Electrathon America Forum

Nitoragro · Senior Member

Electrathon Speed Race

Archer321 · Senior Member

Is it a paved track? How many cars are you planning on running at one time? It seems like a small circuit for such speeds with a lot of potential crowding problems in the corners. That being said, it is an interesting idea.

Nitoragro · Senior Member

It is paved, it is the running track that goes around a high school football field. We plan to have high schools and colleges on the track (about 8 cars) then after the 20 minute race is over put the lithium and open class on the track (about 5 cars) for 20 minutes. Then have a 2 hour break and do the same thing.

Ron · Veteran Member

While it is OFTEN talked about, and many people want to go faster... but is it a good idea?

on a small track (1/4 mile is small) the chances of two cars meeting in a bad way (passing in a poor place etc.) is very high...

the cars that I have tech inspected run the gamut of quality from high to "you've got to be joking!!!" I have sent cars back for repairs 3-4 times in the past
( cracked frames that needed welded before race.... breaks not hooked up.... seat belts DUCT TAPED!!!! to the frame!!!!) before letting them race...

I have also seen the damage to cars, and multi-car pile ups that have occurred at the 30-40mph speeds we run out here in the northwest...

I would STRONGLY consider setting races up to keep the speeds below 40-45...

I know that my suggestion of this will catch a lot of "flak" but hear me out...

Yes Shannon Cloud set the land speed record for electrathon cars at OVER 110mph...
Yes I myself have (in practice laps) run over 70mph @ Portland international raceway (tire began smoking in the high speed corners due to stress)
but I still think that faster is a bad idea...

here are the reasons...

may 2010 Portland
2nd lap "short track" event

going into turn 5 (a 135 degree dog leg to the right) six cars tangled... three rolled over five cars in total impacted each other.

this is a 30-35 mph corner myself and 4 other cars barely missed being involved in this event...

roughly 45 minutes later going into the same corner (at aprox. 48mph... had just passed 2 slower cars) the left front axle of my car snapped...
I impacted the tire barrier at aprox 40mph (42 was the last speed I saw on speedo before impact)
this was in car 38... this is one of the sturdiest and best maintained cars in the northwest division
fortunately all drivers sustained no injuries

Lacey Wa. 2008 turn 9
at least 4 cars had impact with curb (probably more) 3 snapped wheels or axles, one rolled over... this is a 15-20mph corner.

lacey wa 2006 turn 6
car snapped axle in turn... made it across sidewalk, through hedge, and onto the "main straightaway" of course.... 25mph corner

sorry I seem to be writing a book here... I could go on... many, MANY other examples... and many of our rule changes came from these "incidents"

oh also.... note that all of these examples are AFTER the change in the rules that allowed 73lbs of batteries instead of 67lbs...
average speeds out here in the northwest raised 5mph and instead of 30-40% of the cars finishing race the average is closer to 90-95%
even at the higher speeds.... before people were going 5-10mph slower and we had MANY less incidents...

SO:
If you do a "speed race" please do a much more detailed and STRICT tech inspection... with no "i'll let it slide this time, but get it fixed" moments

ALL cars must pass inspection with NO questionable areas.... because our rules are plenty safe for 45mph....
go even a little bit faster and our "safety margin" evaporates into thin air.... remember twice as fast, FOUR TIMES THE IMPACT in a crash...

or in other words...
I probably would be fine in a 60-70mph crash in a "cloud car" but even in my "somewhat overbuilt" mild steel framed car.... well... I'd be in the emergency room for sure...

Ron

mhodgertt · EA President

Along with the safety factor is the damage you will do to the track. 23 years ago when Willamette started building vehicles we talked the head of athletics into letting us run a one hour race for our 12 cars, at the time, on the running track. By the end of the race the rubber surface definitely had a 'groove' where most of the cars traveled around the turn. This was our second year so the speeds were very slow--maybe 20 MPH. We also had a race in John Day Oregon on a running track for one hour and with about 15 cars total. Again the track was well worn and both had to be resurfaced the next year because of the dips we put in the tracks messed up the runners.

Like Ron stated...be very careful with safety inspections and do not let too many cars on the track at a time. Let us know how it goes if you decide to do it as it is an interesting concept.

bd64 · Senior Member

Not interesting at all, plain and simply a bad idea.

ELECTRATHON is a type of ELECTRIC MARATHON in which the winner is determined by how far you go in a certain time with a given amount of battery power. ELECTRATHON AMERICA class competition uses specific design rules to ensure safe and fair competition. ELECTRATHON AMERICA events are held around the country and is an exciting new environmentally progressive sport.

To drive electrically powered vehicles as far as possible for one hour on a closed loop course using limited electrical energy.

mhodgertt · EA President

I do not think Electrathon America would sanction this 20 minute speed race since it is not in the nature of Electrathon. That means you would need to come up with your own insurance and not call it an Electrathon Race. You could say it was a speed race using Electrathon vehicles.

Nitoragro · Senior Member

We recently had this race and I thought it was very successful, my team won with 74 total laps over our two 20 minute races with and average speed of around 33MPH, and the Lithium ion cars doing about 38MPH.
While you would think that the 20 minutes no one could possibly kill there batteries I still managed to, I was practicing and did up to 45 MPH by myself so that is how I kept it but with accelerating to much it killed them with 5 minutes to go, I was never able to get up to my true top speed. It was also one of our safer races we had only 8 cars on the track for the first heat, all the High Schools, then 4 cars the next for the lithium ion and open class. Over all 4 races there was not a single problem, not even a pit.
It was a very different race on how it had to be driven but we could still not drive as fast as we could without killing batteries.

There is a nice write up on here, just scroll down to the 7th race

ElectrathonOfTampaBay.Org

-- Edited by Nitoragro on Wednesday 13th of April 2016 10:47:11 PM

meangreen · teacher / board member

FYI - Most of the High School running tracks here are just asphalt and not the soft rubber covered type tracks. Those that have the rubber coating don't even allow people to walk on the track in street shoes, let alone allow us to race. In this warm climate our cars would shred the rubber coating in the first few laps.

I didn't get to run the speed races at Middleton because I was out of state at the time. However, when we ran at Middleton earlier in the year, I put bumpers on my cars so my son and I could "bump-draft". We have done this before whenever we have a race on an oval track. When we hook up, the amps go down and the speed goes up.., but that's another story. Anyway, a quarter mile paved oval is like a superspeedway to these small cars which allowed us to do the bump-draft and run the increased speeds. A track that size could easily accommodate 25 - 30 cars with plenty of running room. At the speed event the organizers separated the Open and Experimental Battery cars from the High School cars and that left less than 10 cars in each race. Interestingly, even though the races were reduced to 20 minutes so we could "gear 'em up and let 'em fly", speeds were not increased as much as we originally thought they would be. When the race was proposed we expected a 10 to 15 mph increase in speeds. When it was all done, on average speeds in both classes increased approximately 5 mph. I do not believe that safety was compromised anywhere and I hope we do this again next season. It gives everyone the opportunity to utilize a different strategy for the race which requires different planning and preparation. This is all about education and a change in routine is a learning opportunity for everyone involved.

Archer321 · Senior Member

meangreen wrote:
I put bumpers on my cars so my son and I could "bump-draft". We have done this before whenever we have a race on an oval track. When we hook up, the amps go down and the speed goes up.., but that's another story.

I had that same idea. Even drew up a design for two cars that fit together like puzzle pieces so they could split the aerodynamic drag. However upon reading the first two lines of page 38 of the EA handbook, I decided having two cars black flagged was not in my best interests and let the idea go. Interesting that you get away with it.

Nitoragro · Senior Member

My best guess for when they wrote that was from team A to purposely hit team B. Our race steward know that his two cars are on the same team. I bet if I came up and I was nudging his rear blocker on his car I would get black flagged, I doubt you would get black flagged for touching/hitting/bump drafting your own team.

Ron · Veteran Member

Sorry Ryan but your "guess" is wrong....

contact between cars is a safety issue (insurance companies freak out over this kind of thing) and the rule was written for safety being many drivers are "students" and under age 18 ( insurance companies covering minors YIKES!!!)

contact between cars does happen occasionally, and we realize this... but intended contact is strictly forbidden...

I realize "drafting" between team members might not be as "dangerous" but does take drivers attention from the track and focus it on the teammate that
they are "bump drafting"

If I were the safety marshal at a race that "bump drafting" was occurring at I WOULD pull both cars (or ALL cars if more than two cars involved)
and have a "little talk" with the drivers about safety....

now on the other hand if the cars were "drafting" in close "formation" so long as no contact was made AND no other unsafe actions were happening
I would be fine with it.... besides you don't have to touch the other car to gain an advantage aerodynamically.

I've done it on several occasions, the only trouble is to find a car going at "the right speed" so as to actually gain any improvement in your standing in the race.

Ron J
tech inspector, safety marshal, race steward, driver car #13
electrathon America NW division

Archer321 · Senior Member

I was planning a magnetic attachment between my two cars.. lol

-- Edited by Archer321 on Thursday 28th of April 2016 11:38:51 PM

Brendan_Smith · Veteran Member

I'd imagine there would be two reasons why bump drafting is not allowed;

- It means drivers/teams can collude and be more efficient together which detracts from the competitive spirit and gains an advantage from those playing by the rules, and

- It's very easy to spin a three-wheeled vehicle. Think of police chases, where the police car taps the rear quarter panel of the running car. It doesn't take much of a side force to spin a rear wheel drive car, and even less when you think how little weight we're imparting into the ground, and less again when you only have one, central wheel at the rear! The outer wheel on a conventional car has a decent reaction force as the centre of gravity is inside of the heavily-loaded rear wheel, while a cycle car has virtually no rear wheel cornering force as the CoG is directly above it. The propensity to spin would be 5 times that of a normal car!

Add to that, if you get loose from bump drafting, you're about to roll your vehicle near it's top speed, rather than the usual instance of at least braking for the corner.

And interlocking cars is... well, what are you going to do when you get to a corner and can't unlock them?

We see NASCARs get loose with bump drafting all the time, and they're designed with that in mind by professional racecar engineers. We're better to keep it disallowed.

meangreen · teacher / board member

I would naturally assume, like Nitoragro, that the rule on page 38 applies to contact made because of over-aggressive driving or bumping in anger and/or retaliation for on track incidents. If you interpret it differently, that's your prerogative, but who is correct? If this is an unclear issue, maybe there needs to be rule specifically outlawing bump-drafting. On the other hand, maybe it should be left up to the race organizers. Our officials apparently saw nothing wrong with it and my son and I have done it at three different events over the last few years.

Yes, we are both experienced racers in several types of racing; yes, we are both well past legal age. Bump-drafting takes intense concentration by both drivers. The pusher has to concentrate on keeping the cars aligned while also watching the traffic ahead to anticipate the pushed car's probable path; the pushed car has to carefully pick the line of travel and be careful not to make sudden changes in direction. Whenever we overtook other cars, especially if there were two or more in a group, we would separate until we had cleared the traffic and then hook up again. No, it didn't take our attention away from the track, it intensified it! When our cars were in contact, the pushed car's amp draw dropped 5 to 7 amps while the pusher car dropped 3 to 5 amps. Both cars increased speed 2 to 3 mph. It's not a great difference, but could add 7 to 10 laps to the total count for the hour.

We did this on the big oval tracks around the football fields where the track is wide and smooth and has gentle curves. It absolutely would not be practical (maybe not even possible) on the tight parking lot road courses we run most of the time. Also, I would not recommend it for beginners - the drivers need to be infinitely acquainted with their cars and each other's driving style.

My cars have a wide stance and extremely low center of gravity with the weight equally distributed on the three wheels (with driver and batteries on board). I can run any of the dozen cars I've built and sold over the past 14 years at full speed and slam the steering to full lock in either direction and they will slide rather than roll over.

mhodgertt · EA President

I know in the NW we have outlawed draft bumping or pushing the lead car. At our only long race Portland International raceway we encourage our students to draft as close as possible but we read it as the letter of the law as and say it is not OK. We did not like the safety of it . Also after allowing it for a couple of years we then had lots of cars with bumpers on the front and back and we had draft chains 3 to 5 cars long. The argued the fact that if two can be OK why not all we want to line up? We have large teams here. My team is 18 cars, Thurston, Hood River, and a couple of Washington teams are 5 to 8 cars. So, because two cars is dangerous in my opinion 3 to 6 cars is just asking for a big wreck, there is no bump drafting in the NW. Again we strongly encourage drafting as long as the driver of all the cars involved can keep from hitting each other. At PIR we have had as many as 15 cars in a one to three wide 9 car deep draft that all of them were separated by just a few inches. While this is still not totally safe it is legal and follows the rule book completely. I had a student behind me about 6" last year at PIR when I hit some gravel on our only tight corner and slid into a wall of tires. He was able to react quickly enough to dodge me and went on to win the race.

Ron · Veteran Member

Listen to Mike folks... he be the President of Electrathon America and knows of what he speaks...

just a few inches can save your butt... (and others as well)

meangreen · teacher / board member

And I'm the Vice-President of Electrathon America... that's irrelevant. Our office within the organization has no bearing on this discussion. Whether bump-drafting is safe depends on the track and who is doing it. I've been driving race cars since 1961 (yes, I'm that old) and my son since 1980. We did this and proved that it works even with our reduced speeds and smaller cars (compared to stock cars). If we had been told not to do it, we would have stopped immediately. My contention now is that the rule, as written, is subject to interpretation by the race officials. If the majority think it should be absolutely illegal to bump-draft, we need to put that specific rule in print - then there will be no question.

Brendan_Smith · Veteran Member

A couple of further comments, admittedly from someone who has yet to attend a race! (Have been working on a car for a while, so my input is quite possibly a little naïve. My background is in Formula Student/SAE).

- The first paragraph on Page 38, if you take it to it's fullest, would certainly mean that Jim could be flagged if the officials go to the letter of the law. The rules really need to be for everyone; if Jim and his son are experienced racers then that's great, but are you happy with HS students doing the same, particularly ones that are very new to racing? Has to be one rule for all. It would make sense to make the line-in-the-sand that no contact between cars is allowed; this will still allow close racing and drafting without contact.

- Destabilising a twin-front-axle vehicle by counter-steering is different to destabilising at the rear. Hard steering will induce understeer and sliding of the front wheels, which is different to unweighting and sliding the rear from a side force applied at the rear axle, specifically causing an oversteer event. Understeer + high speed is still reasonably safe, but oversteer + high speed = guaranteed trouble. The way to simulate this would be to apply a locked rear brake while cornering on an easy bend, but it needs to be controlled by someone else so that you don't know it's coming.
A sudden contact between cars bump drafting is, for the front car, like a handbrake turn at high speed.

- Again, allowing bump drafting then allows the teams that "collude" a large benefit via drive coupling and aerodynamic drag reduction. Almost adds inter-team dynamics to the tests of design and driver capacity.

meangreen · teacher / board member

ETO hosted their 2nd ever "Speed Event" on March 25th at Brandon High School. The track around the football field was recently resurfaced (asphalt) and was as smooth as a dinner plate. There is a nice write-up of results and details available on the ETO website: electrathonoftampabay.org/www/. In a nutshell, the Open and Experimental classes were separated from the High School class and we ran two 20-minute races each. Also, there was a 15-minute race for sponsors/race organizers. There were no on-track altercations, no wrecks of any kind, and everyone had a great time. Everyone I talked to is hoping this becomes an annual event.

Ron · Veteran Member

I know my earlier posts kind of "poo pooed" a speed race, but if done with safety in mind and being stressed I would surely participate..

glad this format is working for you folks, and hope you're having tons of fun while competing!!!