[Land-speed] Some classification Questions

[Ed Weldon]

Mayf and odd others--
Nothing in the class rules is absolute. All of that stuff is more or less
fuzzy.  (I'm thinking windshield posts on roadsters) Push a limit and you
force a decision whether you can or can't.  Just like our US judicial
system.  If they rule against you go find enough like minded racers (or do
we have to call them "timetrialers" now?) and petition for a new class or
class boundary.
I think we're in a era of new motor vehicle propulsion technologies.  How to
split them up for practical land speed competition classes remains to be
seen.  SCTA/BNI is pretty much set on wheel driven; so other creative
variants that we see primarily in aircraft drop out.  But with respect to
other areas of propulsion there seem to me to be some logical divisions.  We
already work with types of energy sources; gasoline, other liquid fuels,
compressed gasses, batteries.  Energy conversion methods include not only
internal combustion types; otto, diesel, but also steam, gas turbines and
straight electric motors.  Gas-electric or diesel electric (or
turbine-electric or whatever) are just variations on the energy conversion.
With respect to size classes we generally like to use some measurable
physical characteristic like displacement that is directly related to how
much energy can be converted per second, minute or whatver.  (this gets a
bit fuzzy with electric vehicles; not yet a real problem).  We can even deal
with hybrids of any type once we accept the idea that a hybrid is really a
combination of several conversion and several energy storage methods and
figure out how to simply classify and control whatever class breaks make
sense.  I think the big issue to handle is the storage of energy especially
at intermediate stages of conversion.  Right now that's not an issue.
Ed

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "drmayf" <drmayf at mayfco.com>
To: "LSR" <land-speed at autox.team.net>
Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2008 2:56 PM
Subject: [Land-speed] Some classification Questions (non turban, religion or
political related)


> ..... odd thoughts came to me......
>You know they are odd because they are mine, lol... All have to
> do with car propulsion method classifications..
> for instance, my car is a BFMS with a C motor (barely). How would the
> classification go if I wanted to stick a small diesel in it? No, not
> planning on it, just curious. Lets say the diesel was 2.5 L displacement
> if that matters...
> and, what if I wanted to convert it to electrical propulsion? Would that
> be a ??? ........