14 ❙ December.2007
The Mighty Molecule Mixers
For two days, the only doors I walkedthrough that did not have a security cardlock, armed guard, CCTV, motion sensoror some such other sneaky spy-on you cam-era was the toilet. Rick Darling, hired engi-neering top-gun at the racing division ofRoush Industries, invited me to blue ovalcountry in Dearborn, Michigan to give apresentation on land speed racing at theBonneville Salt Flats. The audience was theHydrogen Fusion 999 race team.
The boys were damn near all salt vir-gins, but veterans and forwardthinker/doers in their respective fields.These Midwest “molecule mixers” were ona virginal quest: to power a racecar byhydrogen fuel cells. Never mind it hasnever been done before, I got the feelingthese boys were old hands at floggingimpossible odds. Stuffy old Ford was danc-ing on the edge of the transportation razor.Show us your tech!
Metaphorically speaking, they were“Team Zipper” due to the divergent back-grounds of team members. On one side youhave the Sustained Mobility Transportguys, Ford brain trust, those heaving heav-ies who are steering the future of trans-portation bent on reducing our dependen-cy on Middle East crude. Let’s call ‘em theeggheads.
On the other side are the knucklebusting, metal cutting and tube weldingRoush fabricators and mechanics who can’tfigure out what in blazes is going to makethis car move, let alone go fast, but they canbuild it. Let’s call ‘em the wrenches.
As you might imagine, it took awhilefor each side to understand and respect thespecialized talents of the other, to form abond that would permit them to coalesceinto an efficient speed squad. I arrivedwhen the “zipping” had just begun, andcould sense an understanding and respectbuilding for something foreign that oozed“the next big thing.” Let’s call that faith.
Some were absorbing the momentintuitively, others were a bitmore tentative, but all werewilling to learn to do some-thing that had never beendone before. I marveled atthe dynamics, the invigorat-ing flow that was soAmerican, and yet it was sopersonal that I at times feltlike an intruder.
Out on the salt, like anyother new car that dares topresent itself on the startingline, came a few teethingproblems that they easilyworked through.Fortunately, unlike otherautomakers, Ford’s Managerof Fuel Cell Engineering,Mujeeb Ijaz, had done his homework, heknew how to be a good competitor, to bringhis team possessed of a respect for the placeand the sport.
Anyone watching would be enthusedby the team, their fine, world-first accom-plishment: the first hydrogen powered fuelcell to exceed 200MPH – 207.297 miles perhour to be precise - against some dauntingodds.
Knowing this, you will understandwhy I was as crushed as I was torqued offwhen I read the Ford press release claiming
Fusion had set a land speed record. It wasmost certainly a record speed, but the Fordmedia machine had no right to claim arecord when the car was not entered in anyclass and was to run for “time only.”
Worse, on the worldwide web, morethan 30 pages returned from a search andalmost all were touting the non-existentrecord with the exception of a few seriousjournalists who investigated the claim anddiscovered the truth. The same silly claimshowed up on YouTube.com as well.
“We have 500 other racers that wecater to,” said SCTA/BNI record keeperDan Warner confirming that Ford didNOT set any record. When I asked why
BNI didn’t create a class for the Fusion, headded, “We’ve been burned repeatedly byOEM’s who show up begging for a class tobe established and promising support thatnever materializes.”
The Fusion was eligible to run as anelectric car since the hydrogen energy fedan electric motor. However those classesare delineated by weight, not body style
and because the car weighed 6,700 poundsit would have to beat the Buckeye Bulletstreamliner’s record that is over 300MPH.
Seems unfair to expect a sedan to tus-sle with the aero queens of the salt, but sofew contest the established classes there isno reason to change – yet. The Fusion’sweight is due to redundancy systems, sen-sors and other safety items – noHindenburg horrors here, thank you verymuch – the fuel tanks withstood beingdropped from 5 stories, burned in a bonfireand shot with a 9mm. Safety weighs.
Ah, but what about the World Record?At a mere 251MPH set by PatRummerfield in the White Lighteningstreamliner. I figure if the Fusion scam-pered up to 207 on the way out the backdoor of the last timed mile on its first andonly full pass long course run and driverRick Brynes felt there was some throttleleft then maybe Ford quit before the jobwas done.
“There was no evidence that if wewould have stayed that we would have hadmore power growth, it was more dependenton course length, explained Ijaz, “Maybechassis adjustments might have helped, butwe figured the car had done its best. The
car left but the team stayed and went overand tried to support the Buckeye Bulletteam.
It was Important that we went inwith the right attitude and understood thesport. I didn’t want to be a big corporateface, to overpower the event. We werealways up before dawn – I watched everysunrise and even bought a dirt bike to run
around the pits. I planto go to Bonnevilleevery year I can,whether my companygoes or not.”
As for the future,project leader MattZuehlk noted that thefuel delivery lessonslearned will be appliedto Ford’s next-genera-tion fuel cell vehicledeveloped over thenext year, along withweight reduction andaerodynamics. OnWednesday, MujeebIjaz made the decisionto load Hydrogen
Fusion 999 onto a transporter in order tomake it back to the Woodward DreamCruise.
“The loudest thing in the car were thefans on my breathing system,” chuckleddriver Brynes, “I could also hear the invert-er that converts the DC power from thefuel cell stack into AC power for the elec-tric motor that turns the rear wheels. Asland speed racers, we live on the accom-plishment, we didn’t do this for glory, weknow we went fast, we were first and giventhe opportunity to make a return run and
set a record I think we would have.”Hydrogen fuel cells combine hydro-
gen, (the most common element in the uni-verse) and oxygen to generate energy. Theonly by-product is H2O. The trick was tohydrate the fuel cell stacks just right.Shazad Butt, a Ford SMT engineer, invent-ed a special sensor to track the hydrationcycle allowing the team to condition, or“tune” the fuel cells. On every run the 999made more power than before, to a pointwhere the cells were making more powerthan anyone ever expected – up to 404 kilo-watts against a technology limit of 360KW.Ha! Reminds me of when nitro first gottipped into fuel tanks.
“This is not the Ford I retiredfrom in 2000,” insisted Brynes, “I’mnot sure how much the land speedcommunity understands the scope ofwhat happened with Ford prior toSpeedweek this year, but from a tech-nology standpoint it was historicalwith a capital H. Fuel cells may not bethe silver bullet for the transportationindustry, but the fact that the seriousresearch is being done, developed to apoint to be able to very safely drive a6,700 pound car to well over200MPH is very profound to me.Having the balls to go out into the“public” racing arena with the samepotential of failure that you and Ihave with racing endeavors is confi-dence building and certainly helps thespirits of the entire company.”
Ijaz confessed the team devel-oped a “super duper passion for the
salt” and because the experience was soutterly proletariat and connective that hisengineers got a chance to do somethingbrand new and go somewhere that Forddoesn’t usually go.
“We all got a lot out it, they alldeserved to be there,” added Ijaz who toldhis team whoever sweats over the car andputs their heart and soul into it can go tothe salt, “We started with 10, ended up tak-ing 25.” Once back home Bill Ford arrivedunannounced at the team BBQ and show-ered a bit of praise upon them.
PERSONAL NOTE TO BILLFORD: Get fitted for some Nomex buddyboy, reprising your great grandpappy’s runwould buy more goodwill with customersthan triple your entire public affairs depart-ment during their BEST year. Bet me.Better yet, toss down a glove at Wagoner’sGM feet, go clean his clock before you geta piece of those German boys at Chrysler.You can drive a stick, can’t you?
Shortly before his death, Henry Fordis said to have remarked to BarneyOldfield: “You made me and I made you.”Oldfield shook his head and replied “Old999 made both of us.” As far as I can tell,the Hydrogen Fusion 999 is the first timeFord has officially returned to land speedracing since Henry rocketed across LakeSt.Clair to a world land speed record. Thatride catapulted Ford’s fledgling car compa-ny into prominence. A century later, couldwe be witnessing the lynchpin of itsrebirth?
“One thing you can get at Bonnevilleis a grassroots feeling…, you can’t get thatanywhere else. I want to find a topic, some-
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thing relevant with the business strategy ofFord to be able to bring the company backto Bonneville,” Ijaz concluded, “What bet-ter way than with advance powertrains?”This from a guy who thinks the public canbe driving hydrogen-powered vehicles inabout 10 years. “I’d like to prove that car onthe salt first.”
The company already has a fleet of 30hydrogen powered Focus fuel cell vehicleson the road as part of a worldwide, seven-city program to conduct real world testingof fuel cell technology. I drove the newEscape Hybrid for a week and other thansome buzzy engine feedback when Itromped on the throttle to blast up themountain roads and the goofy steering
wheel adjustment, I was thoroughlyimpressed by the technology, especially thedandy CVT.
“It’s still too soon to say if we’ll beback,” Ijaz said candidly, “If I can come upwith a really good strategy then, by God,I’ll do it. It was a pretty big step to do thisproject. It took vision in the company; ittook the blessings of management to give ita chance. I believe racing breeds powertraininnovation.”
When I unloaded on Ijaz about thefake-based record, he remained confident,yet understood the unpopular perception itcreated.
“Had Ford the intent to describe whatwe did as a record then we deserve to be
publicly flogged, but our intent was to bethe first hydrogen powered fuel cell carover 200MPH. I respect what land speedracers go through to set a record.”
Ford has shown that American inge-nuity is not dead in the voluminous halls ofcrippled Detroit. I’m told the car will go onthe show circuit as a pretty rolling face.Alas, the tanks are empty, the motor stilled,the vision distorted by some high paidliar(s?) in suits who think they set a landspeed record. Instead, they only tarnishedthe gleam of the great Ford and Roush landspeed team.
Note to those self-aggrandizing PRbig shots in Dearborn who believe “nobodycares” about such details, take note: This
girl does and every time one of you feel theneed to trample over the sport of landspeed racing, insulting the thousands ofaverage folks who play by rules and some-times require a decade to set a legitimateland speed record, remember that I’mwatching . . ., and telling on you everydamn time.
Note: Photojournalist Louise Ann Noeth isthe authoress of the award-winning book,“Bonneville: The Fastest Place on Earth,” acomplete historical review of the first 50years of land speed racing now in its 6thprinting. For more details and to order, goto:www.landspeedproductions.biz.
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