After weeks of hard work to build two green powered cars, a group of year nine students from Falmouth School, working in partnership with Falmouth Fire Station's Red Watch and local police, took their creations to race at Newquay Airport against 44 other cars.

The day started with a strict scrutineering session to ensure both cars were safe to race and had all of the relevant safety features followed by a safety briefing.

When completed, the cars took to the track to take part in practice laps where each member of the team got to drive their car around the track. The students then took their cars to a pit area to make any last minute adjustments. Adjustments done the cars lined up on the grid to start race one around the 1.4 mile circuit.

The flag dropped and the teams were off on the start of 90 minutes of racing. With speeds reaching up to 26mph in some cases, the teams darted off the grid on the first of three laps for each student. As the race went on, the pit stop/driver changes became very slick. At the chequered flag the Fast Fire Engine came in 11th and the Police Car a respectable 30th after suffering some electrical faults.

Race two was even more exciting with some fantastic racing with the Fast Fire engine suffering a high speed blow out careering the car into the barrier. Once the car was recovered frantic efforts started to replace the steering and the girls were able to rejoin the race coming in coming 24th. The cop car had its own problems suffering an electrical fault which was soon rectified, finishing in a respectable 19th in a very strong field. As a result of their strong showings on the day, both cars have qualified for the national finals in Rockingham later this year.

Falmouth firefighter Jason Boeuf said: "It was wonderful to see the young students grow in confidence over the weeks to show their true characters. They are a credit to the school, who should be very proud of their conduct, performance and maturity.”

PCSOC Ellie Grey added: “The students from Falmouth School all worked extremely hard in their own time to create their cars. The race day was a great event with good teamwork, morale and high levels of motivation between the students.”

Mark Philpott, from the school, said: "“Thanks must go to Falmouth fire and police stations for their continuous support of our students. This was an exciting opportunity for our students to engage with a project that will not only see them develop teamwork skills and engineering knowledge, but gave them the opportunity to race their creations.”