Anatomy of a NEDRA record
It was 7 years ago when I attended my first drag race; it was for electric cars, and held in Sacramento, held by an organization named NEDRA - the National Electric Drag Racing Association.
Given the large number of categories for records, it seemed to be fairly easy to set a world record. I didn't see any inherent reason why battery voltage of 24V should be any slower than 48V, Given DC-DC upconversion, but more importantly, there just seemed to be certain records that were within easy reach. So, long story short, I bought an electric bicycle, found a great mechanic who was into electric vehicles, found someone who only weighed 140 pounds, and a year later I was back at the track - and we got the record. "Class Sixty-Four" was the slot they found for it, after some controversy over whether an electric bicycle could qualify in the motorcycle class. The record still stands.
I'll skip a lot of history and flash forward to the present: In 2005 I put in an order for the Tango. In 2006 I was present for the unveiling of the Tesla Roadster, and after getting a ride in one, I put down my money for that, too. Both were promised for 2007. After 2 years of trading delivery delay excuses, my Tango was delivered in March 28, 2008, in time for a great April Fools' joke, and my Tesla (technically, my wife's Tesla) was delivered on October 9.
Ever since then, I've wanted to race them against each other. After all, they both claim 0-60 in "about 4 seconds", but how well do they do when normal people attempt that? But there's the issue of logistics. See, the Tango is a lead-acid car, so its range is limited - 50 miles best case, and realistically about 35 miles when you factor in highway speeds and stop-and-go. But the nearest drag racing track is 70 miles away. Most electric drag racers trailer their cars to the track for this reason, but I was hoping to do better.
The Tango is built for a work-around: it has a trailer hitch, which is designed to be able to tow a range-extending trailer, and unlike the Tesla, its batteries can re-charge even as it is traveling. After some research, I picked up two Honda EU2000i generators, which can be parallelized to provide 26A @110V, and went back to my favorite EV-knowledgeable mechanic, Mike Mercado of Mechanically Speaking in Burlingame. After talking about various designs, I spent a long Tuesday night at his shop, watching him weld, and occasionally providing a helping hand, and came out with a working trailer design. Since the generators together only weigh 100 pounds, it's easier to avoid wheels and just stick the whole thing into the hitch itself. Works great.
The next problem is that 70 miles is still a long way. So I talked to the other Tango owner in my area, Nat Simons, and he agreed to let me borrow his Tango in return for his name being on the NEDRA record. He lives only 35 miles away from the track, so the logistics, while not perfect, work well. The final problem was that I've got kids, and, long story short, my wife couldn't simultaneously race and watch them, so I needed the help of a co-worker, preferably someone lighter than I am. This was my friend Chandler Carruth.
7:30AM: Chandler meets me at my house, and immediately there is an issue: he is wearing shorts. (Yes, it's California, we do that in November). Fortunately I was his size several years ago, and I have a pair of long pants. Not because it's cold, mind you: the drag race track doesn't allow people to race unless they have long pants on.
7:50AM: we leave for Berkeley, me in the Toyota Highlander Hybrid, Chandler in the Tesla. The Tesla is getting great efficiency because in addition to only going 50mph, he is drafting me.
8:55AM: we get to Nat's house. We immediately start re-charging the Tesla so it can have high charge for the race, and then discover to our horror that Nat has removed the rear seat. This is an issue because we're looking for the "SP" Street Production record. That is, the car must not be modified in any way! So in addition to attaching the generator trailer to Nat's Tango, we have to put the rear seat back! Here's a pic of Nat and the hybridized Tango; behind him is my Tesla; behind that is his Tesla. "What", you say, "he *also* has a Tango and a Tesla?!?" Yes indeed. Tango owner #1 was George Clooney, who also has a Tesla. Tango owner #2 is me; Tango owner #3 is Nat. Of the next 8 people in line for a Tango, half or more also have Teslas on order!
10:55AM: we finally leave on our journey to Infineon. This journey is even slower, since we're trying to conserve every last bit of charge on both vehicles. It also gave passers-by the rarest of views: not just a Tango, of which only 3 have ever been sold, not just a Tango with two generators strapped to its trailer hitch, but a Tango with two generators stuck into its trailer hitch followed by a Tesla. About 20 cars take our picture during this trip, typically with cel phone cameras; roughly one every 2 minutes.
11:45AM: We get to Infineon. Brian Hall of NEDRA has graciously offered his help to guide me through the process of bracket racing, which I have never done before. Our only prior experience is with an official NEDRA event, where there was no competition, per se: just run the track and collect your time. After some initial pleasantries, and disconnecting the generator trailer, we get into the line for tech inspecton. And wait and wait and wait. It turns out that the guy doing inspections thought he was done, and went for lunch, since although we made it through the gates before noon, we weren't in the inspection line by then. This means we lose precious time where the Tango could have still been charging from the generators.
12:30PM: Tech inspection. This is abbreviated, because lots of things don't apply. We haven't removed our muffler, neither car has a clutch, the batteries are tied down well enough because they account for around 1/3rd of the weight of either vehicle, etc etc. The only brief hiccup is when he looks at the Tesla and says, "uh, isn't this car too fast? We need a rollbar." And this is the single point where Tesla has helped us out the most. See, only a few weeks prior, Tesla took one of its new prototypes to this exact track, and they were kicked off. See, there's a lot of safety rules that surround any racing activity, and for drag racing, they don't allow convertibles that run faster than 14.000 unless they have roll bars. The Tesla has a roll bar, but it's so well integrated into the car that it doesn't look like it does. Tesla posted this experience on their "touch" blog - http://www.teslamotors.com/blog4/ - so we knew to expect this. Fortunately, I've got one of the earliest Teslas - #9 of the Signature 100 - and it came with Tesla's original 2-speed drivetrain, but stuck in second gear. The car comes with a free upgrade to the new "1.5" drivetrain, which is noticeably faster with much better low-end torque, but I haven't been upgraded. So I can't run faster than 14.000. And I can't be disqualified for lack of a roll bar that I actually have.
1:00PM: they slot us in the middle of the first round of competition, for dial-in. The Tesla gets a 14.647, a time which will eventually be the world-record time; the time-slip says:
1:01PM: The Tango is inexplicably held up until the Tesla is most of the way down the track, and gets a respectable but far-slower-than-expected time:
When I see the time slip, I immediately scowl under my breath, I *knew* we should have found a way to keep the generators running while we were waiting to run! We've essentially done a run with the batteries less than half full, and with lead-acid batteries, that makes a big difference. Fortunately it's going to be a long time before we get a proper run in, so we head off to get the Tango charging.
1:10PM: we meet some friends of Brian's, and review his entrant of the day, "Ice Breaker", which turns out to be the third vehicle to break a NEDRA record that day. In particular, we meet our videographer-to-be, who goes by "KO".
2:00PM or so: While we're off shedding bodily fluids, Brian Hall meets the Infineon folks who want to know what we want our racing handicaps to be set at for bracket racing. See, in order for it to be fun to race against other cars, every racer is trying to come as close as possible to how fast their car can possibly be. Then, for a race, if one car is slower than the other, the give the slower car a head start. The winner is the one who crosses the finish line first. Of course, this also means that you can get as much of a head start as you want, just by claiming your car is slower than it really is, so there's an additional rule: if your car turns out to run faster than your claim, then you were sandbagging, and you're disqualified. Your claim is called the "dial", and Brian sets it about 2/10s of a second faster than our initial run. Specifically, the Tango's dial is set to 14.7 seconds, and the Tesla's is set to 14.5.
In addition to getting your car down the track as close as possible to the theoretical fastest-possible time, there's another element of skill: reaction time. This is the time difference between when the light goes green, and when your tires actually leave the start line. I'll be blunt here: Chandler and I both suck at this, because it's our first time.
2:15PM or so: with the first round of "trophy" class racing almost complete, we're told we need to hurry ourselves into the line for the first real race.
2:30PM: We take off. The first ever head-to-head Tango-vs-Tesla race, and this time, the Tango's batteries are more like 3/4 charged.
And the time slips?
But remember what I said about the handicap time, aka the "dial"? The Tango's is set to 14.7, so it's disqualified. But that doesn't really matter. The important thing is, both cars made it down the track twice, and we have the time slips to prove it. By NEDRA rules, the Tesla gets the record at 14.647, the better of its two times, since they are within 1% of each other. The Tango on the other hand gets the worst of its two times, 14.895, because they're so far from each other.
This may seem unfair, but the Tesla falls victim to this exact issue later...
3:30PM One more time, I run the Tesla down the track, this time for a 14.713 time. For the first time, it's drag racing the way it was meant to be, and I win on my merits as a drag racer: my reaction time is 0.367 seconds, as opposed to the guy in the next lane who has a reaction time of 0.511 seconds. I get a time of 14.713 seconds, which is .213 seconds slower than my "dial", while the guy in the next lane gets a 15.634 time, which is .184 seconds slower than his "dial". So I win based on my faster reaction time. Unfortunately, I'm not caring very much, because I've already accomplished what I came to do, and I know that the Tesla is only going to get slightly slower from here on out. And I have a wife and two kids who've been here for two hours just to see me race 14 seconds at a time. So I offer Chandler the opportunity to race the Tesla. Now, I'm not even sure if it's allowed to switch drivers, but if we're disqualified for that, that's fine by us.
3:50PM: Chandler takes the wheel, and loses both for his reaction time and for his dial violation. Here's the video, the Tesla loses to a damn good drag racer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=af1MF9OZSg0 And here's the time slip:
Holy crap - a 0.05 second reaction time! And he went down the track at within a tenth of a second as fast as his car would go!
For all his skill though, he didn't need to even try, because the Tesla blew its dial time. By 2 thousands of a second!!! Talk about your narrow margins!
At this point we parked the Tesla, said our goodbyes, and went over to the on-track gas station so the Tango could fill up:
Now, the generators hold a gallon of gas each, but they're not empty. We fill up our hybridized Tango at a grand total price (I think you can see it in the picture) of $3.70, not bad for the fuel costs of a drag-race vehicle, and head home.
And we're feeling great, because we haven't just blown away the existing NEDRA records for production electric vehicles (the previous record-holder, the GM EV-1, had a 1/4-mile time of 16.5 seconds!), we have done it in vehicles that we *drove* to the track, *without* having them be towed in!!
And we're looking forward to going back next year. By then, Tesla will have upgraded my Tesla to the new drivetrain, which should pull the 1/4 mile time down to the 12s somewhere. Next time, I'm hoping my wife will drive; she weighs far less than either Chandler or me. Next time, the Tango will, at the least, be fully charged, and at best, be upgraded to Li-Ion batteries.
I can't wait.
Given the large number of categories for records, it seemed to be fairly easy to set a world record. I didn't see any inherent reason why battery voltage of 24V should be any slower than 48V, Given DC-DC upconversion, but more importantly, there just seemed to be certain records that were within easy reach. So, long story short, I bought an electric bicycle, found a great mechanic who was into electric vehicles, found someone who only weighed 140 pounds, and a year later I was back at the track - and we got the record. "Class Sixty-Four" was the slot they found for it, after some controversy over whether an electric bicycle could qualify in the motorcycle class. The record still stands.
I'll skip a lot of history and flash forward to the present: In 2005 I put in an order for the Tango. In 2006 I was present for the unveiling of the Tesla Roadster, and after getting a ride in one, I put down my money for that, too. Both were promised for 2007. After 2 years of trading delivery delay excuses, my Tango was delivered in March 28, 2008, in time for a great April Fools' joke, and my Tesla (technically, my wife's Tesla) was delivered on October 9.
Ever since then, I've wanted to race them against each other. After all, they both claim 0-60 in "about 4 seconds", but how well do they do when normal people attempt that? But there's the issue of logistics. See, the Tango is a lead-acid car, so its range is limited - 50 miles best case, and realistically about 35 miles when you factor in highway speeds and stop-and-go. But the nearest drag racing track is 70 miles away. Most electric drag racers trailer their cars to the track for this reason, but I was hoping to do better.
The Tango is built for a work-around: it has a trailer hitch, which is designed to be able to tow a range-extending trailer, and unlike the Tesla, its batteries can re-charge even as it is traveling. After some research, I picked up two Honda EU2000i generators, which can be parallelized to provide 26A @110V, and went back to my favorite EV-knowledgeable mechanic, Mike Mercado of Mechanically Speaking in Burlingame. After talking about various designs, I spent a long Tuesday night at his shop, watching him weld, and occasionally providing a helping hand, and came out with a working trailer design. Since the generators together only weigh 100 pounds, it's easier to avoid wheels and just stick the whole thing into the hitch itself. Works great.
The next problem is that 70 miles is still a long way. So I talked to the other Tango owner in my area, Nat Simons, and he agreed to let me borrow his Tango in return for his name being on the NEDRA record. He lives only 35 miles away from the track, so the logistics, while not perfect, work well. The final problem was that I've got kids, and, long story short, my wife couldn't simultaneously race and watch them, so I needed the help of a co-worker, preferably someone lighter than I am. This was my friend Chandler Carruth.
7:30AM: Chandler meets me at my house, and immediately there is an issue: he is wearing shorts. (Yes, it's California, we do that in November). Fortunately I was his size several years ago, and I have a pair of long pants. Not because it's cold, mind you: the drag race track doesn't allow people to race unless they have long pants on.
7:50AM: we leave for Berkeley, me in the Toyota Highlander Hybrid, Chandler in the Tesla. The Tesla is getting great efficiency because in addition to only going 50mph, he is drafting me.
8:55AM: we get to Nat's house. We immediately start re-charging the Tesla so it can have high charge for the race, and then discover to our horror that Nat has removed the rear seat. This is an issue because we're looking for the "SP" Street Production record. That is, the car must not be modified in any way! So in addition to attaching the generator trailer to Nat's Tango, we have to put the rear seat back! Here's a pic of Nat and the hybridized Tango; behind him is my Tesla; behind that is his Tesla. "What", you say, "he *also* has a Tango and a Tesla?!?" Yes indeed. Tango owner #1 was George Clooney, who also has a Tesla. Tango owner #2 is me; Tango owner #3 is Nat. Of the next 8 people in line for a Tango, half or more also have Teslas on order!
10:55AM: we finally leave on our journey to Infineon. This journey is even slower, since we're trying to conserve every last bit of charge on both vehicles. It also gave passers-by the rarest of views: not just a Tango, of which only 3 have ever been sold, not just a Tango with two generators strapped to its trailer hitch, but a Tango with two generators stuck into its trailer hitch followed by a Tesla. About 20 cars take our picture during this trip, typically with cel phone cameras; roughly one every 2 minutes.
11:45AM: We get to Infineon. Brian Hall of NEDRA has graciously offered his help to guide me through the process of bracket racing, which I have never done before. Our only prior experience is with an official NEDRA event, where there was no competition, per se: just run the track and collect your time. After some initial pleasantries, and disconnecting the generator trailer, we get into the line for tech inspecton. And wait and wait and wait. It turns out that the guy doing inspections thought he was done, and went for lunch, since although we made it through the gates before noon, we weren't in the inspection line by then. This means we lose precious time where the Tango could have still been charging from the generators.
12:30PM: Tech inspection. This is abbreviated, because lots of things don't apply. We haven't removed our muffler, neither car has a clutch, the batteries are tied down well enough because they account for around 1/3rd of the weight of either vehicle, etc etc. The only brief hiccup is when he looks at the Tesla and says, "uh, isn't this car too fast? We need a rollbar." And this is the single point where Tesla has helped us out the most. See, only a few weeks prior, Tesla took one of its new prototypes to this exact track, and they were kicked off. See, there's a lot of safety rules that surround any racing activity, and for drag racing, they don't allow convertibles that run faster than 14.000 unless they have roll bars. The Tesla has a roll bar, but it's so well integrated into the car that it doesn't look like it does. Tesla posted this experience on their "touch" blog - http://www.teslamotors.com/blog4/ - so we knew to expect this. Fortunately, I've got one of the earliest Teslas - #9 of the Signature 100 - and it came with Tesla's original 2-speed drivetrain, but stuck in second gear. The car comes with a free upgrade to the new "1.5" drivetrain, which is noticeably faster with much better low-end torque, but I haven't been upgraded. So I can't run faster than 14.000. And I can't be disqualified for lack of a roll bar that I actually have.
1:00PM: they slot us in the middle of the first round of competition, for dial-in. The Tesla gets a 14.647, a time which will eventually be the world-record time; the time-slip says:
Reaction Time: 0.992
60': 2.618
330': 6.739
660': 9.813
MPH: 80.86
1000': 12.428
1/4: 14.647
MPH: 101.09MPH
1:01PM: The Tango is inexplicably held up until the Tesla is most of the way down the track, and gets a respectable but far-slower-than-expected time:
Reaction Time: 0.534
60': 2.241
330': 6.215
660': 9.508
MPH: 74.13
1000': 12.400
1/4: 14.895
MPH: 89.67MPH
When I see the time slip, I immediately scowl under my breath, I *knew* we should have found a way to keep the generators running while we were waiting to run! We've essentially done a run with the batteries less than half full, and with lead-acid batteries, that makes a big difference. Fortunately it's going to be a long time before we get a proper run in, so we head off to get the Tango charging.
1:10PM: we meet some friends of Brian's, and review his entrant of the day, "Ice Breaker", which turns out to be the third vehicle to break a NEDRA record that day. In particular, we meet our videographer-to-be, who goes by "KO".
2:00PM or so: While we're off shedding bodily fluids, Brian Hall meets the Infineon folks who want to know what we want our racing handicaps to be set at for bracket racing. See, in order for it to be fun to race against other cars, every racer is trying to come as close as possible to how fast their car can possibly be. Then, for a race, if one car is slower than the other, the give the slower car a head start. The winner is the one who crosses the finish line first. Of course, this also means that you can get as much of a head start as you want, just by claiming your car is slower than it really is, so there's an additional rule: if your car turns out to run faster than your claim, then you were sandbagging, and you're disqualified. Your claim is called the "dial", and Brian sets it about 2/10s of a second faster than our initial run. Specifically, the Tango's dial is set to 14.7 seconds, and the Tesla's is set to 14.5.
In addition to getting your car down the track as close as possible to the theoretical fastest-possible time, there's another element of skill: reaction time. This is the time difference between when the light goes green, and when your tires actually leave the start line. I'll be blunt here: Chandler and I both suck at this, because it's our first time.
2:15PM or so: with the first round of "trophy" class racing almost complete, we're told we need to hurry ourselves into the line for the first real race.
2:30PM: We take off. The first ever head-to-head Tango-vs-Tesla race, and this time, the Tango's batteries are more like 3/4 charged.
And the time slips?
Car: Tango Tesla
Dial: 14.7 14.5
R/T: 0.603 0.607
60': 2.174 2.649
330': 6.053 6.770
660': 9.243 9.839
MPH: 76.40 81.02
1000: 12.054 12.450
1/4: 14.480 14.666
MPH: 92.15 101.23
But remember what I said about the handicap time, aka the "dial"? The Tango's is set to 14.7, so it's disqualified. But that doesn't really matter. The important thing is, both cars made it down the track twice, and we have the time slips to prove it. By NEDRA rules, the Tesla gets the record at 14.647, the better of its two times, since they are within 1% of each other. The Tango on the other hand gets the worst of its two times, 14.895, because they're so far from each other.
This may seem unfair, but the Tesla falls victim to this exact issue later...
3:30PM One more time, I run the Tesla down the track, this time for a 14.713 time. For the first time, it's drag racing the way it was meant to be, and I win on my merits as a drag racer: my reaction time is 0.367 seconds, as opposed to the guy in the next lane who has a reaction time of 0.511 seconds. I get a time of 14.713 seconds, which is .213 seconds slower than my "dial", while the guy in the next lane gets a 15.634 time, which is .184 seconds slower than his "dial". So I win based on my faster reaction time. Unfortunately, I'm not caring very much, because I've already accomplished what I came to do, and I know that the Tesla is only going to get slightly slower from here on out. And I have a wife and two kids who've been here for two hours just to see me race 14 seconds at a time. So I offer Chandler the opportunity to race the Tesla. Now, I'm not even sure if it's allowed to switch drivers, but if we're disqualified for that, that's fine by us.
3:50PM: Chandler takes the wheel, and loses both for his reaction time and for his dial violation. Here's the video, the Tesla loses to a damn good drag racer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=af1MF9OZSg0 And here's the time slip:
Car: Tesla Car 46
Dial: 14.5 10.47
R/T: 0.705 0.050
60': 2.555 1.494
330': 6.632 4.323
660': 9.682 6.718
MPH: 81.38 102.41
1000: 12.284 8.793
1/4: 14.498 10.568
MPH: 101.40 125.39
Holy crap - a 0.05 second reaction time! And he went down the track at within a tenth of a second as fast as his car would go!
For all his skill though, he didn't need to even try, because the Tesla blew its dial time. By 2 thousands of a second!!! Talk about your narrow margins!
At this point we parked the Tesla, said our goodbyes, and went over to the on-track gas station so the Tango could fill up:
Now, the generators hold a gallon of gas each, but they're not empty. We fill up our hybridized Tango at a grand total price (I think you can see it in the picture) of $3.70, not bad for the fuel costs of a drag-race vehicle, and head home.
And we're feeling great, because we haven't just blown away the existing NEDRA records for production electric vehicles (the previous record-holder, the GM EV-1, had a 1/4-mile time of 16.5 seconds!), we have done it in vehicles that we *drove* to the track, *without* having them be towed in!!
And we're looking forward to going back next year. By then, Tesla will have upgraded my Tesla to the new drivetrain, which should pull the 1/4 mile time down to the 12s somewhere. Next time, I'm hoping my wife will drive; she weighs far less than either Chandler or me. Next time, the Tango will, at the least, be fully charged, and at best, be upgraded to Li-Ion batteries.
I can't wait.
posted by Jorg | 9:00 PM
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