Plant City High School | Electrathon of Florida

We held our STEM Electrathon Event at Plant City High School on Saturday, April 30th. We thank Plant City High School Sponsors David Kocher and Fernando Guillen along with their Administration for hosting our event. We thank the PCHS students that helped Friday afternoon with the setup of the course.

We thank the inspection teams that inspected the cars at this race. David Kocher and Kevin Dye inspected the high school cars, Ken Fiallos and Nicodemus Brothers inspected the open/advanced cars.

Our race Steward Mike Frederick met with teams/drivers for the drivers meeting

As the teams lined up for the first race, 10 cars got into position
Kinetic Industries car 19 Mulberry car 38 ProEv car 39 Middleton car 80 Plant City HS car 83 Middleton HS car 133 Fortuna car 444 Plant City HS car 210 Kinetic Industries car 99 Plant City HS car 208

As the green flag dropped starting the first race drivers established their line on the track and kept a steady pace. Plant City car 208 had a thumping sound due to their new rims and tires. During the race, teams started having issues with their cars. Kinetic Industries car 99 had their chain issue’s return; after the chain came off the third time they decided to pit and call it a day. Plant City 83 went too fast into turn three and came up on two wheels. Kinetic Industries 19 said they also came up onto two wheels. Fortuna 444 went fast into turn three and wound up turned around and on their side. The driver was not injured but the car had rear wheel issues and front brake/wheel assembly damage, into the pits they were carried.

At the end of the first race, it was:
High School Class
1st Place Middleton 80 with 88 laps
2nd Place Plant City 210 with 84 laps
3rd Place Mulberry 38 with 73 laps
4th Place Middleton 133 with 68 laps
5th Place Plant City 208 with 40 laps
6th Place Plant City 83 with 37 laps
Open Class
1st Place Kinetic Industries 19 with 82 laps
2nd Place Kinetic Industries 99 with 20 laps
Advanced Class
1st Place Pro EV 39 with 107 laps
2nd Place Fortuna 444 with 91 laps.

Teams worked on their cars between races and celebrated Trish’s birthday with a piece of cake

As the teams lined up for the second race, our open class cars called it a day and headed home.

When the green flag dropped starting the second race, teams were determined to go for the overall win. The Fortuna car had a sound coming from their front wheel that sounded like a frog as it went along the track at a much slower pace than their first race, pitting after 11.27 minutes. Pro EV experienced a chain issue and took longer than normal to get back into the race Plant City 210 was quiet and ran exceptionally well until Charlie said something about it and a few laps later they headed to the pits for the day with a rear wheel axle issue (David said thanks Charlie).

When the checkered flag dropped it was a close race in our high school class
1st Place Plant City 83 with 89 laps
2nd Place Middleton 133 with 88 laps
3rd Place Middleton 80 with 85 laps
4th Place Mulberry 38 with 79 laps
5th Place Plant City 210 with 60 laps
6th Place Plant City 208 with 57 laps
Advanced Class
1st Place Pro EV 39 with 91 laps
2nd Place Fortuna 444 with 7 laps

The laps from both races were combined to determine the overall winners for the day of racing.
At each race before giving out the awards for the day we ask if everyone is ok and get input on the course, multiple students said it was not challenging enough and they found it to be boring.
High School Class
1st Place Middleton car 80 with 173 laps
2nd Place Middleton car 133 with 156 laps
3rd Place Mulberry car 38 with 152 laps
4th Place Plant City car 210 with 144 laps
5th Place Plant City car 83 with 126 laps
6th Place Plant City car 208 with 97 laps