‘Super’ car components under review after problems at competition

Despite a hearty effort by its pit crew, the Fort High super mileage vehicle (SMV) failed to make the grade during a two-day competition at the raceway in Brainerd, Mn. last week.
“We had a major amount of problem-solving to do,” said teacher Gord Witherspoon, who accompanied six students from his transportation technology class to the annual competition.
He said problems with the car arose after it was out on the race track with two blown tires, a broken axle, and three bent ones–prompting challenging repairs to the student pit crew.
“It started out working really good [and] the steering was a 100 percent dream. We had all the bugs worked out of that from last year,” Witherspoon enthused.
“But we had problems with the rear axle. We had used a mountain bike axle and it just couldn’t take the torque of the engine,” he noted.
Some 75 SMV entries from schools across the U.S., including North Dakota, Minnesota, and Washington, took part in last week’s competition, sponsored by the Minnesota Technical Education Authority.
Competing cars, each built around a 3.5 h.p. Briggs and Stratton engine and fitted with a 250 ml container of fuel, had to complete two laps of the track (five km) in under 24 minutes at speeds not exceeding 35 mph (56 km/h).
“You had to complete [at least] six runs to qualify and [the judges] took the best six and averaged them. I think we completed close to 12,” Witherspoon recalled.
Fort High’s car averaged out at 300 mi/gal in fuel efficiency.
Even though Witherspoon acknowledged the average as a good one, he said it didn’t have a chance next to the one that captured top honours.
“The winning car had 800 mi/gal. It annihilated the competition,” he said, wagering a lot of money had been spent on its construction.
“It was encased in a carbon fibre shell with low friction wheels–it was quite a car,” he noted.
Witherspoon said his students would be brainstorming over the next few days, reviewing notes and a video they shot during the competition and making recommendations on how to improve next year’s SMV entry.
“We’ll be deciding if we should build new or make changes,” he said.
“Even though we didn’t place, it was a real learning process for the kids,” he reiterated. “Just the knowledge they got out of it was well worth the [trip].
“It’s was an excellent project,” he stressed.
This was Fort High’s third year entering the competition. Their first entry in 1996 placed third out of 45 entries in fuel efficiency, with last year’s model garnering a “Best Engineered” award.