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One of the biggest and most significant GreenPower race events on the calendar is coming right here to Troup County this weekend with the fifth annual Diverse Power Grand Prix on LaGrange College’s campus. 

It will be a full day of fun with the races scheduled to start 9 a.m. and the trophy ceremony tentatively scheduled for 5 p.m. For those that cannot make the early morning heats, the middle schools are scheduled to run their second heat at 1:15 p.m., with the high schools getting their second heat in at approximately 3:15 p.m. 

This race always has a local flavor with Troup County based teams looking forward to a weekend where they don’t have to travel for a rac,e but this year’s local contingent has expanded. Twelve teams from seven different local schools will be taking the track on Saturday — one from ThINC Academy, two from Callaway High School, two from Troup High School, two from Gardner Newman Middle School, one from Callaway Middle School, one from Lafayette Christian School and three from Long Cane Middle School.

“I couldn’t be more excited seeing so many local teams,” said Matthew Graham, the Troup GreenPower organizer and the Long Cane head coach. “We’ve been working to build GreenPower in Troup County for six years now, and we know what to do and what not to do when setting up these programs.It is neat to see some of these schools pick up the baton and run with it. I can’t be happier about that, and I believe we are just getting started. I expect that we will continue to grow here in Troup County and beyond in the next couple of years.”

The LaGrange College course will be slammed packed with 386 individuals making up 31 different teams with one school coming all the way from Pennsylvania to participate. These are only the number of participants as family, friends and fans flock to the area around the auditorium on LaGrange College’s campus.  Graham sees this as a chance to, not just show off GreenPower, but show off the community and the college as well.

“I love that this is at the college because it brings in people that might not come to LaGrange otherwise and see the college and see how great of a place it is to go to school,” Graham said.

The GreenPower-LaGrange College partnership has led to this annual event coming back to the same layout as in years past. For the goblin race for elementary school students that Troup County hosts, Graham likes to switch up the location and course every year for numerous reasons, but the LaGrange College/Hillside course is here to stay.

“It’s a beautiful campus, and it’s super wide open, which means you can pretty much see one side of the track from another even though it is a big track,” Graham said. “It is just a really good set up for us.”

LaGrange College is not the only local entity to step up and offer some support. Smokin’ Mo’s Barbecue, Sparkles Cookies, Obeyda Wings, Mr. Frosty’s LLC, Bloom Tea Co., and Kona Ice of LaGrange are all scheduled to be on site Saturday. 

“I want to invite as many people as I can to come out, and if it’s their first time, they can see what GreenPower is all about,” Graham said. 

The event will be livestreamed; the link will be provided on The LaGrange Daily News’ Facebook page when the race gets underway.