Woodburn Nationals 2004

I just thought it would be good to let you all know the full story of "Gone Postal" at Woodburn.

The new front axles were installed a couple of weeks or so back and there wasn't any nearby tracks open before Woodburn so "Gone Postal" had sat in the shop for about two months with the batteries charged as delivered by Rich after he was done testing and taking it to the Greenwood Car Show in Seattle and a parade in Kingston.

I knew the first run wouldn't be great as the batteries were cold and hadn't been cycled so I figured I would take a run down the track to warm them and fill em up. Also the rear drive according to Rich was turned down to 1300 amps. That's like in Raptor territory, not Zilla numbers. Also Oat had suggested we try a third gear launch instead of second and I wanted to test his theory and see if we got a better 60 foot time than our previous best of 1.89 seconds. I pulled up "Gone Postal" into the bleach box with the front wheels and did a burnoff in second to warm the front tires due to the traction problems we've been experiencing on the front. I did a smokey burnoff going a bit sideways but corrected as I approached the timing lights. I put it in third for the launch and when the lights came down I put the aluminum to the floor and the launch felt great.

We did the sixty foot in 2.154 seconds and we crossed the eighth at near 80 mph, 0 to 79.85 in 8.861 seconds to be exact. Not too bad for a two ton plus block of lead. As Bill Dube says we're fighting that old cube law. Bill has told me: " The HP requirement to overcome the aero drag is the cube of the velocity. You also must toss in a "square law" to accelerate the vehicle to the end velocity." He has told me it might not be impossible but it would be very difficult to accelerate this brick to over 100 mph in the quarter. I agree with Bill on this and I know it is not any easy task but I bit it off knowing this. I thought the accomplishment would be more significant in the minds of John Q. Public. I want old John Q. to think that he has a much better idea than me and that he could go out and build himself a light weight aerodynamic vehicle and kick my ass. Of course this is the psychological motivation for doing it the hard way.

Well, back to the track, right around the eighth mile I shift into fifth gear and also right about then the built in series/parallel function of the Zilla's "Hairball" kicks in and I have to hold on as the electric nitrous slams be back in the seat. Well I kept waiting and waiting and nothing happened. We crossed the line on our first cold run at 14.007 seconds at 92.91 mph knocking almost two seconds from our previous world record in MP/B of 15.907 seconds at 90.66 mph set at Las Vegas. I went back to the pits and was somewhat perturbed by the series/parallel not functioning. I did some inquiries and found that one of our crewmembers who shall remain nameless had rewired "Gone Postal" without my permission or knowledge and had disabled the series/parallel function from automatic to manual and had installed a switch that I was not informed off. I was a bit ticked off to say the least. I wanted to turn the rear drives up to the full 2000 amps for the next run but was unable to get this accomplished because the same crewmember who is in charge of programming spaced out bringing his lap top. Well I was all charged up and it was the electrics turn to run again so I said what the heck, I'll just use the manual switch which won't be as effective as the "Hairball" computer that Otmar has programmed to switch at just the right moment. I did another smokey burnoff in second then shifted to third for the launch. I launched very hard mostly due to warm batteries. It must have been only about thirty feet out judging from my 3.374 sixty foot time when I heard a horrible noise as I lost power. There was major crunching sounds coming from the Corrado transaxle. I realized I was done racing for the day. As I was coasting to a stop some weird force overtook me and I said to myself what the heck and shoved the tranny into fourth gear and nailed it. As I shifted into fifth I remembered the series/parallel switch and hit it. I crossed the line at 98 mph flat at 18.324 seconds.

Some things to ponder. In the first run without the series/parallel mode I accelerated from 79.85 mph at the eighth to 92.91 mph in 5.146 seconds with a gain of 13.06 mph. With series parallel in the second run I accelerated from 73.08 mph in the eight to 98 mph in 5.101 seconds with a gain of 24.92 mph. Looking at these numbers shows that in about the same amount of time I almost double my mph on the far end using series/parallel. You all can be the judge of how far away "Gone Postal" is from breaking 100 mph in the quarter.

I am really looking forward to the 2005 racing series. The NEDRA board will be working on the new season schedule starting tomorrow. There's going to be a lot of competition and excitement this upcoming year with many improvements in your NEDRA organization. I look forward to seeing you all soon.

Roderick Wilde
"Suck Amps EV Racing"