A group of students at a Saline County school have been driven to succeed academically thanks to a grant from the Salina Community Foundation. The funding helped Southeast of Saline start an Electro-Rally team.

According to the foundation,  a group of students who do not always connect with sports, but are very interested in mechanics, passionately worked on renovating an electric car so they could compete in races. Some of these students would normally struggle academically, but they worked very hard to stay eligible so they could attend the racing events held in the spring.

“The excitement from the first driver to ever get to drive our new electric car was contagious as he talked about how wonderful it was to drive the car and how he used a strategy during the first racing event, students did research to help them understand how to maximize energy in a race,” says Dr. Paul Ogle, Southeast of Saline.

These students were driven to keep their grades up so they could be a part of the race team. One student had over 5 F’s prior to the racing season but finished by passing all classes.