Race electrifies student ambition

Centennial takes checkered flag

By Rob Cullivan

The Gresham Outlook, Mar 10, 2010

Jim Clark / The Outlook

Centennial High School driver Justin Dragoo claimed first place.

To speed or not to speed — that was the question facing Nicholas Morrell, 17, a junior at Centennial High School, as he took the field at Mt. Hood Community College the morning of March 6. Nicholas had just earned his driver’s license the day before and was one of 37 teenagers, as well as adult electric-car drivers, from Oregon and Washington competing in the Electrathon America E-Car Race.

For one hour, drivers follow a .80-mile track that winds through campus parking lots. First place goes to the car that goes the furthest distance — but you can’t recharge your car’s batteries, so it’s important not to go too fast lest your engine stall.

However, Nicholas notes he had a different problem.

“I had a really bad beginning,” he says of driving car No. 25. “I went too slow. I was really afraid I’d burn my batteries out.”

That’s right, if you go too slow, you might not make enough laps to beat the other drivers — and laps only count as complete if you cross the finish line each time. Indeed, at least two drivers on Saturday came within seconds of completing a final lap that nonetheless didn’t count because they didn’t cross the line before the hour was up.

Turns out, however, that Nicholas drove just right, coming in third place in the high school category, driving 19.2 miles in almost 57 minutes. Second place went to David Douglas High School, and first place went to car No. 42, also from Centennial High.

Nicholas originally came in fourth, but another high school’s car that took third was disqualified because its driver was too light.

Drivers must weigh at least 180 pounds at the end of a race, and need to carry weights in their car to compensate if they are too light, according to Aaron Williams, a volunteer with the Centennial Electric Car Club.

Better batteries

Justin Dragoo, 18, the senior driver who took first for Centennial in No. 42, notes the car club had installed new batteries in his vehicle this year.

“They kept a better charge,” he says, adding he was impressed with his low-riding vehicle’s performance.

“My car being so low, it likes to scrape on the ground all the way through,” he says.

Nicholas adds the course is more difficult than it appears to the casual observer. One turn was “real sharp, it kind of felt like the car was going to roll a couple times.”

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