Dighton Electrorally Team Making Improvements
Lane-Scott Electric has been a proud sponsor the Dighton Electrorally team since the early 2000’s (as our best calculation!) It is always exciting to see the ingenuity from each team. The Dighton team prides itself that the students are 100% responsible for the design, building, and maintenance of the electric and solar driven vehicles. What a fantastic way to encourage self-reliance, responsibility, creativity, and fulfillment from hard work!
This year’s team consists of Trevon Beesley, Ethan Shapland, Gabe Costillo, Jessica Perez, and Cody Pierce. The team provided the following recap of what they’ve been up to this year.
“The Dighton High School Electrathon team has decided to not only maintain our existing car, 27x (aka. Jaws), but we have also continued to build a new car from a frame up. We have been making steady progress on our new car, as well as tuning up 27x for this race season,” the team said.
“One thing that 27x is beginning to need is new tires. Not only has it had its current tires for quite a few races, when we were working out an issue with the throttle, it spun the drive wheel and wore down the tire quite a bit,” the team said. “We have also done a lot of work on our new car, moving the battery box to the front of the car, and the steering mounts down in order to gain more ground clearance. We would like to see it on wheels before the end of the year.”
For those who may not be familiar with the program, teams across Kansas compete at meets in two classes of competition, the solar powered and standard electric car. The objective of each race is not to finish first, but to complete as many laps as possible in an hour. Each track is a quarter mile, and cars (if they finish) will average about 60 laps during the hour-long race. The competition is a team event, having a driver, lap counter, and pit crew.
The team plans to compete on April 7th at the Spencer Flight & Education Center in Scott City; on April 21st at West Frontier Park, Old Hwy 40, Hays; and on May 5th in Kansas City. They are always in need of supplies. If you would like to be a future sponsor financially or by donating items, you can contact Mr. Nichols at the High School, 620-397-5333.
Good Luck Team!