Thread: Electrathon - A Different Kind of "Hotrod"

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I finally finished the new car... the night before its first race. It always seems no matter how far in advance a project is begun, there is always barely enough time to get everything finished. Anyway, my son and I took the new #94 car and the old faithful #13 car to Tampa last Saturday (Nov 14) to do battle on the 1/4-mile oval around the Middleton HS football field. I had the cars appropriately geared for the large track and installed the removable bumpers so we could do a little "bump-drafting".

In the first race of the day everything went pretty much as planned. I picked my way through traffic in the opening laps until I caught up with Jim Jr. I put my bumper to his and pushed him through most of the next 40 minutes (there are always a few breaks from drafting to get through traffic). We were leading our class (Open, Standard Battery) with him officially scored 1st and me 2nd. With 20 minutes to go, I pulled up beside him and gave the signal to "GO". At that point we dialed up the throttles for the run to the end. At some point, Jim Jr took a turn at pushing me until we got into a pack of lapped cars and he retook the lead. With a minute to go (two laps) traffic worked to my advantage and I took the lead back and that's how we finished: me in 1st, Jim Jr in 2nd. Rodney Schreck came in 3rd, two laps down, and the USF guys (with the car they bought from me) in 4th just a few seconds behind Rodney.

For the second race the field was inverted, so I started ahead of my son. About 6 minutes into the run I overtook our teammate Rodney Schreck. His car is equipped with a rear bumper also, so I closed the gap and started pushing him. We did that for 4 or 5 laps until my right front tire suddenly went down. I ducked into the pits, pulled off the tire, and found a hole in the inner tube on the inside where it rides against the inner liner and spokes. I inspected the rim, but could find nothing wrong; no sharp edges, no broken spokes, no loose spokes, no metal shavings... I put the tire back on with a new inner tube and got back into the race. I had lost 14 minutes in the pits, so there was no need to conserve battery power - I dialed the throttle up all the way with the idea of logging as many laps as possible in the time left. I had fun for about another 6 or 7 minutes and the stupid tire went flat again! I limped back to the pits and became a spectator for the remainder of race two. It wasn't all bad, though, my son won the second race by a few laps. The USF team came in 2nd. Rodney had slowed down late in the race because he could see the cord starting to show in the tread of his right front tire. He nursed it home to a 3rd place finish. After the race his shredded tire was quite a topic of conversation. I doubt it would have made one more lap - these are two-ply tires and he had already worn through one layer of cord. I don't know how it was staying together...

The final tally for the day was Jim Jr in first place, the USF team in second 3 laps down, Rodney in third 5 laps down, and me in 4th by default (4 cars in our class)over 50 laps down. The nearest high school car was 26 laps behind the winner of our Open Class! The high school kids still can't figure out how a bunch of fat old guys outrun them so bad. Most of them have to add ballast to make minimum weight (180 pounds) while my son weighs in at 260 and I'm 243... Oh yeah, it wouldn't have mattered who won our class; it still looks good on me - I built all four cars...

Here's a pic of us lining up for race two - me in the new green car beside the red car I sold to USF. Notice the temporary front bumper. I'll post some better pics as soon as I shoot some.