Wall St Journal reports on "electric" drag cars beating "gassers"

Those Muscle Cars
On the Drag Strip
Are Really Electric

Clunker Run on Batteries
Trounces Latest 'Gassers';
John Wayland's Close Call
By JOHN J. FIALKA
August 1, 2007; Page A1

PORTLAND, Ore. -- On a recent Friday night at the Portland International Raceway, John Wayland scanned the dragsters, looking for an opponent for his geeky looking 1972 Datsun sedan. Finally, he challenged the owner of a souped-up 2005 Corvette, the hottest-looking car at the track, to a quarter-mile race.
<SCRIPT language=javascript type=text/javascript charset=ISO-8859-1><!--com.dowjones.video.articlePlayer.draw("1130125418","320","290","left","452319854", "See how an electric car dubbed the Zombie is leaving conventional muscle cars in the dust.")//--></SCRIPT><TABLE height=290 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=320 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><EMBED name=flashObj pluginspage=http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash src=""http://services.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/452319854 width=320 height=290 type=application/x-shockwave-flash bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashVars="playerId=452319854&viewerSecureGatewayURL=https://services.brightcove.com/services/amfgateway&servicesURL=http://services.brightcove.com/services&cdnURL=http://admin.brightcove.com&domain=embed&autoStart=false&videoId=1130125418&" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" seamlesstabbing="false" swLiveConnect="true"></EMBED></TD></TR><TR><TD class=medcptnocrd>See how an electric car dubbed the Zombie is leaving conventional muscle cars in the dust.</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
When the starting light flashed, the Datsun, known as White Zombie, shot silently past the Corvette and kept widening the lead as the two cars faded into the distance. "Oh man, right off the [starting] line he had me," said the Corvette's owner, Robert Akers, shaking his head.
Electric cars are typically known for their fuel efficiency and environmental bona fides, not for their speed and muscle. But Mr. Wayland, 47 years old, is changing that, and has become something of a hero to a small group of hot rodders dedicated to humiliating gasoline-powered cars. The night White Zombie beat the Corvette, it also trounced two other "gassers," as Mr. Wayland calls them -- a blue BMW and a bright orange 1964 Pontiac Tempest.
The electric-car racers, who go by nicknames like "Father Time" and "Electric Louis," hope to jump-start public interest in electric vehicles. "Getting electric cars going in the U.S. has been like shoveling sand into a tsunami," says Roderick Wilde, who sometimes races here in his electric-powered Mazda.
White Zombie and the other electric cars compete in the most popular drag-racing category: the one for cars that can be driven on regular streets. Anybody with a hot car and a safety helmet can drive up and compete in this "street-legal" category. White Zombie can go from a standing start to 109 miles an hour in 11.9 seconds, making it one of the fastest street-legal cars in the nation.

Sometimes, given White Zombie's renown as a speed demon, other drivers avoid a face-off. The night he went to the raceway, Mr. Akers, the 35-year-old owner of the Corvette, had just gotten back from a two-year stint in Iraq working for a private security contractor. He says he knew that the Datsun had an electric motor but didn't realize what that meant. The boxy looking Datsun was driven by Tim Brehm, who is a mechanic for a local forklift distributor; Mr. Wayland, the car's owner, is a mechanic-instructor at the same company.
Mr. Wayland is a former bass player in a rock-and-roll band who says he barely made it through high school. He got interested in electric gear while running a business fixing broken amplifiers and television sets. In the 1980s, he drove gasoline-powered Datsuns in illegal drag races on the streets of Portland. "I had lots of speeding tickets," he says.
In 1985, he found the white Datsun sedan in a junkyard and bought it for $585. He intended to use it to drive to work. But in the early '90s, with General Motors Corp. beginning to tout the electric car, Mr. Wayland decided to convert the Datsun to electric power. Today, after several modifications, White Zombie has two powerful motors normally used to operate forklifts and 36 12-volt storage batteries crammed into the back seat and trunk. In daily use, most electric cars in the U.S. are little more than souped up golf carts with fewer batteries and much less power.
In electrifying the Datsun, Mr. Wayland had as his goal building a car that could beat most of the big gasoline-powered muscle cars around Portland. "Getting beat by a little Japanese car back then reflected on your manhood," he says.
Unlike gasoline engines, which take a few seconds to build up turning power, or torque, for the rear wheels, electric motors deliver it instantly. The sharp jolt of power was a problem for Mr. Wayland in his first few races. "I hit it and it was on full power," he says. "You just held on." He has since installed a controller, a kind of giant dimmer switch that phases in the battery power more gradually.
At first, skeptics abounded. One day, Mr. Wayland found policemen measuring a long skid mark the Zombie had made the previous evening. (Before a drag race starts, drivers often do a "burnout," spinning their tires furiously on the asphalt to make their treads sticky so they have a better grip on the road.) The policemen had heard rumors of a fast electric car but dismissed them. "There is no electric car that could lay down a strip like that," he heard one declare.
<TABLE class=imglftbdy cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=245 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR><TD class=medcptnocrd>John Wayland, standing next to his drag-racing, electric-powered Datsun.</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
The disbelief began to disappear in the mid- to late '90s, after Portland made drag-racing legal on a cordoned-off downtown street and later at the race track, and White Zombie prevailed over and over.
Around the country, other electric cars started beating gasoline-powered favorites, too. In 1996, a few tracks began to ban the electric cars, calling them unsafe because they went so fast and employed unfamiliar technology. In response, Mr. Wayland and others formed the National Electric Drag Racing Association, which now has about 50 members, and drew up safety rules for electric dragsters.
Those regulations satisfied the National Hot Rod Association, the world's largest promoter of drag races, which a few years later invited the electric drag racers to take part in its competitions. Now the electric cars routinely participate in drag races in California, Maryland and other states.
Still, even with tough safety rules, the cars can pose special hazards. When installing an array of batteries in a car, Mr. Wayland lays a rubber blanket on top of it, and connects one battery to the next, one at a time, to avoid short-circuits.
But in March 1998, feeling elated after installing 28 batteries in preparation for a race, he whipped off the blanket before he was finished. He leaned down to connect the last battery to the array and dropped the brass connecting rod, which bounced from battery to battery, creating a trail of sparks and flashes. A superheated cloud of gas, called a plasma, formed and flickered over the batteries as the heat generated by 336 volts melted the brass and fused the batteries together.
"I could feel the skin burning on my face," recalls Mr. Wayland, who wasn't seriously injured. A colleague threw a wet towel over the blaze. The towel was vaporized. Fire extinguishers had no effect. Finally, a fireman wearing a hazardous-materials suit disconnected the batteries, and the cloud disappeared. "The Zombie looked like a roasted marshmallow," Mr. Wayland says. The car was quickly repaired, and Mr. Wayland has since been known as "Plasma Boy."
The accident fueled Mr. Wayland's mystique, which has spread far beyond the drag-racing set. Last year, a Washington state police department -- the Clark County Sheriff's Office -- invited him to show off White Zombie in a fast-driving course for young officers. Mr. Wayland did a massive burnout, leaving a squad car, with lights blaring and siren screaming, far behind. "Somebody, please arrest me,' " Mr. Wayland recalls saying. "I'm having way too much fun."

 

I have seen a bunch of articles on these electric drag cars. They are pretty awsome. All of their torque is available all of the time. This guy as I recall also tore his back axle off a couple of times before he had the right setup.

Not quite the same as the AA Fuelers though.

They have more info on them here.
http://www.nedra.com/

 

36 car batteries.

36 x $50 (low side of replacement car batteries) = $1800. Makes gas seem cheap.

 

Impressive, but I think I'll stick with 110 or methanol.

-Lee
www.atomicpinup.com

 

I would love to try building something like that, would be kick ass. Especially with what is available over here.

 

That's the kind of article one gets when the reporter knows nothing about cars.

An 11.9, 109 quarter one of the fastest street-legal cars in the country? I don't think so.

I don't deny that electric drag cars are quick, but there are plenty of true 9 & 10 second street-legal cars in this country, much less 11.9 cars.

 

Youre reading it wrong...its 0 - 109 mph in 11.9 seconds.

 

looks like 8.168@155 is the electric record.

http://www.nedra.com/record_holders.html

What ever happened to the GM full size trucks with the electric helper motors? Seems like all that torque at 1 rpm would be perfect for a situation like towing.

http://www.killacycle.com/

Only 161 lbs. in batteries to produce enough power for 350 hp... I think I feel a tingling in my loins.

I just did a little calculating, 350hp at 1 rpm = 1838 lb-ft. torque!

 

Hmmm, 600 gallons of gas vs. plug it in for pennies / run.
Priced a good running small block lately?

Never throw another rod.
Roller bearings.
Max torque from zero RPM.
Range is the biggest limitation.

 

11.9 seconds to get to 109 mph...sounds about right according to the slide rule...is this a surprise, or something? my Galaxie went 11.90's @ 109...in the quarter, which is pretty much dead on mp-wise for a quarter mile pass, though they did not exactly say that. one of the fastest street legal cars ever? sure.

It was 4000 lbs.
what does an electric Datsun weigh? ( well, I guess batteries are pretty heavy...)

 

You make the assumption that the HP is constant.
HP is a function of torque and RPM.
I'm betting that 350 HP is at rated RPM.
That's still a bunch of torque depending on what the max RPM is.
At max rpm of 3600 that equals 510 lb/ft of torque.
That's still equivilant to a stout big block.
I guess I need to pull out some torque curves and make sure.
KTA America has decent prices on some nice DC motors if anybody wants to play.

 

now 8's...thats a good electric car! actually I try not to indulge the whole "this vs. that" kinda crap...they are all machines...I like machines. but it always has to be about one thing being the be-all end-all superior choice, don't it?!

I could make a5 horse lawnmower go 8's...if I had enough $$$, and the right minds on the job.

 

and a 2005 corvette that runs 12's was the "hottest looking car at the track" what the hell night was this? thats a sin!

 

I'm in the planning stages right now of an electric build. The body will be a highly modified 61 Caddie coupe. It will use 25 batteries and regenerative braking. Not trying for a drag car just quiet, gasless driving.

 

If they had battery technology that offered light weight batteries and 300-350 miles to a charge with easy and, more importantly, quick recharge.....electric would take over. Till then gasoline is king and diesel is prince.

 

also:
No noise
No visceral excitement
No rumbling or shaking
No aroma of race gas
No engine tuning
No soul


Don't get me wrong, for day to day transportation, It's great to develop alternative sources of energy. However, how many of us would ever have been attracted to hot rods or drag racing if all the cars were silent and smooth?
To me it just takes the soul out of it

 

i wonder what kind of environmental impact that car generates from using all those batteries...

 

i cant wait for it to take off!!! i can only imagine what 36x 25 million batterys in a landfill will do....gotta be better then refining oil!

before you poop your pants...im all about alternatives....just not sure thats the route to take...ihmo.!

 

A few years back Jim Worden and his wife, from MIT, built some great motors and controllers all under the name Solectria. Our team ran their stuff in the Northeast Tour-de-Sol. If the Lithium-ion or Nickel-metal-hydride (Ni-M-H) batteries improve at all, we will see a rush to market. GM is supposedly involved in a new car build.

 

Biscuit, you are right to ask about the waste and byproducts. Re-processing of material is part of any intelligent design.

 

Remember Electric cars were around before Henry Fords first car so that makes em traditional,right?

Dont worry, Im suggesting we all stay enviornmental polluters!

 

I see Series Hybrids as a good alternative.
I'll send you some info when I get that project rolling once I'm back on Campus.

 

I have always wondered why they cant put some sort of charging system that runs off the wheels turning to recharge the batteries. Then it would never have to be plugged in and would be truly self sufficant.

 

Actually they could. A friend of mine who owned a Harley and who towed a small trailer in the shape of a coffin had over 200 lights on the rig. To provide sufficient power for the lights and the other toys (radio, cd and cb) he designed and built a small generator that mounted to the front fork and used a small wheel that ran against his front tire to create power. He had been asked to seek a patent for the device and market it, but declined to do it. Said he had enough money and if anyone wanted to copy it they were free to so.

He owned a machine shop and had built the device out of necessity. He was a collector of cars and motorcycles and also owned two other older Harleys and 4 original Indians and an original Vincent Rapide and a Black Lightning. He died several years ago, don't know if anyone ever copied his little generator for production. I would imagine that something similar could be made functional for other types of vehicles.

 

power the lights, yes. recharge the batteries? no. its a long explanation, but to put it plainly, nuthin's free.

I want to build an electric streamliner for the salt. That would be cool.

 

There is no such thing as making energy. You can only convert it from one kind of energy to another. There is always a lose of energy in the transfer. Sometimes greater than others.

To completely respond to your idea I would need to teach you a physics lesson and A.) I don't feel like it, B.) it'd take up too much space and C.) it'd bore most everyone to death.

 

The "Michigan Madman" , E.J. Potter, built and ran a electric drag car over 35 years ago for demonstration runs,... called it the "Super Slot Car.

 

Maybe not free but almost.
It's called regenerative braking.
Instead of wasting the energy released as heat during braking, they use a generator to charge the batteries while slowing down.
Depending on the motor, they can actualy change the excitiation on the windings and the motor becomes a generator.
If you want to learn more just do a google/web search or wander over to Yahoo Groups and sign up on one of hundreds of forums on alt energy, LEV's, ZEV's, Hybrids, you name it.

I hear the moderators coming...quick, everybody start talking about carburetors or quickchange rears.