Electric-car driver sets sights on 136 mph

On the Bonneville Salt Flats, around the middle of this month, a 20-year-old man from Washington Terrace, Weber County, will climb into his dragster, switch on the motor, and whisper off in his quest to set a new world land speed record, 136 miles per hour.

The record would be for the fastest electric car, which is why the gleaming white salt will not reflect the staccato roar of a big gasoline engine.

"I'll be going for the electric vehicle under 1,100-pound category," Brent Singleton noted in a telephone interview Sunday.

Readers of Utah Scientific may remember Singleton from a March 2002 feature. At that time, the student at T.H. Bell Junior High, Washington Terrace, was anxious to race a 1992 electric car that had once belonged to Weber State University, and he also was working to save the Salt Flats.

Since then, he has continued his crusade to protect the renowned stretch of salt, winning Environmental Protection Agency Awards. He was congratulated by President Bush for his efforts, and is active in alternative fuel projects. He has become the Utah Salt Flats Racing Association's alternative fuel event coordinator.

And he and his dad, Kent Singleton, have built an electric dragster. They put together the original vehicle when Brent was 12, and it was petroleum-powered. In 2004, "we converted it to be an electric experimental Salt Flat racer," Kent Singleton said.

The flats are a fine place race alternative-fuel vehicles because they're safer than racing at a track with a wall, according to the younger Singleton.

But why the interest in racing alternative-fuel vehicles?

"You're proving that they can be fast," Singleton said. People are concerned about non-gasoline powered cars because they think they won't go fast. By racing them on the flats, the proof of their speed is in the record books. Granted, 135 mph isn't swift compared with the rockets that roar along the flats, but it's faster than people should go on the freeway.

"Racing throughout history has accelerated how fast we go from prototype to everyday drive," he added. "You're pushing this stuff to its limits. So when you find its limits, you break stuff, and you make it better."

People are comfortable with the speed and power of the gasoline engine "because we had a hundred years of making it better, and a lot of that came from racing."

Fossil fuel may be running out. It is responsible for most of the world's air pollution, and gasoline prices keep rising. Singleton thinks the future is with electric cars. "But where you're getting the power from is a problem," he said.