Thanks everyone for coming out despite the drizzle! We were a smaller field this year, but records were nonetheless broken and we had a good mix of vehicle types.
No "Army of Smartness" this year, only three Smarts took the start, but with great success. The diesel 450 broke the 3L/100km barrier and with only 3 minutes of penalties, beat Darin and Will's penalized L/100km record from last year. Nonetheless, their penalized L/100km/tonne record from last year stands. The only gas Smart to finish (the other overheated) took second place for penalized L/100km.
The lone hybrid Insight finished a comfortable second in the brute economy category at 4.18L/100km, but time penalties dropped it off the podium in the other categories.
We see the importance of driving style every year. The well driven Toyota Camry finished second in penalized L/100km/tonne with my Levin and the Subaru Impreza close behind. And the cars most improved over Transport Canada estimates continue to be those that would be considered less economical. In other words, it's easier to squeeze more economy out of a car not specifically designed for economy.
As for myself, my goal was to break 5L/100km again with the Levin, and I (just) did it. These days in regular driving I'm often getting around 8L/100km (of course, it doesn't help that the car loves to rev to 8000rpm) so it really is amazing to see just how much improvement is possible with simple techniques like engine-off-coasting. Now that I know the course so well, my longest coasts are on the order of 3km!
Hopefully there will be sufficient interest to run the event again next year because I'd really like to see an EV and I enjoy seeing the same cars achieving better results through technique and modifications. In any case, the route is well known and can be used for benchmarking anytime.
Thanks again to everyone who participated and worked checkpoints!
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