Students from the St John’s Marlborough Racing Team are trying to drum up sponsorship so they can compete in an eco challenge.

The budding engineers aim to build a fuel efficient car to run in the Schools’ Eco Marathon this June – and they need to raise £500.

Under the wing of design and technology teacher Clive Stell, a business plan has been put together.

Students Matt Jones and Dan Snipe, both 16, and 17-year-old Euan Humphreys have written to businesses asking for their support.

Mr Stell said: “The team’s business plan shows we need £500 to bring the two cars up to competition standard.

“I hope local businesses or individuals will be prepared to help these enthusiastic students, who have worked extremely hard on this project, and help to encourage their passion and design and manufacturing skills”.

This will be the third time the school has entered the annual competition. It challenges pupils from across the UK to build special vehicles with the car that travels the furthest on the least amount of fuel declared the winner.

St John’s Racer 1 (SJR1) competed in the 2011 challenge even though the car was only completed just a few days beforehand.

Learning from their inaugural race, the team began to work on modifying SJR1 to improve its fuel efficiency.

Matt said: “A technique used by almost all of the other teams was to build up speed and then coast – some could even shut down and restart the engine while driving.

“Our approach to this tactic was to fit a bicycle freewheeling mechanism to the drive wheel and mount plastic bodywork onto the previously bare chassis.

“As a result of these changes we achieved a much improved 253mpg in last year’s challenge and on the day, with the assistance of some pizza boxes, gaffer tape and fine tuning, the economy of SJR1 shot up by more than 30mpg to 287mpg.

“We are really proud of our achievement.”

The pupils are working on improvements to SJR1, as well as designing and building a new car, and it is hoped both can be entered into this year’s race.

To sponsor the team, email sbere@stjohns.wilts.sch.uk