Green Machines: Hydrogen: Extremist Racing
April 1, 2007
The Robb Report Collection recently spoke with Peter DeLorenzo, the founder of the Hydrogen-Electric Racing Federation, who hopes to push racing into the future—and back to its revolutionary roots.
What was the inspiration for the Hydrogen-Electric Racing Federation?
The
idea first occurred to me in 1999, when I started Auto Extremist (www.autoextremist.com). In our first
issue, I mentioned the Hydrogen 500, and I would talk about it occasionally over
the years. But it wasn’t until I attended the Chevrolet Sequel hydrogen
fuel-cell drive in California last year, when I spent time with Larry Burns—the
executive vice president of General Motors in charge of research—along with Bob
Lutz, and described to them my vision for racing hydrogen-powered electric
fuel-cell vehicles. They were quite intrigued by the idea.
We had a few
subsequent meetings and soon I decided it was time to invite other manufacturers
to the table. We held a meeting in January, during the media days of the Detroit
auto show, and I took everyone through the concept.
What is the basic concept?
I truly believe that racing needs a new
objective. Technology has swallowed up motor sports, but not in an innovative
way. Creativity still plays a part, but it is not the priority anymore; the
priority has become coming up with rule packages that slow the vehicles down
every year, so that cars don’t exceed the safe envelope of the tracks in terms
of speed. They just come up with new restrictions every year that allow the cars
to qualify in the upper 220 mph range and hit 210 [mph] to 220 [mph] during the
actual race. Racing has been in this holding pattern for a while, especially at
the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Once upon a time, Indianapolis was the proving
ground for all kinds of passenger car technologies that eventually funneled down
to the cars people could buy. But the Speedway has been reigning in speeds for
25 years.
The other aspect is that we have this pressing need: the global
realization that the time to deal with what we’re doing to the environment has
to be now. I really believe that, first of all, electric vehicles are the
future, and ultimately, a hydrogen-powered electric fuel cell vehicle is really
where we’re going.
Why do you want to hold the first race at Indianapolis?
History and
innovation. When they started the Indy 500 back in 1911, everything was new:
tire development, brakes, engines, everything. Most racecars were equipped not
only with drivers, but with riding mechanics, who served two basic functions.
For one, they took visual readings of the wear on the right rear tire to
determine when the car needed to go into the pits. Also, the riding mechanic
kept tabs on the competition. But the guy who won the first race—Ray Harroun—did
so using the first Speedway innovation: he fixed a mirror to his car,
eliminating the need for a riding mechanic and saved a couple hundred pounds of
weight. That innovation immediately became known as the rearview mirror.; function voidFunc() { } voidFunc();)
HERF’s fuel-cell racers will replace Formula One cars as the world’s
most technologically advanced racing series. (Click image to enlarge)
So
at the very first race, Indianapolis saw innovations that would trickle down to
the cars we buy. The year 2011 will be the 100th anniversary of the Indy 500, so
the Speedway is very intrigued by this type of racing. The Hydrogen 500 will put the Speedway back at the forefront of developing advanced
automotive technologies for the cars we’re actually going to buy.
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