Hybrid race car to debut this weekend

TOOELE — Salt Lake City-based Corsa Motorsports will debut the first hybrid car to race full-time in the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) Sunday at Miller Motorsports Park.

Owner Steve Pruitt's quest over the past year to produce the Ginetta-Zytek GZ09-SH has run like a race — unpredictable and exciting.

Maybe a little too exciting at times.

Early this week, Pruitt huddled with his crew over a dissembled race car in his motorsports garage. At three in the morning, the crew had discovered oil in the water and water in the oil. "Not good," Pruitt deadpans.

The crew replaced the engine, tackling yet another issue in a litany of things that could go wrong, in much the same way they've handled everything else — with cool-headedness.

In April, wires couldn't communicate with new software. No problem. For the next three weeks, engineers rewired the car by hand. This past week, en route from the UK to Utah, the car was held by customs officials due to possible bug infestation of shipping pallets. That, too, was resolved.

It's just another day in the life of Steve Pruitt, 60, race car owner and commercial real estate developer.

When asked if she could think of a time when Pruitt had to deal with adversity, his wife, Tere, laughs. "Every minute," she says.

"Times are tough," she says, "and sometimes he has tenants who have trouble making payments. Steve always says, 'There's got to be a solution.' When there is a problem (with the hybrid car), Steve tries to figure it out and turns negative energy around."

Capable of speeds faster than 200 miles per hour, the Ginetta-Zytek isn't exactly your commuter hybrid, though it runs on a similar concept.

A device called kinetic recovery system converts the car's kinetic energy (from braking) into electric energy, which is then stored in a 140-volt lithium-ion battery, equivalent to 12 car batteries in the size of one. When the driver pushes a button on the steering wheel, he releases the stored energy into an inverter that changes the current from DC to AC, powering the electric motor. The battery connects directly to a V8 engine that runs on ethanol fuel.

The prototype car, with its appreciable fuel savings, energy efficiency and lower carbon footprint, garners praise from industry professionals like ALMS president Scott Atherton and Motorsports Park media manager John Gardner.