The RACV Energy Breakthrough was held in the last weekend of November.

The three ESC teams (Carefactor, Subzero and Parkie) went up on Thursday and set up camp on Jubilee Oval in Maryborough. After that some people walked the track.

On Friday we set up pits. Then we had Scrutinizing (safety check and HPV knowledge) and Presentations. “The presentations were scary because of the judges from RACV, said Meleah. Henry said, “I got nervous.”

“For the presentations we used a rewritten version of the Mulga Bill poem, which was pretty cool.” Sophie Arbuthnot wrote the poem.

Time trials were held on Friday afternoon to find out where we were starting on the grid. After time trials we went back to camp and had a team meeting – to discuss organising the size of boom (head rest).

On Saturday the race started at 1pm and went for 24 hours.

Early in the race, Carefactor tipped over three times but kept chipping away. Meleah Cameron and Ellyssa Hartland held the team together overnight. All their riders took a turn in the morning and they got a strong lead to win by 17 laps. Meleah rode the most out of all the students in the ESC team (9) but the average was about five turns.

The last three hours were very intense for every team. “As it got to the end people surrounded the track and banged on the barriers and made heaps of noise to cheer us on,” said Meleah.

In the junior team there were eight riders and each had an hour stint and about three stints each. Henry says he did two of his during the hours of 11pm-12am and 6am- 7am and says, “at times it was hard to see because of the rain on windshield”.

The Juniors (Parkie) came 6th in their category.

Sub Zero was a mix of year levels and unfortunately they snapped their frame in a crash yet still came 12th in their category. They had the trike fixed (in a record 32 minutes by a helpful community member) and were off the track 40 or 50mins in total. It was a huge effort by all the team.

All the students trained after school and during classes all year and some will even take the trikes home over the holidays to keep fit.

Meleah rides to and from school (4kms each day) and into town and back as some of her training. Henry rides out to the Spring Gully track and the Botanical Gardens.

“The juniors have even started a group chat on FB so we can meet up over holidays to train.”

It’s not just the kids that work hard to get such great results. All three staff members (Damian Emond, Jenny Sanderson and EB Teacher and team leader Warwick Dundas) put in countless hours and work tirelessly to assist the kids for competition.

Warwick Dundas said, “As always we had lots of parent support.”

He also said, “People have commented that we were more organised and calmer this year! Going over on the Thursday helped a lot.”

Warwick also added, “Many of the senior team will move onto BSSC next year but they leave behind a strong legacy.”

Henry said, “I heard about Energy Breakthrough in grade 5 and ever since then I’ve been thinking about doing it and finally had the chance this year.” He has enjoyed it every step of the way.

Meleah adds, “It’s a great program because you get to meet other people and make new friendships – I’d highly recommend doing it at whichever school you are at.”

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