Thread: Electrathon - A Different Kind of "Hotrod"

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OK, I had to build another car. Here it is. I'll be debuting this one at the Quitman, GA race on May 7. After that (unless somebody buys this one, too) I'll take it to Cocoa, FL May 14. I'll let you all know how it goes...

Just couldn't leave it alone.. could ya?!?!? ROFLMAO!

Not sure why but the colors on this one really stand out!

It's a metallic burgundy that I made by mixing some metallic red leftovers together. It's automotive urethane basecoat/clearcoat. The top piece of the nose and tail are Lexan painted on the inside. The cowl flare and the headrest fairing are aluminum (like all the white parts) painted and clearcoated. The previous blue car and green car were done the same way.

Ever thought about making it two - wheeled? It would alleviate the issues you have with tread wear. Reduce road friction. You could have sattelite wheels that come down to stabilize the vehicle at low speeds. The retractable "sattelite" wheels might qualify towards total number of wheels:
Just a thought.

Here is the Electrathon America rule regarding vehicle design: 2.0 CONFIGURATION 2.1 All vehicles must be three-wheeled (cyclecar or tricycle) or four wheeled. Any configuration is allowed. All wheels must be load bearing, and remain in contact with the ground at all times, even under hard cornering conditions.

Your suggestion is an interesting one and I imagine it was probably tried at some point which led to the current rule - somebody either didn't like it or deemed it unsafe. There used to be another organization called Solar Bike Rayce (sic) that promoted the use of solar power assist and encouraged two wheeled vehicles in a couple of classes. Unfortunately they disappeared a few years ago...

Over the years there have been teams who have tried "leaner" cars - cars designed with trick suspension and linkages to make them lean into the corners. A few have been successful, but most have mixed or negative results; they are usually fragile and unreliable, sometimes complicated and heavy.

Reading the rules- can you get disqualified if a wheel comes off the ground in a turn?
How closely do they enforce it?
And do they define "load bearing"?
Now I'm thinking a two wheeled vehicle with a transverse bar mounted center of vehicle, pivoting about the central axis, with the wheels spring loaded say, 10 lb of force, would qualify them as load bearing: essentially a bicycle with central mount, pivoting training wheels.

Jim I like the new car and the fact your still racing, keep on updating us!

When I was in high school our school put on a tech fair and we always participated in the mileage car race. They wouldn't allow 2 wheel only vehicles because it was still supposed to be near a car type configuration. We tried a 3 wheeler once that the operator could tilt/lean without the rest of the car in cornering but it did not gain us anything. That sure was a fun experience. Our cars were always 2 wheels up front and 1 in the rear. The last one we built we made the steer axle to have spring loaded spindle mounts. That car won that year and we got disqualified because the front axle didn't meet their rule wording. We think the school that won every year just threw a fit.

Firebird77clone - If you lift a wheel occasionally because you hit a rough spot in a corner or possibly cornering hard on a negative cambered turn, no you aren't likely to be black-flagged. However, if your car is so top-heavy or so poorly designed that it lifts a wheel in every corner, you would likely be flagged for safety reasons. I was at a race a couple years ago where one of the High School cars was so badly built that the driver could barely keep control of it. First, it must have had 8 inches of ground clearance and 70% of the weight on the rear wheel. The track had a 90 degree left turn at the bottom of a hill and the kid driving had to almost stop to make that turn without lifting the inside front wheel. He finally got brave and was running that corner on two wheels. According to the rules he could have been flagged, but they let him run the whole race that way. I guess it's up to the flagman and race steward...

Steve - Not sure how much longer I'll keep it up. I still enjoy the racing, but the preparation and travel are wearing me down. Just getting old I guess...

Jim I understand. I am worn out from getting a divorce and moving twice in 4.5 months! But I'm happy to be a home owner again and moved in finally. My excitement for the month is finding 90% of my tools when I need them. But I'm getting old fast as far as my muscle strength and fatigue are concerned! I do enjoy watching your posts, they motivate me to keep following my own mechanical pursuits, and realizing that this is the stuff that I enjoy!

Ryan - The only advantage I ever saw to the (successful) leaner cars was reduced tire wear and fewer broken spokes. For me, it's not worth the extra complexity of design just to save a little tread and some spokes. Simplicity equals reliability and reliability helps win races.

I've run afoul of race officials and tech people many times for thrashing the track favorite in a race. In my stock car days I raced at a track where every time I beat the official's favorite I got tore down in the tech shed. If the favorite won, we all got to load up and go home early without getting greasy.

I always believed like Smokey Yunick - every rule is subject to interpretation. However, the officials don't like it if your interpretation doesn't match theirs...

Well, the trip to Georgia Saturday (May 7) didn't go well. It started out OK. This new car is one of the quietest running creations I've ever built. Apparently I got all the moving parts tuned right. There were 8 cars in attendance, 3 Open class and 5 High School. At the drop of the green flag I shot between the two cars in the front row and took the lead before the first turn. I showed the way around for 30 laps and lapped the entire field except the 2nd place car... and then my left front tire went flat! In the pits, while removing the tire from the rim, I discovered a bunch of loose spokes. Apparently I must have been interrupted and sidetracked when I was assembling that wheel. Usually, after lacing and truing a wheel, I make one last trip around it making sure all the spokes are tightened. I know that new spokes stretch a little in their first use, so I set them pretty tight. I must have not done that with this wheel, because the spokes had worked so loose I could spin half the spoke nipples with my bare fingers! Anyway, one of the loose spokes pinched the inner tube and that ended my first race. By the time I got the spokes tight, the wheel re-trued, and the tire remounted with a new tube, it was too late to suit up and re-join the fray.

With everything checked over, all three wheels' spokes tightened, chain tension verified, and fresh batteries installed, I was ready for the second race. This time I was lined up at the rear of the field. When the green flag dropped I started slowly and let the other cars pull away. Once they got strung out a little I started picking them off one-by-one. By the 5th or 6th lap I had the lead and was pulling away. I caught the last two cars and lapped them and suddenly my car slid a bit sideways on a sharp corner. I thought I had just hit some sand that another car might have kicked up on the track, but at the next turn it happened again. I knew what that meant - my rear tire was going down. I made about 5 more laps and finally, going around the big sweeping downhill left turn, I was "dirt tracking" all the way. I knew at that point that I would soon be running on the rim and would destroy it, so I went into the pits again. I had only completed 19 laps, about 18 minutes of the one-hour race. I didn't attempt to fix it and get back in the race - the rear tire/tube is a pain to change and I had already lost too many laps in the first race to improve my overall finishing position, so... I got 3rd place in the Open class; there were only 3 cars. At least the car suffered no damage, not even a scratch, so I'll have an easy time preparing for next week's season finale at Cocoa.

I haven't removed the rear wheel yet to see why it went flat. There are no loose spokes, though, so I'm sure it's not the same problem I had up front. When I find out I'll post it here.

Sorry to hear the results for you.. But theres no damage and it lives to fight another day..

Hope you can complete the whole race at the next one.

Sorry to hear about your tire problems but at least you didn't have any other issues to deal with too. Best of luck to you at the next race!