48-Contiguous State Fuel Economy World Record Attempt

[xcel]

A challenge born from another pair of drivers condemnation.

Wayne Gerdes - CleanMPG - Nov. 12, 2008

The 2009 HCH-II -- 2-weeks, 3 members, 300 pounds of gear on a 7,500 + mile, around the country attempt at a US FE world record in one very fuel efficient hybrid automobile

Motivation

Think back to the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. In particular, two-days that mesmerized and stoked the competitive fires of the US Swim team like nothing else.

French swimmer Alain Bernard said his French swim team was going to “smash” the US in the 4x100 relay. On paper, experts declared the French swim team victors before they even entered the pool. What the experts did not count on was Jason Lezak, captain of the United States relay team, to fight back.
Alain’s “boast” did not just motivate but brought the world what can be one argued as one of the single greatest moments in Olympic history, Lezak’s final 50M swim leg.

Reliving the moment

As the rest of the world watched, Lezak pushed off the wall over the last 50M almost half a body length behind Bernard, the fastest 100M freestyle swimmer in the world. With 35 M left to go, Lezak began what can only be described as a herculean effort to pull within a forearm’s length of Bernard. At 10 M out, Lezak was almost shoulder to shoulder with the seemingly insurmountable Frenchman. At the wall, it was finger vs. finger. For what seemed like minutes, the world fell silent as the electronic scoring was finally displayed. The underdog US team beat the French by just eight-hundreds.

Sept. 3, 2008

An Australian husband and wife team were preparing to launch on a VW TDI/Shell/Navman sponsored 48-Contiguous US State Fuel Economy World record. At the pre-launch press conference, they made mention of something that has been hanging in the back of our own motivational lockers for the last 2 months.

Couple goes after lowest fuel consumption around the US.

During the VW TDI press conference at the 24:45 minute mark, the following was spoken…

Q: There is a concept known as Hypermiling. Can you explain that or are you going to use that?

John Taylor: No. We were asked this question in Australia last week. Our understanding of Hypermiling is where you sit 4” behind a truck and you suck on the back of the truck and the truck can be doing 90 mph and you do not use any gas. Dangerous illegal. We are not going to do anything that is illegal or dangerous. The most important factor for us on this trip is not only our own safety but the safety of every other driver on the road.

A plan was born

With CleanMPG members in Los Angeles covering the LA Autoshow plus a quick Honda Motorcycle review, why not attempt to break the recently achieved, 48-Contiguous State World Record of 58.82 mpgUS on the same trip? A few calls to Honda, ScanGauge and members, it is a go!

November is not an ideal of time of the year for driving a fuel efficient hybrid with 3 individuals and their gear for a world record but this is our challenge. Success or failure really depends on the weather conditions on route although I will have some highly talented drivers taking turns behind the HCH-II’s windscreen.

Introducing the 48-Contiguous State Fuel Economy World Record Attempt

************************
************************

48-Contiguous State FE World Record Route Map



************************
************************

48-Contiguous State FE World Record Route Waypoints

Date	Start location	Finish location	Miles Traveled	Total Miles
Nov. 22, 23, 24	Start - Hermiston, OR	Wadsworth, IL	2,297	2,297
Nov. 25	Wadsworth, IL	Batavia, NY	630	2,927
Nov. 26, 27	Batavia, NY	Columbia, SC	1,479	4,406
Nov. 28, 29	Columbia, SC	Memphis, TN	1,090	5,496
Nov. 30, Dec. 1	Memphis, TN/AR	Albuquerque, NM	1,243	6,739
Dec. 2	Albuquerque, NM	Finish – Arrowhead Junction, CA	757	7,496

Individual segment maps

Day #1, 2 and 3: Hermiston, OR to Big Timber, MT – 631 miles, Big Timber, MT to Bismarck, ND - 636 miles, Bismarck, ND to Sioux City, IA - 553 miles, and Sioux City, IA to Wadsworth, IL - 477 miles

Day #4: Wadsworth, IL to Batavia, NY - 630 miles

Day #5 and 6: Batavia, NY to Frederick, MD - 984 miles and Frederick, MD to Columbia, SC - 437 miles

Day #7 and 8: Columbia, SC to Biloxi, MS – 566 miles and Biloxi, MS to Memphis, TN/AR. – 524 miles

Day #9 and 10: Memphis, TN/AR to Tulsa, OK – 589 miles and Tulsa, OK to Albuquerque, NM - 654 miles

Day #11: Albuquerque, NM to Arrowhead Junction, CA – 757 miles

Our sponsors include both ScanGauge and Honda

The drivers

Jennie was recently featured in the Austin to Houston FE_Challenge and both the Hypermiling_– Jennie Chen vs. Houston’s KPRC’s Amy Davis News and Local 2 Investigates Extreme Drivers: Amy Davis Reports.

Justin Fons is the co-founder of the Milwaukee Hybrid Group, the largest Hybrid Group in the country. He is an old hand at Group meets!

Justin’s real claim to fame came about as one of the drivers at the Insight Marathon Attempt and the World Fuel Economy Championships this past summer

And probably the most fortunate and grateful, myself.

Updates from the LA Auto Show, from the bike review and the 48-Contiguous State Attempt will follow periodically.

[lamebums]

This should be interesting. Wishing I could have done it though class made it an impossibility.

Who wants to try and do 2500 miles in an Insight next summer.

[applemac*fit]

Wow - lots of miles ahead of you! This will definitely be interesting.

[efusco]

Do you guys really want to take I-44 from Springfield, MO to Tulsa? There are rural highways that would be a lot more conducive to hypermiling and adds only about 16 miles...but quite a bit more time I admit.

[bestmapman]

I wish you great success.

[shifty35]

Holy crap, SAHM FTW!

Too bad it's gonna be so effin cold.

Grill block / WAI?

[Mike78]

Not to sound like a troll, and truly with all due respect because I firmly believe that Wayne has done some astounding and great work for conservation, but with the comment so blatently added to attempt to dispell the belief that hypermiling and illegal driving acts are synonymous, where is the mention that this event will in fact NOT involve dangerous and illegal driving practices? I saw no mention of this. Can we get the drivers to sign an oath that they will obey all traffic laws?

[ascribe2thelord]

I find it awesome that you are going through Columbia.

Maybe you guys can chill somewhere in the Congaree Vista?

[jdhog]

Go for it!

When you smash the record you can send the Aussie a dictionary with a true definition of hypermiling LoL

Just kidding, it's all good, any member of cleanmpg can tell you hypermilers do not draft trucks, idiots do!

[MaxxMPG]

Originally Posted by jdhog

...any member of cleanmpg can tell you hypermilers do not draft trucks, idiots do!

Last weekend, on I-80 from NEPA to LI, the big rigs were passing me like I was standing still. The radio, as usual, was preaching doom&gloom for the inbound GWB ("Over an hooouur on the 95 express and not much better on the local and the other approaches"), so I decided to wait out the delay the way I usually do. I took a nice easy 45-50mph drive (PSL is 55-65 along the way). As one 18 wheeler blew past me one lane over at a bit over 70mph (20mph more than me), I felt the air current pull the car ahead. It was heading slightly downhill, just enough to keep my speed constant during DFCO coasting, and I saw the speedometer bump 1mph higher as the truck passed by.

It's called Traffic Side Draft - It has the "d" word in there, but has nothing to do with tailgating and is not the least bit dangerous or illegal. And it works wonderfully. Just as November's dead leaves get pulled off the road surface and fly along behind a car driving down the street, the speeding vehicles in the next lane increase your fuel economy by creating the air currents that lower your car's "air speed". So as we wish Wayne and crew well, we will pray for "light but fast moving" traffic so they can enjoy a strong side draft.