A Bit of History - 2009 eV Challenge

2009 was our first year entering our own go-kart, we used the chassis of an old land-yacht which had been converted and raced in the 2006 EV Challenge by our friend Joel Percival. The kart used a 500 watt hub motor, seen above, in the front wheel powered by a 36v 12ah lead-acid battery pack. Unfortunately the hub motor was attained from a chinese dealer and had an in-built restrictor which proved very difficult to remove. Despite being limited to 14 kph, we still managed to finish 29th out of 45 karts entered in the race, however to be honest this result was mainly due to other teams crashing and mis-management of their power. The race was a wake up call for the organisers as the karts pushed the safety envelope of the track, a car park at Polytechnic West, a result of this was a roll-over mid-race. The 2010 race was still held at this track but in 2011, thanks to new sponsorship by ITC Global the race moved to a new, longer track at the RAC Driving Centre.