What a great day of racing we had for our 3rd NEDRA Power of DC at the Mason Dixon Dragway. Eleven vehicles showed up and raced under the hot blazing sun June 29 in Hagerstown, Maryland. After weeks of rain it turned out to be a beautiful hot summer day.

The events actually started a day before when Shawn Lawless and his crew from Youngstown, Ohio brought their 240-volt "Orange Juice" dragster and did a test run of 11.4 seconds with driver Mark Moore behind the wheel.

Just two weeks before in a test run in Ohio, Orange Juice had burned out both motors and the tranny so Shawn tore them out and rebuilt them just days before the race. What is it they say? “If you don’t break something you aren’t pushing hard enough.”

While the Orange Juice crew was enroute to the races we unfortunately heard from Kevin Zak of NetGain Technologies that their dragster “Bad Amplitude” wasn’t going to make it. Not because of problems with their dragster, but with their truck. Apparently a faulty fuel system stalled their efforts to make it down to Maryland.

Darin Gilbert also was able to put in a few test runs just a couple weeks before in his 48-volt Pirahna motorcycle which sported twin ETEK motors and two parallel strings of 13ah Hawker Genesis Batteries.

Sunday morning Bob Salem and Dave Erb came down from Ohio with Bob's 240-volt VW “ELECTRK” with a new Zilla controller.

We had two folks who actually drove their EVs the 50 + miles to the track where some of the route wound its way through the Apalacian Mountains. Early Sunday morning Christopher Zach drove his US Electricar AC powered Prizm from his home in Relay, Maryland to the track, which was 70 miles away. He stopped in Frederick at the Battery Warehouse for a quick charge before the last leg of his journey which heading up the mountains. Bryan Murtha drove his AC powered Ford Ranger from Owings, which is in the southern part of Maryland, 70 miles to EVA/DC President, Dave Goldstein’s place in Gaithersburg. Then Dave Davidson towed it the rest of the way to the track.

When we arrived at the track we were greeted by the big 70kW generator that was rented for the event. Tom Sigman from Pepco, our local utility, was studiously at work rigging up a special panel to accommodate all the vehicles that would be charging from it that day.

As we we setup, the rest of the gang arrived. It was great to see old friends and friends from the EVDL. Lawson Huntley, Steve Sawtelle. Bob Rice and Mark Hanson were there.

My wife Monica, and kids, Jenny and Jake, set up the registration table where we had three raffles going including door prizes, the Aurenthetic scooter raffle and a raffle for the kids. We also sold plenty of Power of DC T-shirts. Jeff Silva brought some drinks, salad and watermelon for everyone to feast on for lunch.

The Orange Juice crew had their motorhomes and trailer set up on the other side of the track so they drove over to greet folks in Shawn's beautiful black 48-volt BMW based motorcycle with a sidecar.

The two high school teams later showed up each with a crew of 5 or 6 kids. The Central Shenandoah Valley Regional Governor's School in Virginia with instructor, Byron Humpries, and their 120-volt 240-Z and Northeast High School with instructor, Rick Lewis, from North Carolina with their 96-volt VW Golf GTI. The kids showed a lot of enthusiasm and some had never been to an NHRA dragstrip before.

Although we didn’t break any NEDRA records we managed to set a new one. The Central Shenandoah Valley Regional Governor’s School driven by Ben Wright set a new high school record with their 240-Z in the HS/F class. Ben pulled off a best un with a time of 18.374 seconds in the 1/4 mile.

Northeastern was in a different voltage class at 96 volts but they raced several heats against CSVRGS and ran a respectable 14.774 in the 1/8 mile.

Our other trucks were the 312-volt AC powered Ford Ranger and Chevy S-10. So in the Ford versus Chevy shootout both trucks won against each other in races throughout the day.

After the race everyone headed over to the Power of DC tent for the awards and trophies. Then about 40 of us headed out to Ledo’s Pizza for dinner.

Check out our website for more info and pictures: http://www.powerofdc.com.

See you next year for our 4th Power of DC Drag race!