By Amy Higgins

Electric vehicles are multiplying on our neighborhood streets and highways, but they’re also generating more interest in a less likely arena: racing venues. When we think of car racing, we think of the growl of the engine, and the lingering scent of gasoline and oil. However, many of today’s race car drivers and their fans are becoming more accepting of change.

The Pikes Peak International Hill Climb is a time-honored competition that was established in 1916. Dubbed the “Race to the Clouds,” this 100-plus years race course goes up the iconic 14er, taking competitors through 156 twists and turns with treacherous cliffs marked with behemoth boulders and towering trees, climbing 14,115 feet to the finish line. This race isn’t for amateurs.

While many EVs have entered this climb over the decades, none were as cutting edge as one of this year’s exhibition vehicles: a 1973 Porsche 911 RSR EV. On June 30, it was the first former Pikes Peak competitor and winning car (the car won the vintage division in 2015) that turned heads with its internal combustion conversion to EV using California’s Zero Motorcycles’ EV powertrain. The vehicle was driven by Winding Road Adventures (WRA) Racing’s Chris Lennon of Monument.

Colorado’s electric cooperatives showed their support for this progressive venture with a sponsorship of the vehicle. “The electric co-ops are excited to be part of this project which delved further into electric vehicles and what their potential is,” said Colorado Rural Electric Association Executive Director Kent Singer.

Devotees and the debut
“We all call this ‘Hell Week,’” Lennon said in the week previous to the race. The WRA crew was busy testing the Porsche every morning at first light that week, before the tourists made their presence known. “We test on a different part of the mountain every day this week to find out how the car is working and try to get it in tip-top shape for the race.”

In the months prior to the race, the WRA crew was diligently transforming the Porsche into the handsome EV it is today. “We literally updated everything as part of the EV conversion,” Lennon explained. “From the chassis itself — we beefed it up — we put a whole new suspension on it, the weight distribution in the car is different, new brakes, new wheels. It’s literally like a brand-new car.”

The Porsche made its initial appearance at the PPIHC Fan Fest in downtown Colorado Springs on June 28, where tens of thousands of fans met the racers displaying their race cars. Right next to Lennon and the Porsche was a Honda EV that was driven by Katy Endicott in 1994, giving race fans a comparative taste of what a state-of-the-art EV looked like 25 years ago.

Counting down the hours to the actual race, WRA knew Lennon and the Porsche were ready to make their debut at their first PPIHC. “It going to be a great adventure either way,” Lennon said. “I’ve learned over the years — over the six years I’ve run previously — that there’s been bad weather almost every year. But that’s out of our control and we just kind of deal with it.”

Setting the pace
Call it kismet or simply Colorado — June 30 brought in storm clouds, rain pelted the pavement and Lennon wasn’t surprised. “The weather is always a factor there,” he reiterated. “What made it a little more unusual was the fact that there was lightning up there. After that, they stopped sending cars to the summit and the rest of us went to Glen Cove, which is as far as they could send us safely.”

PPIHC officials examined and calculated partial runs and full runs to decide who was the fastest in the race. In the end, Lennon and the modified Porsche made it to the podium with a third place finish in the exhibition division.

“We think we could have gotten second place if we could have gone to the summit, but you never know until you do it,” Lennon said. He was impressed with the Porsche’s performance, “because the second place car had a lot more power than we did. It was the internal combustion technology with the Dodge Hellcat with a massive amount of power, and we had electric.”

Lennon liked the immediate availability of power the EV provided and was impressed with the powertrain, noting that it seemed to like the cooler temperature. When he reached the modified finish line, the Porsche still had about 50% charge remaining.

Even during the race, Lennon was discovering the particulars of the vehicle. “It took a little quick learning on my part, because we were doing it in the rain where maybe having all that power right away wasn’t the most controllable thing, but I was a quick study, I think,” he explained. “There was one point past one of the big spectator areas at the ski area where I came around the corner — I tried to be as gentle as I could on the accelerator, but the car got really sideways and even through my helmet I could hear people screaming outside. I think it was a fan favorite that I went sideways in front of all of them. It was definitely not intentional though.”

Already committed to the 2020 PPIHC, the WRA engineers will be reviewing the data from this year’s race to ensure they’re even more prepared to hit the hill once again.

A global influence
WRA wasn’t certain how the Porsche EV would perform at PPIHC, so landing a spot on the podium was the icing on the cake. “There’s no question we went in the right direction going EV this year — we got a terrific result,” Lennon said. “Again, with this being the first year of a two-year effort, we expect to learn a ton from this and come back even better next year.”

As an internationally loved event — one of the top four or five races in the world, Lennon said — PPIHC is an ideal platform to show off classic cars that are modified with modern technologies. “I suspect we’re not going to be the last ones to do this,” he said.

“I would have also thought that the racing world would be the last to really embrace this because they’re more traditional car people,” Lennon said. “I think that community is one of the tougher ones to win over with EV.”

Fans of the PPIHC may breathe in a little less gasoline and hear a little less growl at future races as more EVs make it to the scene and race their way to the clouds.

Amy Higgins is a longtime freelance writer for Colorado Country Life. She’s wise to the ways of the electric cooperatives’ diverse communities and is enthusiastic about engaging the CCL readership by reporting the latest innovations in energy.

Lighting the Way for Sillab, Guatemala
By Anna Politano, Oklahoma Living Magazine Editor

Sitting at 2,700 feet altitude atop a towering mountain surrounded by scenic and lush elevation ranges, is the small village of Sillab (pronounced “si-yap”) in north central Guatemala, near the border with Belize. Visitors coming to explore the Guatemalan beauty would likely never go up on this mountain — the area is far from tourist attractions and is nearly a 10-hour drive from the capital city of Guatemala City. Residents of Sillab live away from civilization. Most villagers don’t speak the official language of the country: Spanish. Instead, they speak an ancient, Mayan-based dialect called Q’eqchi’ or “kek-chi.”

Earlier this year, representatives from Colorado’s and Oklahoma’s electric cooperatives — in partnership with the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association’s philanthropic arm, NRECA International — conducted a scouting trip to plan an electrification project for Sillab that will take place later in August and September. What they found was not only a primitive community lacking access to electricity, running water and plumbing, but also a dwelling of joyful, hospitable people. The purpose of the trip was to assess the local conditions, see the project site, meet the villagers and utility representatives, and evaluate the staking design for power lines.

With a total of 60 homes, one elementary school and four churches, the villagers of Sillab grow corn for self-consumption and generate most of their income from the production of cardamom seeds, peppers and coffee, as well as a variety of other spices. Stricken by scarce resources and poverty, most villagers made Sillab their home after receiving a plot of land from the Guatemalan government, a result of a peace agreement following the Guatemalan Civil War from 1963 to 1996.

In August 2019, 20 volunteers from Colorado’s and Oklahoma’s electric cooperatives will build power lines on a stretch of 6.5 miles, wire 60 poles and install four transformers. The power lines will belong to a local utility: ADECORK (Associación Para Desarollo Communitario Rax Kiche), or the Association for Community Development Rax Kiche.

ADECORK will carry the responsibility of generating and distributing electric power to Sillab. The utility operates a small hydropower plant with a capacity of 75 kilowatts. ADECORK currently provides power to 275 consumers in nearby villages, with an average of 4 kW per home.

ADECORK officials are actively seeking funds to increase their capacity for more water in order to power additional surrounding villages. The utility is currently not structured as an electric cooperative, but its leaders aspire to adopt the electric cooperative business model.

Colorado and Oklahoma volunteers will also wire each home with four lightbulbs (kitchen, living room, front porch and back of the home) and four electrical outlets. The estimated electric rate will be 14 cents per kilowatt-hour. As a reference, the average per kWh rate in Colorado is 12.2 cents. Although the villagers will incur another bill, their energy consumption is considerably lower compared to the United States. Most of the villagers do not own or cannot afford electrical appliances. Access to electricity should empower the villagers with economic prosperity, safety and a better quality of life.

Included in the planning trip were Safety and Loss Control Director Dale Kishbaugh and Director of Member Services Liz Fiddes, both with the Colorado Rural Electric Association; Team Leader Mike Wolfe with Southwest Rural Electric Association based in Tipton, Oklahoma; and me, the editor of Oklahoma Living magazine, which is part of the Oklahoma Association of Electric Cooperatives. We were accompanied by NRECA International Engineer Erick Berganza.

“It is an honor and privilege to serve as team leader for this electrification project,” Wolfe said. He was also a volunteer in the 2018 Guatemala electrification project. “I’m eager to work alongside a great team to bring electricity to the villagers in Sillab. On projects like this, you receive more than you give. It will be a life-changing experience.”

Editor’s Note: Colorado Country Life Editor Mona Neeley will travel to Guatemala the first week of September as part of the team helping celebrate when the lights come on for the first time in Sillab.