Furze Platt Greenpower Racing

The Avon Heat arrived with great expectations as we knew the circuit from HPV races and it was decided to increase the gearing by 4% to see if we could get the cars top speed up slightly as the pit straight is slightly down hill which would aid the motor. Obviously we would then need to use the gears more to get back up the hill the other side.

Well that was the plan and all tested out OK at the school so the team arrived hopeful of great things.

The day was perfect but may be a bit hot for a fully enclosed car but we made sure the drivers were well hydrated and as comfortable as possible by dampening them down. The water cooling bottles do this as well as they splash over the drivers shoulders when driving around. 

The practice session was started and the thermal trip decided it was to hot and kept breaking so this was quickly changed. This cured the fault. It was also noticed at this time that the over-current warning light seemed to have stopped working, we hoped it might start again but this was the first fault that led to the motor melt down.  The race started shortly after this point and the driver was asked to take it easy coming up the hill but it is very difficult to judge the gear to be in so his lap time was very good for racing (39.6 MPH average with a top speed of 47.1 MPH) but not so good for the motor. The lap times did moderate but the motor eventually overheated (after 40 mins.) and the we thought we would have to retire from the race. 

It was decided to increase the water cooling flow as it looked a bit slow to try to cool the motor, and then see if the motor ran when it was cooler. We had heard all the stories about a fried motor so were not too hopeful of any more laps. Amazingly after about 10 mins the motor was tried and it ran. So with nothing to loose TT was sent out to see what would happen. What happened was it came back on the rescue trailer, we thought we’d have another look at the motor, and again having been told that the motor runs slowly when a brush comes loose we looked at the brushes and 2 of them had melted and sprung out,  but we thought how about taping them back in with duct tape. So this was done with burnt finger tips and the water cooling flow was increased again, the water tanks filled to the brim this time. A new driver was put in and off she went with the promise of an ice cream if she got to the end of the pit lane. She did and kept going for over 40 mins. doing very respectable lap times. More or less keeping up with the now leader TSR2 team who were lapping like clockwork.

The duct tape did eventually give up and TT came back in, but by now we were moving slowly up the field so more tape was applied and out it went again. At this point St Peter Counterpoint F35 Team Barracuda came forward with an idea of using some tyraps which they kindly supplied to assist the tape which was working well beyond the temperatures it was designed for. So these were fitted the next time the car slowed down and this helped the tape in the final part of the race.  The motor held together to the end and even at this late stage of the motors life the driver managed to pull a couple of 3:20 sec laps which was probably the speed the car should have been going if the warning light had been working. 

So what was learned? You do need the over-current warning light to tell when to change gear. The water cooling needs to run properly especially in hot weather. Duct tape and tyraps can give you a fighting chance of finishing a race and a reasonable position of 11th, even with an almost completely melted motor. The record lap time of 2:48.6 probably will be unbeatable without damage to the motor or batteries range.

Many thanks to the St Peter Counterpoint Team for their help and letting us know when TT was stopped on the track.

The TT will have a new motor for Bedford, improved water cooling and current light sorted. Hopefully it will be there with its sister car Super Slug. It will be interesting to see how they perform on a short circuit where acceleration may be more important than top speed.

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Last modified: 08/06/09