autonomous technology might provide some new aspect to our live show as well as providing our technical staff an extra tool for balancing performance between the cars.
TP: You mentioned that an Electric Rallycross Formula allows for greater venue options. Is this primarily due to the lessened environmental impact?
BG: For sure it’s becoming increasingly difficult to hold traditional style races in urban areas and other environmentally sensitive settings.
The changing landscape hit home for me when I was looking for a rallycross venue for X Games Munich in 2013. Originally we planned on racing in the Olympic Stadium, the main X Games venue, but that turned out to not be an option because of local resistance to the noise and emissions. There was a point where we were only a couple months out from the event before finally finding a suitable venue even remotely close to the stadium. The growing societal limitations on what I had thought to be a highly flexible footprint of rallycross suddenly became clear.
Basically speaking, electric power broadens our options and provides us the ability to think more creatively about venues. My intention with E/RACING is to use the opportunity of new technologies to revive the original idea of rally car racing in unusual venues, such as: downtown areas, stadiums, beaches, desserts, snowy mountainsides, etc.
TP: New York and Las Vegas seem key markets to the series – as demonstrated by Formula E. How important is the Big Apple in terms of cracking overall exposure?
BG: Producing events that require temporary racetrack builds in major metropolitan areas like New York City, Los Angeles and Las Vegas is typically challenging, especially so during the initial season of new series. Fortunately we have a few key relationships at venues in these particular markets providing us the ability to introduce our concept to as many people as possible and deliver maximize value to our stakeholders.
TP: The format of rallycross also seems well-suited to electric technology - enabling crews to change battery packs without impacting on the competition like in Formula E?
BG: It’s not just rallycross, any type of racing utilizing motocross style heats could benefit. We think there’s a case to be made for applying the format to several other genres. For example, touring car racing featuring a series of 20-minute long elimination brackets could be quite interesting. We’re also looking at how to apply the technology to stage rally, a sport facing some enormous environmental issues.
TP: E/Racing has teamed up with STARD to produce these cars. Being a new series, what kind of infrastructure or onsite track do you envisage to make these cars reliable?
BG: We’re continuing to work on those details. First off, racing electric cars is completely different than ICE vehicles
when planning track safety and operations. When it comes to reliability, our technical team will be working closely with the manufacturers and STARD to develop the cars as fast as possible. Fortunately for us, there’s a lot we’re able to learn from Formula E in both areas.
TP: One would expect a substantial increase in torque with the electric drivetrain. Do you think this will have a significant impact on the spectacle of Rallycross?
BG: The increased torque will absolutely have a positive affect. Typically speaking, more power is better when it comes to rallycross because of the compact tracks, though naturally there’s a limit. Each circuit is different and electric drive gives us the ability to start high and then dial it down to what makes sense from a safety standpoint for each weekend.
TP: The series runs a charter system, allowing some teams to lease cars or buy them outright. Is there an option to buy cars at a discount price after leasing them for a term?
BG: We’ve actually amended the program to where we offer teams a simple financing option when they purchase the cars. There’s a discount if they buy them outright.
TP: What are the plans for the evolution of these cars? On that note, would a team purchasing a car expect to see a return on their investment say after one or two seasons?
BG: Though we’ll focus on rallycross first, we intend to continually develop the capability of the cars so that they may perform under a wide variety of racing conditions. Ultimately we’d like them to use them in different types of tracks whether street circuits, rally sprints or even some form of endurance racing. No matter what, our various activities will be billed as electric “rally car racing” under the E/RACING brand.
What’s interesting with electric power is the ability to adjust power up and down for the various situations. In other words, flexibility is more achievable when you only to have to change some body work and suspension settings and don’t have to deal with remapping or swapping out a traditional engine.
One of our primary objectives is to layout the best possible setting for charter holders to see a return on investment as soon as possible. In this regard, and considering that the per event operating costs of the electric drivetrain are substantially less than the current configuration, a flexible car could provide us the ability to run more events on an annual basis, maximizing the initial cost of the car.