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Students from Inspire Academy in LaFayette traveled to the Talladega Superspeedway on Saturday, May 20, to compete in the Greenpower F24 National Championship racing event. 

The Inspire Academy racing team competed alongside 45 teams from around the United States.  The day concluded with a race day awards program that saw the Inspire Academy racing team take home their share of hardware.

Racing as The Piedmont Motorsports Racing Team, students from across the Chambers County School District make up the Greenpower racing team.  All the students take classes at Inspire Academy, participating in the engineering and manufacturing programs. 

The Inspire Academy team recently announced the transition from just Piedmont Motorsports to STEAM Teams’ expanded STEM outreach program.

Racing on the road course in the infield of the Talladega Superspeedway, the high school team finished third place in the endurance race with their Car #222 traveling 35 miles. The team also finished in third place overall for the entire competition. The Middle School team captured first place for the endurance race with their Car #223 traveling a distance of 36 miles.

Racing teams rebuilt the cars over the season’s last six weeks and prepared for the national championships. During that time, the students learned how to build molds and create car bodies out of fiberglass and carbon fiber.

The Piedmont Motorsports team and their coaches are looking forward to hosting two weeks of summer camp focused on introducing third through seventh-grade students to the racing program and building excitement for STEM education throughout the county.

In addition to the summer camps, the Inspire Academy outreach team will be spending the summer break working with SOLV Energy and the Heart of America Foundation to launch STEAM Teams and plan out the next few years of STEAM outreach and how competitions will look like for the youth of Chambers County.