How about we start our own Eco-Decatholon or whatever its called.

[fidalgoman]

I like the idea but would prefere a more real world MPH. A car that can do the legal 70 MPH average of the highway system and get real world MPG will do even better at a more sedate 50 country road speed.

It should be held on a series of road courses around the country to account for various altitudes and conditions. All cars would need to be street legal and crashworthy, be able to negotiate a speed bump and park up against a curb (real world cars). To make it real a manditory wheel change half way through the race (to keep people from taping on plastic covers) and a maximum of five gallons pump gas or pump diesel to simulate fuel stops.

I would also make it a mini endurance race of six to ten hours, again to simulate real world endurance. Also two and four place divisions.

IMHO to get cars like the Basjoos Aerocivic. JMHO though.

[jdgFirefly]

I like the idea of a longer race with a variety of driving conditions. You could make a minimum time to cross the finish line so that the driving speeds are within reason. The cars should be put into different classes based on number of passengers or intended use of the vehicle type. A 4 passenger car would have to have 4 passengers or a truck would have to hull a payload. If your car is striped down to one seat you would have to enter as a 1 passenger car. If latter on it gets so competitive that the person with the most money wins, make different classes based on the value of the car and the person in last place will always have the option to buy the winning car for that set value.

[gone-ot]

...might be worthwhile to get a copy of the old Mobil and current Shell "rules" and see what they go by?!?

[downinit25i]

The new rules are available online, don't know about the old school ones.

Shell Website FAQ

Official Rules (part I)
(This part made me laugh: "Intentional stopping on the track is forbidden unless it is required by the competition, eg for UrbanConcept vehicle or for driver changes in Asia." ... CHINESE FIRE DRILL!!!)


Rules of the contest (part II)

Before I get into my thoughts on the Eco-marathon, just let me say that the 24 Hours of Lemons would be another great model for the EcoModder Series.

To begin, I was a part of the 2010 Eco-marathon in Houston on the volunteer side and I left it feeling pretty inspired by the contestants, but I'd also like to see something that got back to the roots of the competition (I also happened to start a conversation with a retired Shell guy who started competing in the 40's who said about the same thing). The problem with that is determining exactly how much technology and innovation you can apply before you've crossed that magical line into "prototype." My thought on that is the race should be run on an open course, and all vehicles would then have to be fully DOT legal. That was how it started.

Shell has a safety and technical inspection of each vehicle before it is allowed on the course. If modifications didn't violate DOT guidelines (ie no lexan for windows, bumper heights are in spec), then why shouldn't they be legal for the competition?

An open course would take a lot of the impracticality out of the current Eco-marathon. 0-15 mph in 20 seconds or more won't quite cut it. You can also only pulse and glide so much in traffic (or through lights?). Plus you would have proof positive that driving techniques can be performed in the real world.

I'd have to think more about vehicle classes, but I would think fuel or engine type would be a big delineation, as would fuel and air delivery systems, passenger capacity, and maybe gross weight. (as a note I saw one team with a fuel and air injected two stroke engine, very cool and broke the mold for the competition because it was also water cooled)

I've seen some open course rallies that are scored on a time-distance method. Since you get to choose your own route you are rewarded both for finding the shortest route and for choosing a route which gets you there the fastest, the winner being the car that chose the judges assessment of the best combination according to the rules. You could do a 100 mile rally, or something like that, and decide on how you want to score the runs.

One of my gripes with the current competition is that I can't compete! (too poor, not in school...) I think I feel (as others have said) that the competition has become another way for Shell to get some good cheap name association, but that the spirit of the competition was lost along the way. When I talked to the teams I saw some real innovation and some real spirit which was never noticed or commended by Shell. They advertised the insane mpgs attained by the 8+ member teams with massive funding who *****ed about the cracked pavement in downtown Houston (some cars were a $30,000+ investment!), but you didn't hear much about the 2 kids who got 150 mpg with a car that inherited from a separate competition and who spent more time over at their paddock neighbors' trying to help get a carb tuned up, and the technical award could have done more to showcase all of the innovation by teams like the high schoolers who designed and tested a 4 valve cammed head for their 25cc model airplane powerplant.

I say leave the competition open to any modifications that are street legal, and institute some kind of spending caps/caps (Lemons does this, but Eco-marathon does not). At least have an award for mpg/$'s invested. The trick to making it work then, I think, is really in finding the right competition categories to ensure that innovation and skill are rewarded.

If this goes beyond a forum thread, I'd really like to be a part of making it happen. Whatever help I can give based on what I saw in Shell's event I'd be glad to provide. I know some other kindred spirits who would help too.


Now, anybody want to hold it near a track so we can autocross the ecomods? I'm thinking a sliding scale of time and mpgs...