Country Kit & Classic Car Hire
The Scrapheap Roadshow Challenge
Presenters Robert Llewellyn & Lisa Rogers
Having been an avid fan of the television series Scrapheap Challenge for many years the opportunity to take part in one of their programmes was irresistible.
Myself and a couple of friends decided to pick up the gauntlet and sent in a design for "juice free dragster".
In order to meet their challenge we had to create a vehicle that could travel 100 metres and only be powered by human endeavour or using natural resources. In other words no engines allowed! Don't forget this is the age of the carbon footprint!
After
weeks of waiting the call came through and our design was accepted. So
armed with pen and paper and lots of thinking juice often referred to as
beer we drew up our list of parts and spoke softly to our favourite
scrapyard owner Mr Kevin Ransome of Ransome & Sons.
Our
design was based on using 3 bikes and by remodelling their frames
creating a human powered four wheel dragster.
Furthermore by taking our cue from Formula 1 we would create a
pre-launch system that would provide the car with thrust from a standing
start to provide a quick get away.
The pre-launcher was loosely based around the principles used in creating super soakers.
Our team were first secretly filmed foraging around the scrapyard and
during the building of our machine and then at the local White Horse
Beauty Spot near Westbury which was a bit traumatic when a coach party
arrived and disrupted everything!
Then finally on the day of the race where the
reality of filming and the magic of television certainly took on a whole
new meaning!
It was great day not only did we meet all our tv heroes but to see all the different machines and the many ideas we had discussed and dismissed for one reason or another being put into practice mainly due to cost wow! there were some big budgets out there!
Competing against 16 other teams for the chance to race the All Stars we finished 9th overall and were disappointed not progress further due to a bent crank! However for those of you who were brave enough to ride our machine later in the day we salute you!
Our
thanks goes to the whole Scrapheap Team you are all superstars in
our eyes and it was a real pleasure to meet you all.
Additionally, well done to all the teams that took
part we applaud you all.
Finally a special thank you to Kevin Ransome and to Trevor Bayliss the inventor of the clockwork radio who kindly lent us his footpump from the back of his e- type jaguar.
If you would like further information on hiring one of our cars please contact us
on: 01373 827812 or by email: