Electrathon America Forum

Kyle Keenan · Veteran Member

Thoughts on an "Eundurance Race"

Orinoco · Member

The standard format in UK Greenpower is four hour endurance. Considering all teams use two pairs of identical batteries the biggest problem is an extremely busy pit area around the two hour mark when most teams want to change batteries. With a 75 car grid there can be delays whilst a pit space is allocated and a marshal makes safety checks on outgoing cars, the more experienced teams tend to run a strategy that avoids pitstops at this time. Strangely the pitstops add to the excitement as teams try to guess their rivals' strategy, they also allow more of the team to be involved in the race; battery crews put a lot of effort into trimming every possible second off a change, a top team would expect to change driver and batteries in less than 30 seconds from wheels stopped to rolling again whilst new teams may take 3-4 minutes.

I'd like to see a few "sprint" races over here, there used to be a couple very year but with the push towards slowing the cars down they've been dropped from the calender.

stan r · Veteran Member

I once built an Electrathon car with quick change battery packs. I built 2 identical battery boxes with covers quick connects such as a fork lift might use. Use wing nuts or pins to hold a pack in place. 20/30 second changes are feasible

electrathon · administrator

There has been a few people that have brought this up in the past. I personally think it would be about as exciting as watching ice melt and guessing when it will all go away. If you want the car to run for 3 hours you will likely be driving about 12 MPH, BORING!

The other way would be to allow battery charging, this would entirly change everything.

Kyle Keenan · Veteran Member

Of course, battery changes would be allowed. My thought is requiring a minimum of two pit stops, each with a minimum time limit. Idea being any time new batteries are put into a car, the car must stay in the "pit box" at least 3 mins. If there is no time limit I worry crew will get shocked or things will not get fastened correctly causing issues on track later.

Orinoco · Member

I thought the folk interested in endurance racing might like to see the results from the UK Greenpower Corporate Challenge:

http://www.bbk-online.net/gpt/race9.htm

This is a four hour race held on a 1.64miles circuit at Silverstone, the entrants are a mixture of school teams and corporate entries including such names as Bentley, Jaguar Landrover, Siemens, etc. Rules have changed this year and each team uses three pairs of very small AGM batteries which will give an average current af about 16amps for the duration of the race, about 35% less than last years batteries. Cars must have four wheels and an open ****pit. Despite a 25mph wind thoughout the race the distances achieved were only a few percent down on last year so a clear case of continued development negating regulation changes designed to slow the cars down!