Cars Called Dylan and Basil, a Team Called Chaos

2002. The year CAUC began, when a group of friends kept turning up in the school’s technology rooms at lunchtime. Emily Wakeford, its first captain, recalled in 2020 that teachers, parents and neighbours were drawn in, and that race days were never predictable. The name was a description.

Two 90-minute races per race day, on one set of 12-volt batteries each, with at least three drivers. Six regional heats between May and October. Meetings on Tuesday evenings, data from the car to plan the racing, and pit stops practised over many a lunchtime. Chaos has a timetable.

One perfectionist, fourteen when she wrote for the same account, who said the team had taught her to fix mistakes and keep going. A perfectionist joining something called Complete and Utter Chaos is the bravest decision in this story.

One title. Sophie Barwick, six years on the team, was the driver in 2016 when CAUC became international champions. Asked by Greenpower in 2020, by then studying engineering at Sheffield, what the best part had been, she chose the camaraderie, within the team and between teams. Our own pit-stop record, set at Tebay services in 2019, is forty minutes, and we left with one shoe fewer than we arrived with.