Blog

Just heard from Mr. McCornack and he's soon on the way. And thanks to Denny's garage for putting my mind at ease yesterday regarding Dirigo's transmission. It was running very hot and Evan, Dirigo's crew chief, and I were,t sure which nut is the transmission oil fill so I was convinced we filled from the one that allowed less oil in the gearbox, hence the very hot to the touch. He laid his greasy hand upon the lost soul and behold: all is fine. They're supposed to be hot, so I'll have to find something else to worry about.

Off to Aspen!

We're in the land of long, straight roads. Excellent for mileage runs, but with the long legs and the way so many people come out to admire Dirigo wherever we stop, we have to run at top speed to make it to the next town on time. We were an hour late to Lincoln yesterday; our one lone fan was about to leave when he saw Dirigo coming. Today I thought we were making good time so I got serious about mileage and put the windows in to improve aerodynamics. I set the cruise control at 50 mph and drove. The thermometer said 110 in the cockpit, but after two 60mpg legs I was determined to see how well we could do. I wanted drive  for at least 100 miles. Considering the thin air and gradual climb up the western slope of the Rockies, I awarded Dirigo 88mpg. How nice to come across Glen Elder Lake a few miles later and jump in for a quick dip.

From there it was nearly a straight line to Colby, but look: there's a turn in the road! A nice, sweeping ninety degree turn. What fun: an actual turn. I was grinning ear to ear! We pulled in to Colby and found one fan waiting for us. Well, for Jack, actually. Jack has quite the fan base. But I guess I was okay, too, as Tom invited me to dinner and his charming wife Tina made a wonderful pot roast.  The Colby Free Press ace reporter Vera Sloan chased me across town and finally caught me at the court house for an interview.

Approaching the Nebraska-Kansas line there was nothing but corn and fields. Rounding a long curve a silver shingled steeple appeared, so I pulled over. Why would there be a church way out here? They're such in town institutions. Now, we know by know that Dirigo draws crowds, so I was chuckling to myself that no one  would ever show up here on a Monday morning. I was basking in the awesome tranquility of shades of green rolling away to the horizon; truly a spiritual place that the early settlers must have felt, when a pick-up parked next to me and a woman stepped out. Soon another arrived and in a matter of minutes there were a dozen charming ladies wondering about the car. They were farm women so asked about horsepower, transmission, engine, and all those good nuts and bolts questions. What an absolute treat! They gave me a tour of the church, asked for a post card from California (I can't bail out now!) and wished me Godspeed.

Jack is still delayed and we don't know where we'll find him, but are hoping for Aspen tomorrow. Jay got the Stealth fixed at a welding shop in Lincoln. I got a small amount of grief for telling Michael that brining a welder would be overkill and how it's nice to meet locals sometimes...Then Jay fried a trailer bearing, replaced that, and the tow car began to act up. He managed to fix that, too, and still make it to Colby before dark and get interviewed by Vera. We're planning on an early start so we'll have plenty of time to work our way through the heart of the Rockies.

By Michael Stephano:

We are in Lincoln NE. It has been quite a day. Bill had a nice run. We showed up a little late down at the Haymarket District in Lincoln. There was one guy who actually showed up and was waiting for us. Jay and the Trihybride Stealth Car had a problem early on in the day but showed up tonight with Stephen and I at the Hotel outside Lincoln.

Jays car is still under development, and you could consider this the sea trials. Dave in the Hudson Stinger turned back. He rode along for a bit this morning , but had other commitments in Michigan. Tomorrow we head across the plains to Colby Kansas. One day closer to the finish.

Bill is couch surfing tonight and had the car parked out front of the home he is staying in. A neighbor named Jerry has been following the blog. I guess he was a little surprised to see Dirigo parked across from his house.

I just spoke with Jack who is covering plenty of his own miles and will be meeting us shortly to finish the Rally.

It has been a lot of fun today. Peoples reactions to Dirigo are great.

 

The small town of Knoxville swells to nearly 25,000 people on this weekend of the Knoxville Nationals, a famous Sprint car race series. The place is thick with campers, motor homes, and people in race car tee shirts. In spite of the human density here, Knoxville hospitality is superb. The owner of the retirement home in which we are staying dug into her mother's trunk to find her collection of crocheted bed spreads to spruce up the mattresses they had laid out for us in the empty rooms.

We have been treated like race car celebrities. Everyone loves the cars, and it's so inspiring to speak with these clever farmers who really seem to grasp the urgency of fuel efficiency and have clever solutions to deal with it. One fellow has developed a sweet sorgum harvester and processor to convert sorgum to ethanol at a fraction of the energy intensity it takes to convert corn to ethanol. Another guy has a company which captures methane gas from landfills to power on-site generators that pump electricity back into the grid. He told me that there are 1200 landfills in this country that simply burn off the methane. Makes you want to scream! He's attempting to develop a market for the gas in the transportation sector.

We were lined up for the parade with 150 others after a pancake breakfast that just couldn't be beat, complete with maple syrup freshly delivered from Maine. The parade wound through the center of town with sidewalks solid with people, waving and cheering. In front of the grand  courthouse the mayor introduced each float as they passed. I suspect that no one along the route had ever seen a three wheeled car, let alone three in a row.  Our wonderful handler, Bob Colbert, led us back to the race track for an afternoon of meet and greet in the midwestern sun. We generally had delightful conversations, but there was one guy with whom I knew I just shouldn't discuss politics. Some time these things happen in slow motion and you just see yourself sinking deeper and deeper until there is no easy way out. When he proudly boasted he'd never buy a communist car (because they both had accepted federal money), I assumed he meant GM and Chrysler. It was time to go for a drink of water.

But this is what we're here for: it's not *all* oohs and ahhs...

We came back to the retirement home where we're staying to get the cars ready for the first leg tomorrow. Jay had a loose drive belt to tighten, and I investigated a transmission oil leak. We'll try to find a new seal in Lincoln.

Jack McCornack has been delayed a few days and will meet up with us in Kansas.

Dirigo is riding dry and happy in the trailer of our support vehicle. Not that a little rain bothers the car. Yesterdays 9 hour drive from Maine to PA, ended in a series of dramatic downpours with only a couple of drops landing on drivers left knee.

Dave Hudson with the "Hudson Stinger" has decided to join us( for the first couple of legs?). We have not heard from Jay or Jack, but the Western horizon is opening up with a bit of sun poking through, and hopefully Jack is basking in it. Hope to see all tomorrow or later tonight.

There has been a bit of attrition in the roster of competitors, but those who are left are completely excited and enthusiastic. In addition to Dirigo, we have Jack McCornack with MAX, the multi fuel four wheeler based on his Lotus 7 replicas. He's built a new body for the event. In his own words:

"Oh no, I have so much completing to do that I never considered painting the car until it's on the road and rallying. I'm going to be patching rivet holes all the way across the country, and the only way it will get painted is if I can find white primer in rattle cans somewhere. Meanwhile you can call me...

Bondo. James Bondo

PS--I'm off to make headlight mounting rings.

PPS--I doubt I'll get my rear fenders mounted. That's going to cost some fuel.  Oh well, such is life, and I prefer to do development where spectators can see the process.

PPPS-- "Then I go and sign up for consecutive 400 mile days! That's nuts!" Yes, roger that. And your point is? Heck, we weeded out the sane guys months ago. Sane guys buy Hybrid Escalades so they can show how green they are."

And our other brave competitor Jay Perdue with the Tri Hybrid Stealth:

"I'm excited for "Stealth" to be seen all across America, however I'm a LOT apprehensive. The big car makers don't let a prototype out in public until it has been "shaken down" in a thousand ways. We're going to be out there just flying by the seat of our pants in a vehicle that we'll be working on right up until the starter pistol fires. A lot can go wrong but I think "Stealth" is ready! We'll be able to try two drive train configurations as well as other things in every kind of condition from the burning hot desert to the steep mountain grades to miles and miles of plains. "Stealth" was created to be a commuter vehicle "advertised" as a one hundred mile distance at a charge MAX. Then I go and sign up for consecutive 400 mile days! That's nuts! We'll do all we can each day and see how far it can go. Whatever it is it is. I know it's fast for a high millage vehicle...but can it go any over the claimed 100 miles? We'll see.. and then we'll all know together! It will be, at the very LEAST, an amazing adventure with three guys who aren't afraid to "put their cars where their mouth is!"

I've had time to give Dirigo a fresh coat of varnish, replace the carpeting, and add cruise control. We'll be meeting in Knoxville Iowa on Friday night and be in the 50th Anniversary of Sprint Car racing parade on Saturday. Do you think anyone will notice that we're not really race cars? I suppose we will stand out.

In spite of the fact that there were fourteen cars signed up at one point, this will be a tough event. There just aren't that many prototype high mileage cars that can do this sort of thing. Most tend toward the commuter model. No electric car has the daily range to make it. And that is one of the key philosophical elements behind our thinking: let's show that economy can happen on the open road. We won't be as comfortable as those in the Escalade Hybrids, but our message will be clear: we need to downsize our fleet to fuel sipping levels so petro based fuels will last long enough to allow time to develop viable alternatives. It might be a bit uncomfortable, but it is critical.

So, keep the conversation going until we reach a critical mass of progressive transportation action, and stand by this blog for daily on-the-road reports.

People are curious just how and why Rally Green came into being. I ask myself the same question every now and then, but as show time approaches it's feeling very real. Jack, Harry, Jay, and I were all early entrants in the X Prize but for one reason or another dropped out or were eliminated. One of the X Prize foundation's original plans was to have a multi city stage event to grade the cars in real world situations. We looked forward to that scenario as a great way to get the message to the streets, as it were. Now, it's being held on a race track. The final event, to declare the winner, is actually behind closed doors in August in Michigan. That was the event that I had originally planned to start Rally Green from, hoping to get many other contenders to come. We'd have our own "regular guy's X prize" by taking the cars to the public on a cross country tour. But they wouldn't let even us come watch, so when Bob Colbert called from Knoxville asking if we could make his town a stop, I though it made the most sense to just start from there. George Packer with the eVaro is still in the running for the X Prize, and we are rooting for him to win, but they had mechanical troubles in the last judging event in early May and are working hard to correct the problems in time for the next round in June or July. Whether they're successful or not impacts if they'll make it to our event. Oh, the drama!

Just like building a car, assembling Rally Green is all about parts. I've had wonderfully supportive conversations with people in Colby, Kansas: " Oasis on the Plains", Lincoln, and Delta, Utah. In Delta, we've been offered use of their downtown park thick with big shade trees. In Lincoln, we'll be in a restored section of the city called the Haymarket which is a popular destination and should be crawling with people on the Sunday afternoon we'll be there. Bob Colbert continues to work tirelessly to host us in fine style at the start in Knoxville. The flip side is that Rocky Mountain Institute has no interest in what we're doing, so I am back to square one in Aspen. Regarding lodging, I've discovered CouchSurfing.org. There are people in most of our stops that will offer us a place to sleep. I don't think I can arrange a couch for every one, but I encourage you to check it out. It will be a great way to meet locals and show off the cars. I have an old friend who's offered to tow his old race car trailer behind his truck and be support vehicle. Any one of our cars will fit inside, except Dave's bio mass pick-up, and he'll have tools and can lug any spares for us. This is a huge up-grade to the event. He's also a really nice guy and very experienced mechanic. Both Roo Trimble and Jay Perdue have had very successful first runs. Check their web sites for details. Jay has actually done this before on a recumbent trike powered with a small gas engine. I am really looking forward to the dynamic as all these very interesting people hit the road together and make this Rally happen. George Packer, our lone X Prize contender, is in Michigan with the eVaro as we speak. I have no doubt he'll win and buy us drinks all the way to California. Good Luck George! With the oil spill front and center in the news, the re-thinking of installing more offshore rigs, and oil consumption in general in the fore front of many people's minds I think the timing of Rally Green is excellent. We'll be showing thousands of people how they can take direct action to use less oil. How simple could it be? We know that this country could cut gasoline consumption in half right now. Our job is show every one else the possibilities. I'm thrilled with the enthusiasm of all the contenders, and I look forward to assembling the rest of the parts to make Rally Green complete.

Bob Tregilus, a member of the Alternative Transportation Club and Electric Automobile Association of Northern Nevada has generously offered to help organize a local event in Carson City in support of the Rally Green. (Rally Green is the new working name for the event. We'll use it unless something better comes along). Bob has many contacts and connections in the alternative and progressive transportation world with whom we all look forward to sharing our cars and ideas with. Thanks ever so much, Bob!

The small town of Knoxville Iowa has offered to host the Rally during the week of their Sprint Car Festival and Races. About the same time this offer was made, The X Prize informed me that the Michigan finals were not open to the public. So, why start in Michigan? The Knoxville start will shorten the event by one day, which might not be a bad thing, and with the town in full festival mode the atmosphere for a send off sounds terrific. Also, the central location will make it easier on those coming from the south and west. Almost all the competitors are still eager to go, and those who have works in progress now have a firm deadline: the green flag drops Sunday morning, August 15 in Knoxville. Finish atop Mt Tamalpais Friday, August 21.