... at Raceway Park (Englishtown, NJ)

When we ordered our Roadster I pinged the guy at the Englishtown Raceway Park Road Course and he was enthusiastic about me taking the car down there but after a few email exchanges I haven't been able to get any data on the 220V line they have at the road course. Given that he said they'd never seen a Tesla on the track I'm guessing nobody has tried to race & charge there but does anyone have any experience at this venue, maybe with another car? It would be great if they've got a 14-50 available but I'll not trust to hope.

Thanks in advance

EDIT: See this thread with a poll on the connector type.

rugbymonk said:

I spoke to the guy, too, and will try and race mine (#287) down there this summer.

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I am booked to do the road track training session on July 31st and have all my paperwork set. I have confirmed that they have a NEMA L14-30 hookup at the road track, so I bought the relevant adapter from TM.

rugbymonk said:

Want to arrange a time head-to-head on the 1/4 mile?

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LOL... Not sure about that, I'm probably the least experienced driver on this forum and not very competitive! But if you join our rally on Sept 18th then I might be willing to consider your challenge :biggrin:

rugbymonk said:

I am only 15 miles from there (Holmdel, NJ), so you could charge up at my place, just off exit 116 of the GSP by the Arts Center. I think they support RV hook-ups, so there must be a nema 14-50 close if you totally run out. Send me a note at rugbymonk - at - yahoo.com

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Cool, thanks... Very kind offer. Since I've never been to Raceway Park (or in fact to any race track other than Brands Hatch which was near where I grew up) the trip next weekend is still recon as far as I am concerned. I'm not sure what to expect other than "no refreshments" which they make very clear. If the 30A line at the road track is dead, funny-lookin' or doesn't work for some other reason, my backup plan is to hit the campground at Pine Cone Resort and Campground where they claim to have 14-50s, but I'll email you to follow up as your HPC would give that much extra peace of mind and it's always good to meet another Roadster owner! I have still never seen a Roadster in the wild (only at pre-arranged meetings).

AnOutsider said:

I've been there a few times for Waterfest, and I do remember there being RV hookups.

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I might have this all wrong but my understanding is that the road course is some distance from the main race area (dragsters etc.)... It is hard to tell from the map though. I'll be taking the driving course in the morning which seems to be in and out of the car [link], so I'll want my car handy but also want to charge when we're doing classroom sessions. Not to mention the fact that I don't want the car to be out of earshot if someone trips the alarm.

Anyway thanks for the input, I'll be down there this weekend so I'll provide a full report when I come back (or before, if I'm waiting for a charge after the track session!).

To close out the charging aspect of this thread, it all went fairly well, on paper at least. The facilities at Englishtown road course are basic; a guard rail, a grandstand made of scaffolding and not much else. There's a junction box right in front of the grandstand so that's where I had to put the car, this was kind of neat in the sense that it gave people plenty of opportunity to check the car out when they were not driving the course. Here's a picture of the charging setup:



You can see the very long 30A line they provided, which had a NEMA L14-30 on the end (initially full of spiders!). I bought the $100 adapter from Tesla Motors and that then connects to the UMC and into the car as expected. We'd done a fair bit of groundwork - I swapped many emails with the organisers - and it was good to see the LEDs light up without any hesitation when I plugged in.

Unfortunately the heat was intense; 95-100F all day with zero shade and zero wind. One of the instructors said that Englishtown is the Death Valley of New Jersey. The car was registering 125F when I put the key in. It was drawing nominal 24A @ 220V, but only gaining about 10 ideal miles per hour charged when I had expected approx 19 MPHC. I am pretty sure this was due to the cooling system trying to cool the batteries/PEM while charging and just not having much juice left over.

As for the overall experience of the "High Performance Drivers' Ed.", it was fun but absolutely brutal due to the heat. In the early afternoon, the car's Power Limit was kicking in almost as soon as we went out onto the course. For the good of the car I did not drive in Performance mode at all.