Carbon QT (2003)
Carbon QT
After the team all put together their ideas, with our new found help and ambitions it was decided that we were going to build the new car as a ‘monocoque‘ construction where there would be no chassis as such.
Tim designed the car from team ideas on AutoCAD. The whole of the chassis and bodywork would be compiled into one very strong structure. We decided that Fibreglass and Carbon Fibre would be the best materials to make our new car out of – it was lucky that we had done so well with our fundraising as we were soon to find out just how expensive it is!
The mould was crafted out of Styrofoam, then 2 layers of fibreglass and 1 layer of carbon fibre were put over the mould. The sheets of the two materials came in ‘rolls’ and to ‘stick’ them onto the car and form the strength - we mixed epoxy resin which, when it is dry, is both waterproof and incredibly strong. The making of Carbon QT’s bodywork took about 6 months which meant that the rest of it had to be finished in Tim’s Garage over the summer holidays. The team continued to meet on Tuesday evenings at Tim’s garage to complete the rest of the build. The car was finally finished and running on the Thursday night at 10.00pm before the first race at Darley Moor.
The strength was tested later on when at a practise day at Darley Moor, our local motorbike circuit, one of the drivers missed a turn and went up the bank and rolled upside-down. Apart from a small bruise, the driver was completely fine and the car had only suffered a slightly bent axle! The aptly named ‘Carbon QT’ had proven its strength yet, unfortunately, the ‘tonnes’ of epoxy resin that we’d put on the bodywork had also proved it's weight! The car had turned out to be much heavier than we had wished for, but it still performed as well as we’d hoped. We raced at Curborough, Darley Moor, RAF Cosford, Bedford and Goodwood.
Carbon QT was later given to another team who continued to race it for a number of years.