A team of budding Jenson Buttons and Lewis Hamiltons from Mylor School walked away from last week’s Greenpower electric car races triumphant after seeing off competition from around 60 other, mainly larger, schools from across the South West.

It was the third year that year six pupils from Mylor had entered the competition held at Newquay Airport and although they had previously won the slalom race and portfolio award, they had never taken the top prize – until now.

Last week, the team of 22 – 18 of whom were drivers with four pit crew – won not only the slalom, but were also named the best presented team and took the overall winners’ prize.

The electric car races are championed by the Greenpower Education Trust, whose Vaughan Curnow worked with the children at Mylor. The school had bought the two car kits three years ago and each year a new team of youngsters build and decorate them. This year they had the help of parents Mark Hewitt, Peter Gulley, Richard Keefe, Luke Hallam, Alan Cottle and Dave Curnow.

Once the cars were built, the rest of the class then designed how they wanted the bodywork to look and with the help of a lot of bottletops, they came up with two designs.

“We competed really well in all the races on the day,” said teacher Andrew Martin. “We are only a small school, but we were well prepared having done a lot of trials on the playground, and we were also very lucky with the parents’ help, we couldn’t have done it without them.

“The children are very motivated, very competitive and work very well as a team – it really was a team and community effort.”

Other local primary schools competing at the event included Kennall Vale, St Mawes, St Mary’s, St Francis and there were also teams from Penryn College, the Falmouth Cop Car Project (with Falmouth School) and Falmouth Fire Station taking part in the second race day. The fire station team also received the best presented and best newcomer accolade in their category.

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