1 in Schools attracts.

When we first arrived we were welcomed to where our teams had to set up their Pit Display. Each team had their own pit display which detailed everything about their team such as: sponsors; team members roles; car designs; and more. Each team had their own examples of pit displays and how they presented their designs. After every team had set up and submitted their cars we were called to the introduction in which they told us the schedule of the day and what each activity included .They also had set up a simulation (an F1 simulation racing track were the person simulated being an F1 driver) and reaction times.

The teams were expected to do a series of presentations including design and engineering where they have to explain their car design and why they chose to design their car the way they did. Enterprise presentation where the teams explained how they fundraised and their project management approach. Brand awareness- shareing how they got publicity and what their sponsors. But the main activity for the day, was racing cars. Each team selected a ‘driver’ based on their reaction times on the practice reaction time simulator. Carbon Fury ended 3rd for Fastest Car and 2nd for Total Time (includes reactiont time).

Finally the teams were evaluated on a verbal presentation about everything in their team from sponsors to any issues with the car. This was followed by the awards ceremony, presenting awards such as Best Engineered Car, Fastest Car, Judges Award, Final Ranking (1, 2, 3) and others. There was even a suprise that the top team in each classification was given an actual used F1 racing helmet to put on display. Carbon Fury and Phantom did not win any awards this year, although Carbon Fury were nominees in the best Verbal Presentation category. SMCC Racing will now take a short break before looking towards next season, with some new year 8 and 9 teams joining the program.

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