Well, it could have been worse... Yesterday (10/12/19) I ran with the Lithium batteries for the first time. First, I was amazed at the difference in acceleration! Being 62 pounds lighter (11 versus 73 pounds of battery weight), having twice the voltage (48 instead of 24), and a big change in gear ratio made the acceleration absolutely impressive! I took it easy at first and waited until I had a clear track ahead. Then I twisted the throttle up and, after a momentary jolt of acceleration, everything went dead! The car shut off, the gauge panel went blank... nothing... The USF college guys came to the rescue and pushed me to the pits. When I told them everything went dead after I accelerated, they told me to shut off the master power switch and turn it back on. I did, and everything came back! They explained that the BMS (Battery Management System) built into the battery pack shut the power off to keep it from over-discharging and doing permanent damage to itself!

OK, so I had to make sure when I'm accelerating that I don't exceed 30 amps for more than 1.5 seconds! Back on the track and gently accelerating, I set my speed at a comfortable 28 mph. One of the other cars in Advanced Battery class (there were 4 of us) had a mechanical issue and dropped out early, so I finished 3rd in the first race. I had run a total of 87 laps to the winner's 117.

During the break between races, the USF guys offered to reprogram my motor controller so it would be less likely to shut off unexpectedly again. After they finished we ran the car for a few seconds on the jack. Everything seemed OK. At the start of the second race my car was dead! Wouldn't do anything! I had power; the gauge panel was working, but the car wouldn't go. The USF guys pushed me back to the pits as the race was starting. We ran the car on the stand again, so what was wrong? They had incorrectly set the "over voltage protection" in the controller program. I climbed back in the car and they gave me a push-start - it worked! Unfortunately, the reprogramming had also limited my top speed to 23 mph. Crap!! Oh well, at least I finished. The same car that had mechanical issues in the first race had a worse problem in this race; with about 9 minutes left he blew a tire, ran off in the grass, and rolled over. I ended up 3rd again, so I got 3rd place in the Advanced Battery class for the day. OK, so I profited from someone else's misfortune, but at least I came home with a trophy.

I will get the bugs worked out of the controller and learn the idiosyncrasies of Lithium battery packs in a couple more races. When I do I think this is going to be fun! At the very least, it's going to be a learning experience.