|
|
We
unload the car from the trailer, fully charged and ready for qualifying.
Power is set to 500 amps. Tire pressures are checked and we move
the car to the pit lane to wait for the start of qualifying.
I do
not push through traffic in the 'Out' lap. I want to go slow through
the chicane and take a good look. Another driver claimed that you
can put a wheel inside the exit berm and come out faster. I do not
think this is possible at any reasonable ride height.
I get
my look. The exit berm is huge. It would smash the front of the
car if I were to try and short cut it in the Electric Imp.
|
| |
|
Enough
sight-seeing. Time to go fast. I start to fight my way through the
traffic.
|
| |
 |
| |
|
The
car is turning in well. There is still too much understeer mid-phase.
|
| |
| The
regen feels a little weak and we seem to have too much front brake
bias; but we catch and pass one of the dreaded super light "Mini-Cup"
cars so we are not slow. |
| |
| Traffic
is fairly light on lap 4. We turn a 1:44.763. |
| |
| I
catch traffic the next lap, try too hard and lock the front tires
going into the chicane. |
| |
| Lap
6 is pretty clean except that regen braking earlier does not slow
the car as much as I expect into the chicane and I lock the front
tires again. |
| |
| Lap
7, I drop to a 1:48. The car feels slower. |
| |
| Checker
flag and the session ends. My last lap is another 2 seconds slower.
The motors have reached 175 degrees Celsius and are cutting power.
Battery temps are close to their limit at 57.8 degrees C. |
| |
|
Timing
and Scoring is having some problems picking up our transponder signal
so they can not credit us with the 1:44.763 lap. They can track
a 1:45.817 lap. We have won pole in the SPU class by 0.3 seconds
over Chuck Penachio's Mini-Cup car.
|
| |
| Back
at the paddock, we open the hood to place a fan to cool the batteries.
The top of the air box has blown off and the filter has blown out.
This is clearly part of the reason for the over-heating motors. |
| |
| It
takes two hours to cool the batteries down to 45 C to allow us to
start charging. |
| |
| The
pack is at 337 volts and we need to put back 23.396 kW-hrs. We turn
on the charger. |
| |
| After
less than ten minutes, smoke billows from the charger. We unplug everything,
then pull the cover off of the charger. |
| |
 |
| |
|
A fairly
small capacitor seems to be the source of all that smoke.
|
| |
 |
| |
| We
contact Matt Graham, owner of Joule
Injected. He has helped us before
and cheerfully agrees to lend us his PFC30. If we can get it quickly
and put the car on charge, we should be able to race tomorrow. |
| |
|
A few
hours later, we are back on charge. We watch anxiously as a steady
15 amps flows into the pack.
|
| |
 |
| |
| ...5
minutes pass. |
| |
| .....10
Minutes pass. |
| .....People
get bored and wander off. |
| |
| ........15
Minutes pass. |
| ........The
wires are cool. |
| ........The
pack is charging. |
| ........The
voltage is climbing slowly. |
| |
| And
then - |
| .............this
charger dies! |
| |
|
 |
