NEDRA News
John Wayland's 100 mph Record Breaking Run
May 9 - John Wayland has become the first NEDRA member to race a street legal electric powered car to over 100 mph in the quarter mile, clocking in at 100.76 mph with an ET of 13.004 seconds. And at the same time beating a 375 HP V-8 Camaro in the next lane.
John's car, the "White Zombie", is a 1972 Datsun 1200 powered by dual 8" Warfield motors for 200+ HP, 20 12-volt Exide batteries and a 1400 amp Godzilla controller. In race mode, dual Kilovac Bubba contactors bypass the controller for 2500 amps of delivered battery/motor current.
Although several electric vehicles (EVs) have surpased the 100 mph mark including Bill Dube's Killacycle at 152 mph and Dennis Berube's Dragster at 137 mph, racing a street legal EV to over 100 mph has been an elusive goal. Visit our records page to see several of NEDRA's 100+ mph runs.
It took four l-o-n-g and often frustrating years of chasing White Zombie's best ET and
speed, to surpass it's world record in the SC/A class. That was back on May 27th, 2000, when with Rich Brown at the wheel on his birthday at Bandimere Speedway near Denver, the 1995 lb., single large motor, 336V version of White Zombie posted a 13.186 @ 99.19 mph quarter mile. In contrast, it took just four short runs Saturday night to push White Zombie past that benchmark and through the 100 mph barrier for street legal EVs...wow, what a great feeling that was! White Zombie is now quicker and faster than it has ever been. I really didn't expect the car with the much heavier, lower voltage pack of Exides (240V @ 800 lbs.) to do this well, but the batteries have proven to be VERY powerful and extremely tough.
Saturday's record run was made even sweeter, as it was done before excited race fans against a full blown modern muscle car, a late model 2001 or 2002 Camaro, the last version of Chevy's Mustang fighter before being dropped out of production. This one was a very nice example, too, painted a gorgeous white pearl, fitted with a custom domed cowl induction hood, and sporting large diameter alloys with fat drag slicks on the rear. It had the LT1 350 V8, pumped up with an aggressive cam, hi-rise intake system, headers and trick exhaust, special performance chip, etc., to the tune of 375 hp according to its owner...nope, not your stock Camaro. He pulled next to me as we staged, and his loping cam and snarling exhaust served notice he was gonna whip my little Datsun...the crowd was going a bit nuts over the grudge match unfolding (I wish there had been someone there with a video cam). He did a ferocious burnout next to me, one that was, quite frankly, a bit intimidating. I was thinking he was going to easily beat me; thinking it was too bad I couldn't be racing against a less powerful car on what I had hoped would be 'the run' where the car would exceed 100 mph...you know, it would just be perfect, to not only hit the century mark, but to do it while also beating a fast car next to me. So, instead of a stock muscle car or maybe a 300 hp Sube STI (an impressive 13.3 for a typical ET), here I had this bad ass Camaro to deal with. When I managed to stay ahead of the Camaro the entire length of the track, I knew I had made a strong run. Read on, to hear the Camaro driver's classic comments to me after that race.
http://www.nedra.com/wayland.html
As I've said before, I can't wait for the time that a silent, electic motored car flattens my eyeballs with extreme acceleration yet hardly producing a whisper.........
Talk about being stealthy!
John Wayland's 100 mph Record Breaking Run
May 9 - John Wayland has become the first NEDRA member to race a street legal electric powered car to over 100 mph in the quarter mile, clocking in at 100.76 mph with an ET of 13.004 seconds. And at the same time beating a 375 HP V-8 Camaro in the next lane.
John's car, the "White Zombie", is a 1972 Datsun 1200 powered by dual 8" Warfield motors for 200+ HP, 20 12-volt Exide batteries and a 1400 amp Godzilla controller. In race mode, dual Kilovac Bubba contactors bypass the controller for 2500 amps of delivered battery/motor current.
Although several electric vehicles (EVs) have surpased the 100 mph mark including Bill Dube's Killacycle at 152 mph and Dennis Berube's Dragster at 137 mph, racing a street legal EV to over 100 mph has been an elusive goal. Visit our records page to see several of NEDRA's 100+ mph runs.
It took four l-o-n-g and often frustrating years of chasing White Zombie's best ET and
speed, to surpass it's world record in the SC/A class. That was back on May 27th, 2000, when with Rich Brown at the wheel on his birthday at Bandimere Speedway near Denver, the 1995 lb., single large motor, 336V version of White Zombie posted a 13.186 @ 99.19 mph quarter mile. In contrast, it took just four short runs Saturday night to push White Zombie past that benchmark and through the 100 mph barrier for street legal EVs...wow, what a great feeling that was! White Zombie is now quicker and faster than it has ever been. I really didn't expect the car with the much heavier, lower voltage pack of Exides (240V @ 800 lbs.) to do this well, but the batteries have proven to be VERY powerful and extremely tough.
Saturday's record run was made even sweeter, as it was done before excited race fans against a full blown modern muscle car, a late model 2001 or 2002 Camaro, the last version of Chevy's Mustang fighter before being dropped out of production. This one was a very nice example, too, painted a gorgeous white pearl, fitted with a custom domed cowl induction hood, and sporting large diameter alloys with fat drag slicks on the rear. It had the LT1 350 V8, pumped up with an aggressive cam, hi-rise intake system, headers and trick exhaust, special performance chip, etc., to the tune of 375 hp according to its owner...nope, not your stock Camaro. He pulled next to me as we staged, and his loping cam and snarling exhaust served notice he was gonna whip my little Datsun...the crowd was going a bit nuts over the grudge match unfolding (I wish there had been someone there with a video cam). He did a ferocious burnout next to me, one that was, quite frankly, a bit intimidating. I was thinking he was going to easily beat me; thinking it was too bad I couldn't be racing against a less powerful car on what I had hoped would be 'the run' where the car would exceed 100 mph...you know, it would just be perfect, to not only hit the century mark, but to do it while also beating a fast car next to me. So, instead of a stock muscle car or maybe a 300 hp Sube STI (an impressive 13.3 for a typical ET), here I had this bad ass Camaro to deal with. When I managed to stay ahead of the Camaro the entire length of the track, I knew I had made a strong run. Read on, to hear the Camaro driver's classic comments to me after that race.
http://www.nedra.com/wayland.html
As I've said before, I can't wait for the time that a silent, electic motored car flattens my eyeballs with extreme acceleration yet hardly producing a whisper.........
Talk about being stealthy!
And i want one cause theyre gonne be FAST!
)
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