A new sport is born, Electric furniture racing! On Sunday September 22, 1996 a small group of the Bay areas elite "Hobbiests" met at the car show in Red Wood City. We were brought together by one common thread. We all like to bolt an electric motor on anything we can get our hands on. This weekend we would be racing shopping carts, couches and my La-Z-Boy chair.

I am not a photographer, as you could probably tell, but here are the pictures. I will let the pictures speak for themselves since you probably won't read anything that I type.

It was a fun weekend. None of the furniture or carts moved slower than 15 mph. I think my chair could go about 20 mph and would do a wheelie from the starting line to the first corner. The drive motors had extremely high starting torque. My chair used two starter motors. These are series wound motors so they provide the high torque that you desire for drive motors. I estimate the output speed is probably 2000 rpm. I then reduced this using a 3:1 gear reduction. I had a 12 and a 35 tooth sprocket driving 10 inch wheels. Never did the math but it worked pretty good. In the front of the chair I used one deep-cycle battery. I am sure I had major voltage drop driving two motors, but this kind of cusioned the blow when you hit the triggers. Since this was a slap together hurry up job, I didn't have speed control. The motors were on/off using a golf cart solenoid. Don't use a car solenoid unless you have a death wish!

The couches were great for cruising. Four to six people could climb aboard and go for a nice controlled cruise. Both of these couches used electronic speed controlls. The black couch, dubbed the Jolly Rogers, used one motor. The steering wheel caused the couch to pivot in the middle, enabling it to turn. Actually it could turn very sharp. The brown couch, which didn' have a name, used two motors. The control was a simple joystick. The controller had a micro that took care of the rest. This couch had a lot of power and the capability of going very fast. I beleive its speed was limited by the battery voltage. This couch also have very good control. Let me point out the stereo speakers mounted on each side and the nice foot rest. The foot rest was more of a safety feature. Eventhough these look like nice friendly couches, they are extremely heavy and have alot of power. I was told that the weigh approached 800 lbs. This could easily drag you down and run you over.

What is the fastest you have ever seen a shopping cart move? Was it that crazy woman at Walmart trying to beat you to the lane getting ready to open, or the same crazy woman trying to push her cart with 4 kids between the ages of 6 months and 2 years old to the Blue Light Special on diapers back in isle 10. Although amusing, she can't compete with these! These are motorized carts from hell. Capable of reaching speeds in excess of 45 mph in a blink while maintaing some control. The cart on the left was built by the Jolly Rogers crew. It uses two starters driving the rear axle through a series of chains. It doesn't have speed control but does have independent brakes for the rear wheels. The left foot has a break peddal for the right rear tire and the left hand operates the break lever for the left rear. This allows the driver to lock the left tire and skid around the corner, since we race counter-clockwise. The cart on the right is a bit more refined. It uses two motors wired in series with the shafts linked together with chain. The motors have a rating of 32 volts total, but the are powered by FIVE batteries totaling 60 volts. The juice is filtered through a digital speed control, making for a controllable ride. To stop all this power and weight the cart uses 3 disc brakes. One for each front wheel and one for the live rear axle. Slap all this together and add some flames for effect and you've got instant fun! Let me leave you with this last picture of Bob riding off into the sunset with tires blazing......

Don't let a woman get a hold of one of these!