Hammertime takes first place at the Hydrogen Grand Prix world qualifier. Pictured are Koby Lee, Cameron Sneddon and Jackson Betts.
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Three teenagers have booked themselves a place in an international competition after sweeping the field at a recent Australia-wide endurance race.
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Team ‘Hammertime’, led by Jackson Betts with drivers Cameron Sneddon and Koby Lee, beat their nearest competitor by a margin of 60 laps at the recent Hydrogen Grand Prix World Qualifier in Melbourne.
With an achievement of 445 laps across the four-hour endurance race, the three Cobram Secondary College students have the chance to represent Victoria at the upcoming H2GP World Finals in Germany.
“I’m incredibly proud. When they actually pulled out the flag at the end of the race, I was wiping away tears,” teacher and mentor Randall Jones told The Courier.
Sixteen teams, including Hammertime and another from Cobram, called Hydro Storm, took part in the race, which saw 1:20 scale cars fuelled by hydrogen race around a circuit.
After months of commitment and dedication, Hammertime had learned its lessons from a disappointing performance at last year’s world qualifier.
“The debrief for their performance last year established what their goals were for this year — which was to improve the number of laps they could achieve, better utilise their energy consumption, and if they pulled that off, they might actually have a crack at it,” Mr Jones said.
Hydro Storm, also from Cobram Secondary College, did well to finish in ninth place.
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Each team was given 18 hydrogen sticks and three batteries to last the entirety of the four-hour race.
“When our students still had one unused battery and two hydrogen sticks with an hour to go, that was just absolutely remarkable,” Mr Jones said.
“They’d executed their race strategy beautifully.”
As part of the race, teachers and mentors were not permitted to give advice or feedback to the students.
To give them time to prepare for the world stage, organisers have allowed Jackson, Cameron and Koby to enter next year’s world final in Switzerland.
Just one of the students has been overseas before.
Major sponsors Saputo, Swinburne University and KIOSC supported the Cobram teams.
“This is just one of the remarkable opportunities that is going to open up the world to these kids from a small country college,” Mr Jones said.
“We’re incredibly grateful to our sponsors who have come on to support us.”
It comes as fellow CSC students Adithi Gurunathan and Taylar Knight head to the UK to take part in the London International Youth Science Forum.
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