Loring is definitely _the_ best land speed event in U.S. Great track (1.5 mile run-up, 1 mile to slow down, paved), fantastic people and great weather (not at all as hot as Bonneville). We have had a great weekend!
KillaJoule ran mechanically absolutely perfectly. It ran straight as a string, stable and strong. Chutes, tires, steering and all other critical components worked flawlessly. Except for the sauna heat and the more than slightly claustrophobic feeling of being strapped on my back in a pop-can going almost 200 mph, it is quite fun to drive. The race organizers were really impressed with both engineering and behavior on the race track. Many new vehicles don’t run well, if they run at all.
Unfortunately, a software problem made it shut down if I held full throttle for extended length of time. We believe that we have made a mistake while setting up the extremely sophisticated Rinehart motor controllers. These are state-of-the-art AC controllers and have a large number of parameters that can be tuned to give exactly the throttle response and behavior we want. If these parameters are set so they conflict, it can result in an unexpected shut down. We couldn’t figure it out on the track, but we are quite sure that it is simply a stupid little mistake somewhere in the setup. Except for that user-error, the Rinehart controllers and the gorgeous EVO motor work wonderfully. The A123 Systems battery pack provides the needed power very reliably.
KillaJoule is definitely capable of going well over 200 mph, but when I couldn’t hold full throttle, we simply couldn’t reach it with the current setup in such a short distance at 1.5 miles. If we had been at Bonneville with 3 mile run-up, it would have been no problem.
Our best speed was 188 mph in the 1.5 mile and 164 mph in the 1 mile (1 mile and 1.5 miles are measured on the same track, so you can set two records in one run). Since electric voltage classes were added this year at Loring, all the electric classes at Loring had open records. 188 mph and 164 mph are thus the new records in the SCS/E-349+ class (Sidecar streamliner motorcycle – Electric – Over 349 volts). 188 mph is also, to my knowledge, the highest speed recorded for an electric sidecar motorcycle in the world. It is bit left to the overall sidecar record of 219 mph, but we are making good progress. Not too bad for a garage team working in the spare time. 😉