THE Denend Primary School racing car project turned out to be a massive success in every way.

The Cardenden pupils spent Thursday morning preparing the Goblin car they had built for the finals of their time trials and the six finalists speeding around the playground.

The Green Power IET Challenge was an 18 month project which started with the kids involved in P5 and under the mentoring of Denend PT Catherine Sinclair and retired FMC engineer Stewart Sutherland they produced a working better powered vehicle that they were able to drive at speeds over 20mph.

The whole of P5 have been involved in the project building the car and then taking part in time trials and it all came to an exciting climax when the six finalists battled it out around the special playground track.

Thanks to sponsorship from FMC Technologies and Young Engineers Science Clubs Scotland totalling £1000 Denend was able to take part in the Challenge and construction started on the Goblin car earlier this year and with Stewart and Catherine's mentoring the work teams from P6 have pieced together the car and got it up and running.

Said Stewart: "The youngsters were brilliant, their enthusiasm to tackle problems shone through and when they took on their driving aspects again it was something they found more than capable of dealing with."

Catherine was really pleased with Thursday's final performance by Maisi Drummond, Aimee-Leigh McLeod, Keiran O'Donnell, Jamie Scougall, Keiran Cowan and Sami Ilhan.

She said: "The six of them were really superb the way they handled the car and their times were good.

"Aimee-Leigh had the best time on the day but the rules of the competition were that the drivers' qualifying time had to be added to their final time and Sami emerged as overall winner."

Headteacher Lorna Palmer, who wielded the chequered flag on Thursday, thanked all their sponsors and FMC Technologies: "The children have taken a great deal from this event and FMC's backing has been crucial."

FMC Technologies' Ian Robertson saw the final and felt the youngsters had done superbly well: "It is good to let children see what engineering can offer them and develop their interest in it".