Attn OHIO: Help Plan Sep-Oct Meet Up
 

Event is now set.
2012/10/20 @ 13:00/1:00 PM - In Broadview Hts. Near interstate (map below)
We will meet in a parking lot nearby (to be determined) to meet up, and head over to the fuel station to fill up and head out. We will all use the same pump, the lowest speed of fuel the pump will hold by itself, and only let it run until it goes to the first click. This will also be done at the end, to see our fuel consumption. The route is below, and is roughly 12 miles, estimated 27 minutes.

We have 32 minutes to complete it, and when one goes past 32 minutes, they will receive a penalty of a 2% EPA drop per minute. If you are pulled over, an additional 10% penalty will be taken off. So if leaving to pulling in the drive is 32 minutes and 15 seconds, and you have been pulled over, your actual percentage over the EPA combined estimate will be dropped by 12%.

Everyone is welcome to come early or days before and practice. I live in the area, but have only once driven this path. I filmed it, and it is below. Also, a map is posted.

We welcome everyone to join, and there is no fee or cost. We will be hanging out afterwards to check out mods and chat. There will be a small prize for number one With penalties, and without.

ORIGINAL POST:
Hello all,

Being a friendly board with like minded people, it seems like it might be fun to make some type of meet for fun and pizza, an eco car show, or our own fuel mileage challenge!

I have not seen anything like the vetter challenge for cars, or at least not in Ohio. The best I saw was mostly smarts, and in Canada! I wanted to go, but, uhh, didn't want to show up those guys...ya know? ;)

So I would love to work on some ideas, and maybe gauge interest in something like this. If you have ANY interest level at all, please let me know publicly, and we can chat or work on things-PM if you prefer. I notice a lot of Ohioans on here, and think we should pull together some Ohio pride!

I am thinking date wise should be a weekend, hopefully sometime Sep to Oct. usually one weekend I go up to Halloweekends, so if there is interest in that, we may be able to get a group rate, or explore those ideas. (unlikely, but throwing it out there)

I hope to hear back soon!

EDIT:

Ohio Econ Fuel Challenge 12.6 Miles (27 Minutes, 32 minute challenge)
Stage 1 Ohio Fuel Econ Challenge: Stage 1 of 4 - YouTube
Stage 2 Ohio Fuel Econ Challenge: Stage 2 of 4 - YouTube
Stage 3 Ohio Fuel Econ Challenge: Stage 3 of 4 - YouTube
Stage 4 Ohio Fuel Econ Challenge: Stage 4 of 4 - YouTube

Google Maps Directions
https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=b...1,2,3&t=m&z=13

or
bp to E Royalton Rd - Google Maps

RULES:
32 Minutes from pulling away from the pump, to pulling into the drive* of the fuel station. Each minute past 32 is a .1 gallon penalty. A citation from law enforcement adds a 1 gallon penalty on top of any time penalty. There is no reward for early finish.

*Once in the lot one is not required to run the engine anymore. If our specific pump is occupied, or we have a line waiting, it is not fair, so as soon as you enter the drive, the time ends and it is acceptable to push the car, or whatever is needed.

I'm in central Ohio... No part of the state is too far for a day-trip. Count me in...

not apposed to making a trip from MI I am 3 hours north of the border.

Weekends are good.

Ideas:
even just a hang out at a local place, do a MPG run or coast down testing/ racing.

I'd love to find a place to do coastdown testing. I'm eager to find a number to rate my front end. I feel like I see a ton of Ohioans on here, but haven't really checked. I tried to look at the map, and put myself kind of on there, but it's always on the fritz for me.

Hangout coastdown sounds good to me.

look for a stretch of back country paved road, not used much, 2 miles minimum length between stops. tree lined is nice for wind dampening.

Plenty of those kinds of roads in the Cuyahoga Valley.

All of the roads I can think of are 45+, and single lane. I do 50 there and people are up my tail pipes. What will the top speed we need be? I will try to google map a two mile stretch, hopefully flat as can be, that is two lanes one way, and a higher top speed.

Flat is nice. To test aero I like to start at 55mph.

Cincinnati here.

It would be cool if we could do something like this: http://www.perthsoapboxclub.org/carsatstart1.JPG

I'm up in the cleveland area, but I have a hard time making it to meets because school everyday and work on the weekends. Plus a recent back injury means I usually have physical therapy on any days I have off.

that would be fun

A meet in Ohio would be nice. I currently live in Athens but I will be soon moving to Defiance / Bowling Green area. If something like this does happen I would like to know.

I am thinking a driving competition in the Broadview Heights area, and then meet and chat afterwards.

Has a date been firmed up for this? Middle of Oct would work well for me.

Thanks, UltArc! At last, a concrete proposal... Be happy to come to Broadview Heights. What do you have in mind for a driving competition?

Not yet, but who else likes october 20th?
I believe that will be the date.

My basic thought is this. Driving competition, based on EPA standard, to what we get in real life. Roughly a 30 minute drive, .1 gallon penalty for every MINUTE after 5 minutes past the Google Maps time estimate. I have a general route made, with a Metropark, some city, some highway, uphill, down, a wide variety of driving conditions.

A traffic CITATION is a one gallon penalty.

So to be clear, roughly 30 minute drive. 5 extra minutes to make it. I have a fuel station in mind to use, and we will all fill up to start at the same pump, to full, and then see how much fuel we each use.

So lets say you decided to race really fast, you made the 30 minute drive in 10 minutes, but got a speeding ticket or red light ticket. However much fuel you used would add one gallon. If one made it in 37 minutes, then there would be a .2 gallon penalty. This should add a bit more challenge, but be fair. Otherwise nothing would stop one from just pushing their car! Lol

Does this make sense? If people don't like it, we can change it or not use it. I just want everyone who could participate to do so, while some vehicles will have an easy advantage for just being efficient.

And time to enforce keeping up with traffic. I have heard from a source I can't remember that commuting over an hour or so, speeding saves three minutes or something. So five should be fair, for only thirty minutes.

What do you guys think? Route will be posted soon!

I will treat something for first place! Where ever we go after, buy a drink or snack. If everyone wanted to put in a dollar, first place could get a small gift card. I doubt there will be much to it, lol, but still. I always like to have something to win, though I doubt I would win.

Sounds like a rough plan. Is it a one gallon or one mpg off the average per min late?

If you know the route you have an unfair advantage over those of use who have not run it before.

How about we do it twice. Once just as a warm up the second timerun it for max mpg and see just time it to see the ratio of time to.mpg?

.1 per minute, I didn't want it to be too harsh. I know google exagerates how long it takes, and five extra should work for everyone. Again, just a basic plan, I want to make something everyone can enjoy.

And I didn't think of that, I live about 30 minutes away, and I drive past the fuel station once a week. I used google maps to make it. But if we run at 13:00, anyone can show up early and run it. Over the years living in Ohio I may have driven it, but I don't believe I have. In fact, There has been construction in the area, I should double check the roads before we get there and get stuck lol

0.1 MPG sounds about right :D a nominal 30 min drive with the aerotrix turns into a 40 or 45 min trip She likes it slow, bur rewards with great MPG :)

Does time count or best MPG over epa decide the winner?

I didn't think finishing early should really get an extra reward. That might make it more so tricky, I mean if I just go flat out everywhere, I am sure that trip can be done in 15-20 minutes*... Or the CTS V from PA, too, could make quick work. If people are interested in adding a bonus for coming in early, I am open to the idea, but I didn't have it in my original plan.

*This is where the police penalty could also come in play lol

I think everyone will have to bring a stop watch, or stop by wal mart and get one. On a day off I will go out there and check out the whole area, the route, fuel station, a place afterwards we can park and admire and get some food.

I don't know too much about it, but I cross through and there is interstate, woods, hills, all kinds of different areas. It will be very diverse. I am thinking have each person fill up, and when they pull away the time will begin. Time will end when they pull into the station. So if anyone decides to engine off and coast in, I will help push to the pump lol I know as soon as I can, I want to cut the engine.

I say this because it seems unfair if we have a line for cars to be idling. I am going to ask if we can 'reserve' a pump so people can cruise right in, but I would expect everyone to fill their tanks as slowly as possible, so we may have some of our people waiting in line. I'd rather push someones car then them not have fair circumstances.

But to answer, time doesn't matter as long one beats 35 minutes, "winning" is highest % over EPA estimate. I figured Fuel Economy standard.

Edit: I don't want to leave my wife there, but I don't think she wants to drive it in her truck, and I don't really want an extra 120 lbs slowing me down lol. If she is okay with it, she can keep times, along with any other guests who don't ride along.

And I didn't want to mention thia in case it doesn't work out, but I was thinking this saturday I will do a drive through and video record for youtube, so everyone can see the route. Better than G Maps, so one can see elevation changes better, and all that. I will print directions anyways, if people desire by then, but thia involves getting off work while it is day light, figuring out how to transfer video from mobile to computer to youtube, and before all that- recording, while shifting, while navigating where ever I am and not getting any phone calls during. So hopefully, but maybe not.

Broadview Heights, eh? I pass by that area at least twice a week on my commute. Interested to know what finalized data y'all come up with.

Sounds good. Simple is best, even if it may not be the fairest to every possible entrant.

Are we doing first click on the gas pump fill?

Yepp, first click. I am going to investigate the station, I've nver actually filled up there before. There are a few in the area, though.

I will see what I can do about making it. I currently am scheduled to run a disc golf tournament, but should be able to get someone to swap me weekends. On a side note, that is pretty far north. I was hoping for something a little more central. :/ (I was just up in Norwalk though this past weekend... so i guess it is not that much further of a drive.)

yet me know the date and I will try to make it down from MI :)

no gain for fastest time is just fine by me.

You all might want to start modding your cars :D

I can get 50MPG without coasting out of my 29 EPA matrix (72% over epa). toss in some P&G and that number goes over 60 MPG. unexpected route will hurt it by 5-8 MPG, but I have a hard time getting under 40-45 even if i tried. That's 30-40% over EPA and not trying for record MPG's.

Good luck to all who race,

I hope you enjoy second place :D

Think we should limit the competition to OHIO cars and drivers? :D

I thought it was Ohio area?

If you do not want a challenge I can stay home :(

I AIN'T SCARED.

I think he is joking. I would rather not. I welcome everyone to join in, I want Mustang Dave to come and show me how to drive a stang efficiently, but I don't think he'll be making it out...lol

I mean, I definitely don't expect to win. But a little friendly competition seems like a good idea for an ice breaker, to utilize our cars and mods, and up until then, we are all just. Well, nothing.

I think nothing of internet people, because it is so easy to lie and fake things. I like facts! And although I don't think anyone here lies or anything, seeing is believing for me. You guys really don't know how excited I am to see a real life boat tail, fabricated onto a Vibe/Matrix. It'll be nice to add a tone, and personality to the text I read from you guys.

For me, it's a jump from some guys chatting online to really meeting some people. And my wife is coming with me tomorrow to record, so we will have the route on video for us! I will try to remember to not talk or play my radio, as that might get a bit annoying. If you all can, add this to your sigs to spread the word a bit. Does anyone know how to change the title? Since this went from maybe sep oct meetup to Oct. 20, Ohio Fuel Challenge! 13:00 start time.

I agree its nice to meet the usernames in person, it gives a better feel to when you read their posts.

thanks for working on a route video :)

Weather Spotter: of course I was joking! You had a smiley in your post, and I had one in my reply! Sorry if anyone missed my attempt at humor...

I was not sure if it was humor, or wanting to keep it local, so I thought I would bring it onto the table and get it out and settled. With only written words its hard to gauge the emotion behind the words so I like to double check. No offense meant or taken :)

I will mark the 20th of oct down as another meetup!

so its at broadview heights then? Thats just north of rt 80, west of rt 77 by cuyahoga valley national park?

The startpoint is planned to be in Brecksville. The videos are made! I will have more info soon! :) Oh, and careless driving (I am not going to expose my techniques or abilities!) gave me 31.1 mpg, starting with 31.0 for the trip, and extra idling. My drive was about 26 minutes.

What does everyone think about running the contest as "best of 3 runs"?

Videos will be up wednesday, when I can get to a computer. It took me 26+ minutes NOT driving fuel efficiently. I would rather just do it once myself, but if others want to do it again, I couldn't see why not. Or one can just arrive a little after noon, and run it and be prepared. If we still start at 13:00.

Once is enough for me.

I would like to come but I do not think the wife would like the 6hr 1min drive. If it was just 6hrs I might be able to come out lol.

Have fun there and if anything changes (on my side) I would love to be there.

Ohio Econ Fuel Challenge 12.6 Miles (27 Minutes, 32 minute challenge)
Stage 1 Ohio Fuel Econ Challenge: Stage 1 of 4 - YouTube
Stage 2 Ohio Fuel Econ Challenge: Stage 2 of 4 - YouTube
Stage 3 Ohio Fuel Econ Challenge: Stage 3 of 4 - YouTube
Stage 4 Ohio Fuel Econ Challenge: Stage 4 of 4 - YouTube
Google Maps Directions
https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=b...1,2,3&t=m&z=13

or
bp to E Royalton Rd - Google Maps

Event News
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...-up-22834.html

Added to original post, also.

12.6 miles, himm, i watch the videos and plan my coasting now :D :D :D if done right I would only need the engine on for about 3.5 miles....

thanks for the trip preview :D

it looks like over half the trip is 25 MPH posted limit. that will suck. I like to pulse between 55 and 25. much slower takes too long.

whats the minimum on the freeway portion?