The 24 Hours of Shenington by Marini of the Belgian HPV union
Meanwhile, we're already for the third edition of the 24 Hours of Shenington. Yep the connoisseurs among you know that this is not about recumbents.... This article is about the other low-flyers, pedalcars. When you visit the site of the BPCC (http://pedal carracing.info) you see that it's about gocarts and yes, the British have set up a whole organization for these pedal cars. Familiar faces from recumbents come along here too, so the world of recumbents is not far away. Gocarts, although some vehicles are not even worth the name of a gocart. The top teams do have pedalcars with them. We have already experienced this in previous editions. So we travelled back to England again with a team of students led by three teachers. The pedal car was made last year and, proudly said, is quite sophisticated. Front suspension with two McPersons in own design, rear suspension directly on the rear axle by two tennis balls, full aluminium chassis, tank steering, short crankarms, a chain line with only one roller in each direction. The rear suspension
is a real top suspension, by the way. A rear axle with double freewheel so that the slowest wheel is driven, no spinning rear wheels for us. Sliding seat about 18 cm. A Biplex Streamline, light and strong and above all easy to make. Because we used our vehicle from last year again we were able to optimize this time, so the whole powertrain is renewed and simpler with only one pulley, the streamline is narrowed and also lowered by the shorter cranks. In short, we have made ourselves happy with the encryption of just about everything. Especially the centre of gravity got a lot of attention because at the first edition we were overturned twice and the last time almost. With a ground clearance of 2 cm this is now a thing of the past. First shifting before tilting gives a better feeling. But that doesn't mean that 24 hours does not require some preparation. Spare wheels, tires, tools, drinks and food for an army of adolescents and lots of screws and nuts. The latter sometimes want to disappear without a trace. Do you want an endurance test to the extreme? Then do a 24 hours....
Friday morning 8 o'clock the time has come, everyone is pleasantly nervous. All children have an A-certificate so it is their very last trip with school. While all other students of the school have definitively left school, we go on a school trip, it remains special. When everything is loaded we drive with the van and my car and trailer to Calais. I effortlessly cross the border but like every year our bus has to be pulled over, I think the English are afraid that there is a stowaway. It turns out that the identity card of the Russian in our company's is not in order. By dawdling for a long time and not understanding English they finally let us go, including our Russian. After a couple of pauses we finally arrive in Shenington. Because we are early the cart circuit is not open yet. So we put up our tents. When we finally get to test drive everyone is enthusiastic, this is more fun than expected and the
Eggs the English way.
20
2019-2
