S.H.S
Race Team
Participating in the electrathon car race's since 2012!
About
What is the Electrathon?
The Electrathon Race is an endurance race in which students design, fabricate, test and race an electric race car. The car is only powered by two car batteries and an electric motor. Our local track is at Lime Rock Race Track. We have races that occur 2x a year. Once in May and once in October. The teams goal is to see who can do the most laps around a ½ mile track within one hour. Electrathon CT is part of a national club, Electrathon USA. www.ctelectrathon.org and www.electrathonamerica.org
Benefits of the Car
This car gives students the opportunity to learn how to build and operate a race car. This teaches us the engineering and design process as well as the use of proper tools in order to complete the finished product of the Electrathon Car. This type of club/class gives students the opportunity to learn many new skills. This will help them in college and the workforce once they are out of high school and are ready to pursue their career.
Teams results
Our school was given the opportunity ot race in the May 2013 CT electrathon race for the very first time at Lyme Rock Park, in Lakeville, CT. Our team started constructing our car only a few months before the race, and we heavily modified our steering system in the car, as well as custom motor and controller mounts. We practiced racing in our parking lot many times before the actual race, and had some difficulties to overcome.
We were placed in the novice division because this was our first time at the race as a team. We did quite well during the entire race. Luckily we kept the car together mechanically, and ended up with a 2nd place finish, only one lap behind the 1st place team. We were quite excited for this result and knew we could do better with some improvements to our pitstop and driver changes.
During the October 2013 race we were even more ready than before. We practiced many times at the school, practicing our pitstops, driver changes, and ballast changes. This allowed us to go from a 4minute pit stop, to a 33second pit stop. Allowing us to spend more time on the race track. We were still in the novice division for the final race of the year. We ended up with 1st place with 46 laps, almost 10laps over the 2nd place team and only a few of the fastest teams there. We are extremely excited to see what our new race car will bring come may.
At the May 2014 race, we placed 3rd in the classic division race. We had Cory and Andrew drive 424, and Frankie and Brennen drove 422. Our cars came in a very respectable 3rd and 4th place out of a field of 24 other cars! It was a very exciting and tight race!
In our latest race, October of 2014, we were racing both 424 and 422 cars again. This time all new drivers and modifications made to both of the cars. We did quite well again! Both cars tied for 3rd place. It has the 3rd most laps out of all 28 cars in the racing categories! It was quite the accomplishment to be had by the whole team and we could not have done it without the support of our sponsors and hardwork of students and staff.