Alternative Energy Racing in the UK

I take it this is in the UK.

Chris,

Thanks for letting us know. I will try to make it up there this year.

There are several Tesla owners within reach of there, so maybe we can plan a UK meet up.

I would be up for a UK meet up - do you know if they are going to offer any charging whilst there? I have about 140 mile round trip so without some charging it might limit the number of runs on the track.

Just bouncing this thread as a reminder...

Apparently Dale Vince's Nemesis might be there.


Don't forget, if you are coming from the north, the track is reachable from Nottingham. If you are coming from the south west, there is charging at Oxford and/or Milton Keynes. Silverstone circuit apparently offers 32A too.

Dear all,

Alternative Energy Racing is back for 2012 – Santa Pod’s showcase event for alternative fuel and electric vehicles. The 2012 event takes place on Saturday 12th May.

If you’ve got an alternative fuel or electric vehicle in your fleet, this is the event where you can show it off to the wider world and interact with fellow enthusiasts.

As with previous year’s events, AE Racing centres around the dragstrip, and there are trophies for the fastest vehicles of the day, but it’s not a an out-and-out race event. Most people will be in attendance not to set records but to socialise and network with fellow enthusiasts and those in the industry.

A few plans and changes for the 2012 event:
- I am hoping to be able to open the event to those with electric vehicles on Friday night, to allow entrants to camp over and charge their vehicles overnight. All entrants are also welcome to stay on Saturday night for an additional charge to allow them to get home again. This should open up the event to competitors from further afield and also allow everyone to make more runs on the day.
- Due to time pressures on the track, I have been asked by the race director to only allow vehicles capable of at least 50mph on track. However, this does not exclude slower vehicles as I am also planning to have a shorter sprint track that can be used by the “cycle-type” vehicles, so everyone with an alternative fuel or electric vehicle will remain entirely welcome, no matter how fast or slow.

Both of the changes await confirmation, but I am hoping I will be able to confirm these shortly. In the meantime, if you have any ideas you would like to see implemented, please let me know!

Entries are now open and I will start to update the website with 2012 entries as they come in. PLEASE REGISTER ASAP if you want to receive newsletter updates. You can enter by replying to this email or by visiting this page: Alternative Energy Racing - Entries 2011

Please feel free to forward this email onto any friends, colleagues or associates that you think might be interested in Alternative Energy Racing 2012.

Thanks in advance for your involvement in the 2012 event!

Rick Cuthbert
Santa Pod Raceway – AE Racing co-ordinator
Alternative Energy Racing

Just a reminder to register for the event if you're interested.... we are trying to convince the Santa Pod management to allow us to install permanent EV Charging at the site and the more interest they have the easier it will be :smile:

Today is AE Racing day at Santa Pod. I know several LEAFs, Amperas and of course Roadsters will be there, as well as many home built EVs and drag racers.

The action starts at lunchtime, so please pop down if you are nearby. People are coming from as far as Scotland to join the fun. I'll be there at 11ish.

A few photos from today...



That LEAF was stripped out and I had a passenger




A selection of cars in the AE racing paddock, and forumers.

I had no idea this 'Alternative-Energy-Racing' event was running until midday when I checked this forum, and promptly grabbed my keys and shot over to Santa-Pod raceway.

Was a fascinating day out, and good to put faces to names and chew the fat about EVs in the UK.

Below are some slightly blurry screen grabs from a video shot on my cell phone, and an 'very pink' Leaf !!

Does anyone have pics of the two Tesla's on the start line ??

I didn’t realise that the worlds fastest street-bodied EV was in our presence today ... until it went up the track at sub-light speed.


Turns out "Black-Current III", an EV VW Beetle (kinda) can do a standing qtr in a staggering 9.51s @ 135mph.

What's even more amazing is how two brothers built it on a tiny budget here in the UK, including all the engineering, electrics, BMS, and tweaked Zilla 2K controller, and all the support software.

The performance of this homebrew EV simply destroys the timings from all $1m supercars.

It runs twin-inline netgain 9" impulse motors, and can handle 2,200 amps or 700,000 watts of power from a lithium-cobalt block, and does 0-60mph in 1.6seconds. Blimey.


To understand just how fast this EV is, check out this amazing rear-view vid clip, especially at about 1m15s :-

I believe the reason why the Mustang chickened out against the Tesla was that it was apparently beaten by that pink LEAF earlier in the day

The beetle famously beat Don Cochrane in a Roadster a couple of years ago. That got on EV news sites. I didn't realise they also now gone faster than White Zombie today because when I asked in the morning they'd just run a 10.0. That's worth shouting about.

dpeilow said:

I believe the reason why the Mustang chickened out against the Tesla was that it was apparently beaten by that pink LEAF earlier in the day .

Click to expand...

That mustang was all mouth and no trousers, whilst the Leaf was more of a a sassy vamp !

The beetle famously beat Don Cochrane in a Roadster a couple of years ago. That got on EV news sites. I didn't realise they also now gone faster than White Zombie today because when I asked in the morning they'd just run a 10.0. That's worth shouting about.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I thought White Zombie held the record, hence my amazement when Black Current appeared, nonchalantly sets an astonishing world record of 9.51s, and then the driver goes off for a cup of tea !


Heres a shaky 2010 clip of an older version Black Current ( was only 11.6s back then) beating a Roadster, but the Tesla still manages an official 12.6sec ss qtr :-

Love how you can see PV4EV's car under load here.

dpeilow said:

Love how you can see PV4EV's car under load here.

Click to expand...

Good find - thanks !

The car is squatting down ... because I need to lay off the doughnuts :biggrin:

But seriously, that is an interesting capture. I did have TC switched off, and managed to produce quite alot of chirps from the rears.

What were the times and terminal speeds from this run?

dpeilow said:

What were the times and terminal speeds from this run?

Click to expand...

Not sure, but the times usually appear on the AEracing website Alternative Energy Racing

I'm gutted I couldn't go this year. I'd planned to race my leaf, but after arriving back from Israel on the Thursday, and with another event booked for the family over the weekend we decided it was just too much to split up and take one kid to each event (especially as I was kinda beat and didn't fancy driving 150 miles on my own.)

Next year, we hope to be back there

Really glad to see that the Leafs which ran this year did a really good time, and hoping to see if we can persuade SP to do another AE race in the fall.

aminorjourney said:

dpeilow said:

What were the times and terminal speeds from this run?

Click to expand...

Not sure, but the times usually appear on the AEracing website Alternative Energy Racing

I'm gutted I couldn't go this year. I'd planned to race my leaf, but after arriving back from Israel on the Thursday, and with another event booked for the family over the weekend we decided it was just too much to split up and take one kid to each event (especially as I was kinda beat and didn't fancy driving 150 miles on my own.)

Next year, we hope to be back there

Really glad to see that the Leafs which ran this year did a really good time, and hoping to see if we can persuade SP to do another AE race in the fall.

Click to expand...

We both did half a dozen runs each, best times were a modest 13.3 and 13.0 (non-sport, sport) and both of us had consistently bad 0.6s reaction times !

If you look at this the end of your 2010 video at around 1m20s, it shows a Roadster Sport being driven by Sam (the Black-Current III driver) and armed with his super fast reaction time he gets an excellent 12.6s at 102.89mph.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3LjELMUyHQ



This puts the Roadster ahead of many recent supercars including the Ferrari 360 at 12.7s *, and the Lamborghini Countach 5000QV at 12.9s *.

Naturally both of these cars have claimed performance reserves in the 100-200mph bracket, but in practice this is a waste of engineering effort and more about bragging rights :biggrin: ...whereas Tesla have put all the performance into the useable speed band of 0-90mph, the rest being a waste in the real world (says me, who's had a few 200mph capable cars :redface: )

* Source :-
Ferrari 360 Modena information on SupercarWorld.com
Lamborghini Countach QV information on SupercarWorld.com