Human Powered Vehicles or HPVs: They are our most popular category with 93 Primary School teams and 96 Secondary School Human Powered Vehicle teams completing their final vehicle checks, doing their warm-ups and polishing their presentation skills to ensure. Let’s see what all the fuss is about with our annual ‘Contenders’ review!

The Human Powered Vehicles teams must each complete the three key components of the ‘Energy Breakthrough’: Display & Presentation, Design & Construction and then a ‘Trial’.

Wednesday / Thursday / Friday

On Wednesday afternoon and Thursday all Primary school teams will present to a panel of three judges in the Display & Presentation component. This is where they can talk about their road to Maryborough and share their story. At a separate time, students will engage in a ‘Design & Construction’ discussion with our judges about what how the vehicle was built, what it was made of, who built it and why those decisions were made. After Design & Construction, teams then progress to Scrutineering to have their vehicle checked. (This is a change from previous years where it was done in the opposite way.)

Thursday / Friday / Saturday / Sunday

Once the Display & Presentation, Design & Construction and Scrutineering assessments are completed, it’s time to pump the tires, fill up the drink bottles and get out the deep heat. Primary and Secondary school teams take to the track for a practice session on Thursday night and Friday night respectively.

The 14 Hour Trial for the Primary School teams begins on the VicRoads at 12noon on Friday. Teams take a mandatory break at 8pm before resuming at 6:00am on Saturday and finishing at 12noon.

The 24 Hour Trial for the Secondary School teams begins on Track 1 at 1pm on Saturday and concludes – you guessed it – at 1pm on Sunday.

Primary

Section A1 – for schools with less than 200 students

Small schools can be so difficult to predict – class sizes can vary year to year and a particular crop of students can really ‘breakthrough’ (pun intended) to the front line. Last year’s trial winners – Canadian Lead – are back again to defend that title, as are overall category winner: Avoca PS. Last year’s runner-up, Lockwood PS, is carrying a penalty for not meeting the gender requirements of half female, half male team members, so, unfortunately, they won’t be on the podium this year. Good luck A1 teams!

Section A2 – for schools with more than 200 students

Last year we saw something remarkable in the Primary School class: White Hills PS from Bendigo finished first and second in the trial (read about it here). Still led by the impressive Roger Byron, they are expected to feature at the front, along with local powerhouse Maryborough Education Centre (MEC). MEC won the class overall last year and were thrilled.

Dark horse here: Creek Street Christian College – they finished second against White Hills PS in the Vic HPV Series this year and have good momentum growing.

Notable absence is Morry Rubinstein and his crew from Frankston Primary School. Morry retired after a long and passionate career at our event.

Secondary

All Female

This has been the domain of St Margaret and Berwick Grammar School (SMS/BGS( for as long as we have had the class running. Mt Eliza performed well here throughout this year’s Vic HPV Series and I’m expecting them to field a good team once again here.

Do keep an eye on Bendigo Senior SC, Girton Grammar and Rode RAGE – they will each pose a threat to SMS/BGS this year.

B1 (Years 7 to 8, Mixed teams) & B2 (Years 7 to 10, Mixed teams)

Just like the A1 class, this age group of 13 to 14 years olds are at all different levels of fitness and confidence (which impacts their Display & Presentation / Design & Construction, too).

B2 defending champs Creek St Christian College are back to defend their class crown. Maryborough Ed Centre won the B1 class last year in fine fashion: taking out Design & Construction and the Trial.

I am expecting the Bendigo contingent of Catherine Maculey College (formerly Catholic College Bendigo), Marist College Bendigo and Eaglehawk Secondary to join Maryborough’s MEC and Highview to give these categories a good crack.Throw in SMS/BGS and you’ve got two hot fields.

C (Years 7 to 12, Mixed teams)

On paper, this one looks like a three-way tussle between Terang’s fabulously named: ‘Win it or Bin It’, Highview’s ‘GenZee’ and Bacchus Marsh’s ‘FIFO’. This could be fun to watch. Defending champs are Highview.

Open (No gender requirements)

Anyone at last year’s Energy Breakthrough would recall the amazing ride by the team at Woodleigh School. Given a 50 lap penalty for a class change from a mixed class into HPV Open, the team rode away from everyone to finish 48 laps clear! That’s nearly 90 minutes faster than the next team (which was Bendigo Senior SC).

Now, they are BACK with fresh run at it this year and a Mexican-inspired team theme: ‘SombrAERO’. They have raced really well through the Vic HPV Series and they were so far clear it’s hard to look away.

Bendigo Senior SC has a new carbon-fibre rig and will be joined here by Kingswood, SMS/BGS and Rode RAGE.

BUT with inclement weather in the lead-up possibly rolling into the weekend this could be anyone’s to win …