COAST TO COAST ON HOMEMADE FUEL
The Future Fuels Challenge Rally proved, among other things, that it is possible to transverse the continent on homemade fuel, including other applications and what we learned.
January/February 1982
By the Mother Earth News editors
The Future Fuels Challenge Rally proved (among other things) that it's possible to travel
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Regular readers of this publication—and subscribers to MOTHER's Experimental Vehicle Newsletter —are no doubt aware that members of MOM's research crew spent a great deal of time and effort preparing both our woodburning truck and our ethanol-powered van for the Los Angeles-New York City "Future Fuels Rally" sponsored by Shepard Electronics, Inc. of Rochester, New York. (See MOTHER NO. 72, page 192, for more details.)
Well, the big event was held during the week of October 17-24 . . . and though there were-as could have been predicted in an undertaking of this magnitude—a few disappointments along the way, 20 vehicles rolled into the Big Apple powered by just about everything but petroleum!
EARLY DISAPPOINTMENTS TURN TO DETERMINATION
As with any competitive affair preceded by ballyhoo and huzzahs, there were a lot more people who talked about participating than there were folks who actually paid their entrance fees. But when the green flag dropped, 38 entrants pointed their vehicles east and bade farewell to the City of Angels . . . en route, through nearly two dozen checkpoints, to New York City (via Phoenix, Arizona . . . Albuquerque, New Mexico . . . Denver, Colorado . . . Omaha, Nebraska . . . Chicago, Illinois . . . Cleveland, Ohio . . . and Rochester, New York).
Unfortunately, a number of occurrences marred what could have been a fairly smoothly run event. To begin with, the size of the purse (at one point said to total $300,000) was held in question just days before the rally . . . putting a burden on many people who'd made financial sacrifices in the hopes of recouping their expenditures in the end. Then, in Los Angeles, it was indicated that the procedure by which the various wood fuels' BTU values were to be measured (there were four wood-powered entries) would be changed . . . a decision that, many felt, worked to the disadvantage of the liquid -fueled vehicles, whose rates of consumption were being measured very accurately. To make matters worse, a tragic accident just outside Phoenix left rally coordinator David Carmichael badly injured . . . and very nearly shattered the contestants' hopes of continuing the rally according to plan.
Despite the setbacks, however, the show did go on. An impromptu "yea or nay" conference, held in Albuquerque by the drivers left in the group, settled any doubts as to the future of the race: "We're going to New York, rally or not!"
[1] The California Commuter. [2] A sunflower oil-burning ADM Rabbit. [3] B.V. Alvarez holds the checkered flag signed by all the finishing entrants. [4] The NAFCO entry runs on ethanol "Superfuel". [5] The visitors' nonpetroleum fuels. [6] The Citroen-powered Trihawk. [7] Pre-race preparation. [8] ECON's wood-fueled entry. [9] MOTHER's truck makes the Big Time!
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