Young Oswestry driver in Soapbox derby
When 18-year old Arran Evison climbs into the Dolphin team vehicle at the Red Bull Soapbox Race in Alexandra Palace, London, on Sunday, he could be the youngest driver to be taking part.
Arran, who lives at Pant near Oswestry, and his friend Iolo Jones, also 18, designed and built their soapbox amid taking their A-levels at Llanfyllin High School.
Their team, Dolphin Driver was chosen to be one of 70 out of hundreds from across the country and beyond who will line up to take part in the televised race.
They also enlisted the help of Tym Salt for his engineering and welding skills.
Arran. who is piloting the dolphin, said: " We wanted a challenge and a break from revision so we set out to create a soapbox. We have absolutely no experience except a bit of A level DT. The design is a dolphin which we picked because they are aerodynamic and fast, we picked a bottlenose dolphin to copy and have stuck to colour and shape closely."
The team have estimated that, unlike many of the vehicles, the dolphin has cost only about £100 to make.
"We recycled and re-used as many of the materials that we could get hold off."
He thanked Four Crosses company, Nibs, for helping with the weighing of the soapbox which has to be under 80 kilogrammes to be eligible to take part.
The team travelled down to London on Friday in readiness for practice sessions on the eve of Sunday's race. It will be televised live on Dave.
Supporters can help them to win by voting for the Dolphin Driver team on the Red Bull Soapbox website soapboxrace.redbull.com.
