Students at Elphinstone Secondary School are working hard after hours in a newly established drag racing program at the school.
The goal is to educate students on constructing cars and working safely and to get students racing on the track and not on the street.
The program started innocently enough through a donation from the Sunshine Coast Drag Racing Association and has now grown into a full-blown program.
Dave Marshall from the Drag Racing Association started coming in and working with the kids and then myself and our district mechanic Justin Henderson starting coming in as well, said teacher sponsor Alison Liddicoat, a science teacher at Elphi and a car enthusiast herself who is building a car of her own.
When I first started working with the kids I thought we would be just building a car, but the program has just exploded. We've received so many donations of tools, parts and manpower from the community, coming out and sharing their knowledge or lending a hand in any way. I've been a teacher in this district for six years, and I've never seen that massive amount of community support come together to support a program.
The drag program runs after school on Tuesday and Thursday nights inside the Elphi auto shop wing beside the school-based Cool School program. Liddicoat said the two programs complement each other with the one difference being the drag racing program is extracurricular and all volunteer-based.
It's awesome to see people give up their time to work with the students, she said. And the students themselves are amazing. They want to leave class early and come in here to work. They want to work late into the evening, on the weekends the enthusiasm is incredible.
The students, in grades 9 to 12, have one car ready to race in the May 26 drag racing event at the Sechelt airport and are working on a second car for the August drag event.
This Saturday, the community will have a chance to see the results of the students hard work at an inaugural show and shine at the school from noon to 4 p.m.
The car show this weekend was an idea that started small, but has grown substantially, Liddicoat said. We thought we'll just park some cars outside the school and raise some awareness about the program, maybe get a donation or two, and now it's going to be a huge community event. The Coasters Car Club and lots of drag racing association members will be there with their cars. We'll have a bounce castle and other activities. We'll roll out our cars so the community can see what we are doing, how far we have come and how far we have to go. It will really showcase what can happen when the school and the community come together.
