SlowHands
05-11-2009, 08:48 AM
http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/2/European_Union_Flag.jpg this car is more than an experiment in eco-friendliness (wired.com/autopia/2009/05/recycled-racer)
http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/chocolate_powered_racer.jpgChuck Squatriglia - Wired (wired.com) - May 11, 2009
With a little imagination and deep thought, it is amazing what can be built from the least likely components. -- Ed.
Auto racing is going green as top teams and upstarts embrace a range of tech, from biodiesel to hybrids and even electric drivetrains. A British team is doing them one better, using recycled and natural materials in a Formula 3 car fueled by vegetable oil and waste chocolate.
The WorldFirst Racing car features slick bodywork fashioned from recycled carbon fiber, old plastic bottles and organic materials. Its turbocharged engine runs on biodiesel and biodegradable lubricants, and smog-eating radiators keep it cool.
But this car is more than an experiment in eco-friendliness. It’s a real racer built with top-shelf components on a proven chassis, and it’s slated to make demonstration runs at big-ticket races to prove going fast and going green aren’t mutually exclusive.
“It is intended to show the industry and the public that it is possible to build a competitive racing car using environmentally sustainable components,” team leaders James Meredith and Steve Maggs told Wired.com in an e-mail.
The car comes as auto racing is trying to clean up its act and the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile — the governing body for Formula 1 and other top-tier races — wants to make the sport greener and the technology behind it more relevant to the cars we drive. F1 is experimenting with kinetic energy-recovery systems, diesels have dominated Le Mans and Peugeot plans to race a hybrid at Le Mans in 2011. Volkswagen is running biodiesel in the Jetta TDI Cup series in the United States, and there are even an electric race car and an algal-fuel racer in the works.
WorldFirst Racing, which is sponsored by Warwick University and the Warwick Innovative Manufacturing Research Center, wants to move beyond alternative drivetrains and bring new thinking to racing. And in a field where the best technology usually moves from the track to the street, World First Racing is taking it from the street to the track.
“Much of the technology in the WorldFirst car has come from the passenger-vehicle market,” Meredith and Maggs said. “The motorsports industry has only been concerned with high performance materials in the past and the challenge is to implement the environmental research done by universities, automakers and tier-one suppliers into motorsport to highlight the technology and promote its spread into all cars.”....http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/05/recycled-racer/
http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/chocolate_powered_racer.jpgChuck Squatriglia - Wired (wired.com) - May 11, 2009
With a little imagination and deep thought, it is amazing what can be built from the least likely components. -- Ed.
Auto racing is going green as top teams and upstarts embrace a range of tech, from biodiesel to hybrids and even electric drivetrains. A British team is doing them one better, using recycled and natural materials in a Formula 3 car fueled by vegetable oil and waste chocolate.
The WorldFirst Racing car features slick bodywork fashioned from recycled carbon fiber, old plastic bottles and organic materials. Its turbocharged engine runs on biodiesel and biodegradable lubricants, and smog-eating radiators keep it cool.
But this car is more than an experiment in eco-friendliness. It’s a real racer built with top-shelf components on a proven chassis, and it’s slated to make demonstration runs at big-ticket races to prove going fast and going green aren’t mutually exclusive.
“It is intended to show the industry and the public that it is possible to build a competitive racing car using environmentally sustainable components,” team leaders James Meredith and Steve Maggs told Wired.com in an e-mail.
The car comes as auto racing is trying to clean up its act and the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile — the governing body for Formula 1 and other top-tier races — wants to make the sport greener and the technology behind it more relevant to the cars we drive. F1 is experimenting with kinetic energy-recovery systems, diesels have dominated Le Mans and Peugeot plans to race a hybrid at Le Mans in 2011. Volkswagen is running biodiesel in the Jetta TDI Cup series in the United States, and there are even an electric race car and an algal-fuel racer in the works.
WorldFirst Racing, which is sponsored by Warwick University and the Warwick Innovative Manufacturing Research Center, wants to move beyond alternative drivetrains and bring new thinking to racing. And in a field where the best technology usually moves from the track to the street, World First Racing is taking it from the street to the track.
“Much of the technology in the WorldFirst car has come from the passenger-vehicle market,” Meredith and Maggs said. “The motorsports industry has only been concerned with high performance materials in the past and the challenge is to implement the environmental research done by universities, automakers and tier-one suppliers into motorsport to highlight the technology and promote its spread into all cars.”....http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/05/recycled-racer/