ABG apprentice team proudly wins closely fought Bridlington Soapbox Challenge

On October 2, crowds of around 20,000 spectators swarmed around the seafront to watch the race, in which a close battle was fought and A B Graphic (ABG) International apprentices won first place.

The race included twenty corporate teams who raced their soapbox carts down South Marine Drive, complete with fencing and hay bales to ensure safety of the spectators and racers.

Each team hurtled down a huge ramp with only gravity and their soapbox to help them, each team fuelled by excitement and pride in the soapbox they designed.

The Yorkshire Coast BID funded the event, with the aim to raise money to support the local community, with proceeds being awarded to the RNLI, Yorkshire Air Ambulance and more.

This money will then go towards the local community, saving lives on the coast and helping the most vulnerable. The Yorkshire Air Ambulance even brought a helicopter simulator trailer to the event, hoping to both educate and excite the visitors.

Together with local firms and some senior engineers, the winning cart took six months to build and it showcases the apprentices’ engineering skills.

Some of these local firms include Scarborough-based Don French Signs supplying the cart’s graphics, and Plastic Engineering Products in Hull providing the cart’s plastic fairings.

On racing day tensions were high and competition was fierce, but the ABG team were determined and managed to beat all their competitors in a time of below 27 seconds.

When prizes were awarded, ABG was given the winner’s trophy folowwing its success in the race.

Zac Williamson, ABG apprentice, said: “I enjoyed putting the wide range of skills I’ve learnt over the past two years to the test in a real-life experience.

“Also, project management isn’t something I’ve done before, so working alongside a senior engineer was really insightful and helped me to develop a new skill.

“I’d recommend the experience to any future apprentices as it’s helped me enormously over the past six months.”

For more information on ABG, visit https://www.abgint.com/