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Debut of the NEXT form of racing


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Why not??............fossil fuel is in the cross-hairs. The biggest shame of it would be the loss of that great sound of an F1 engine (without a turbo to muffle the sound) winding out at 18,000 rpm.

Biggest issue I see!!!! Nothing like the sound of internal combustion!!!!

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Just thinking about this.........what if they set it up like a carnival "Bumper cars" ride. They could hang a tall rod at the back of the car.....then have a mesh ten feet over the track......they could race around all day and never run out of electricity....little sparks popping out of the rod when there is a loss of contact to the mesh momentarily ....what do you think?

I hope you don't think I am serious about this................just letting my "Al Gore" side come out.

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A lot of people will look down on this, but if you have never driven one of those electric performance go karts, you don't know what you are missing. New electric motors are nearly frictionless compared to what they used to be. Instant acceleration.

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I was just thinking after reviewing the video, how long can this car go before needing a recharge? Can the batteries be swapped in less than the time it takes to change the tires?

From what I read about this series, you will swap out to another car when the batteries run out.

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This is just the beginning.

Electric cars are still an oddity now.. but 20 years from now? An electric Dragster is going to make a modern day Combustion engine dragster look like a joke.

It DEFINITELY won't be as cool to watch, or hear, or smell, or feel.. but in pure performance, electric motors are going to destroy the speeds of combustion engines in drag racing.

Electric motors make maximum torque at 0rpm, so they can out accelerate anything. Just give them the power to do it.

don't get me wrong, combustion engine racing isn't going anywhere.. we're still using carburetors, and fuel injection has been around how long?

... and plus.. we DO still race horses.. and the Internal combustion automobile kinda proved it was a lot better at racing then the horse.

E-Racing will just become another form of motorsport.. some will hate it, some will love it..

Edited by DirtModeler
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ERacing. No thanks, it'll suck. They're already getting a little ridiculous in F1 with hybrid and limiting fuel economy. It's RACING! You need the sights, the sounds and the smells. F1 should have kept the V8's and went to ethanol if they're becoming environmentally PC.

Edited by 58 Impala
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ANY kind of racing pushes the tech envelope beyond what corporate bean-counters and marketing departments will approve, and what (some) talent-limited engineers (who would be just as content designing blenders as cars) will come up with in a mass-market, corporate backside-covering environment. It wouldn't hurt at all to have some really highly-motivated car guys working on issues like energy-density and recharge-speed of battery packs.

Racing sometimes is ahead of the technical curve, and hastens the development of great things that trickle down to mortals, and sometimes it lags a little behind. But overall, ideas we all take for granted now on bread-and-butter cars...variable valve timing and more than 2 valves per chamber, just to name a couple...were once only found on the most exotic of racing cars.

Humans always race ANYTHING that moves, in case you haven't noticed, and electric vehicles will be no exception.

I don't think you'll have to worry about quiet EVs replacing screaming combustion engines any time soon, but there's room for competition classes no matter what the power source. EVs are coming, in large numbers, and will have significant influences on motorsports.

Ohio State's (battery powered) Buckeye Bullet 1 already has run 321MPH at Bonneville. Buckeye_Bullet_at_Bonnevill.jpg

http://www.buckeyebullet.com/

Edited by Ace-Garageguy
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Umm actually torque is what accelerates the vehicle from a stand still or in the case of dirt or asphalt oval or road racing pulls you off the corner.

But Ummm, isn't Horsepower about how fast you can apply that torque? Torque is great. I am all for it but there is a reason why they don't run diesels in top fuel. You need horsepower, too. More RPMs mean more horsepower. F1 engines run about 18,000 rpm now. More rpms, more HP.

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But Ummm, isn't Horsepower about how fast you can apply that torque? Torque is great. I am all for it but there is a reason why they don't run diesels in top fuel. You need horsepower, too. More RPMs mean more horsepower. F1 engines run about 18,000 rpm now. More rpms, more HP.

Yeah, but doesn't a Top Fuel Dragster do only about 1000 revolutions of the motor, the whole race? Drag Motors are REALLY High torque, low RPM if i'm not mistaken.

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A Top Fuel Engine actually has quite a high RPM, usually around 9500 or so, but the race is so short that it only turns over 500 or so times from start to finish.

The only electric vehicle I`ve ever experienced is my nephews Traxxas Slash R/C truck and its crazy with a capital stooopid. It used to go 40 mph in stock form (only) but after a couple months he decided he needed more go so he installed a hotter motor, now the dam thing hits 60 mph and it does it in the blink of an eye! Pretty impressive.

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But Ummm, isn't Horsepower about how fast you can apply that torque? Torque is great. I am all for it but there is a reason why they don't run diesels in top fuel. You need horsepower, too. More RPMs mean more horsepower. F1 engines run about 18,000 rpm now. More rpms, more HP.

F-1 engines have a 1" stroke that's why they turn the rpm's, they have minimal torque that's why they have so many gears to get into what little torque range they have to get off of the corner, and accelerate from a stand still and their torque range is very high in the rpm band. And I never said you didn't need horsepower but there is truth in torque wins races. I'd hate to see a sprint car motor with only 500 ft. lbs try to pull off a corner on a tacky track, it would barely be able to accelerate to its peak power rpm if at all.

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A Top Fuel Engine actually has quite a high RPM, usually around 9500 or so, but the race is so short that it only turns over 500 or so times from start to finish.

The only electric vehicle I`ve ever experienced is my nephews Traxxas Slash R/C truck and its crazy with a capital stooopid. It used to go 40 mph in stock form (only) but after a couple months he decided he needed more go so he installed a hotter motor, now the dam thing hits 60 mph and it does it in the blink of an eye! Pretty impressive.

His Slash is probably set up like my 2wd Stampede, when I bought it 15 years ago, it wouldn't do 20mph without a swift kick down hill, now I can be rolling at 40mph and peg it, and if I'm lucky, I might have one of the wheely bar wheels on the ground and might still be pointed the the direction I had been originally going..............although it's usually more like a Fuel Altered, go full throttle and it's off the ground, sideways, and not always with the chassis closer to the ground than the body :o

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