The Green Grand Prix

• Tell us about this history of the Green Grand Prix. It’s been around for 17 years, but many of us are hearing about this for the first time. Where did the idea come from and how did the program get off the ground?
  • Who is Doris Bovee, why is her story important to the Green Grand Prix?
• How has it evolved over the years?
• What is the event like? Is it a competition? Is it a race? 
• How do students enter the event? What are some of the rules/regulations?
  • Are there different roles? Manager, Driver, Crew Chief, Mechanic – does everyone have a specific task, or all share in the work?
  • Is this designed as an introduction to Formula SAE? 
  • What are some of the limits/restrictions that have been put on the vehicles? Are there different classes? Are all cars electric? Or Alt fuels (synthetic gas or hydrogen)
• The Green Grand Prix is held at Watkins Glen International each year; what happens on the “day of” the grand prix? (explain the types of activities on the schedule). 

and much, much more!

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Gran Touring Motor Sports Podcast Break Fix, where we’re always fixing the break into something motor sports.

Their mission for the last 17 years has been to increase awareness of energy efficient and environmentally friendly vehicles. The Green Grand Prix goal is to work towards making the Northeast A Center for Advanced Vehicle Technologies. This STEM program has brought in over 150 high school and university students from all over, and the focus is on technology.

Innovation and new collaboration in the field of alternative fueled vehicles. With us tonight are Robert Gillespie and Jason Kellogg from The Green Grand Prix to share the evolution and future of this program and how you can get involved. So welcome to Break Fix, gentlemen. Thank you. Thank you. Good to be here.

So like every good break fix story, there’s always an origin. So tell us about the history of the Green Grand Prix. As we said in the intro, it’s been around for [00:01:00] 17 years, but many of us are hearing about this for the first time. So where did the idea come from and how did the program get off the ground?

that’s a great question. There’s another little factoid. It’s very much unknown, and that is that the World Land Speed record was battled for back in 1899 by two electric cars. It ended up with the winner being Camille Jank, and he had a car that was shaped like a torpedo, totally electric, two electric motors went 65 miles an hour, just astound.

So the Green Grand Prix started before other forms of Grand Prix racing, I suppose. As far as I’m concerned, the idea came from a national S E C A Sportscar Club of America champion. His name is Oscar Koleski. Very well known. I do artwork of the Watkins Glen races. I had shown my artwork regularly at the track.

Everybody meets Oscar. He was very congenial. He would [00:02:00] come up and he knew that I was a retired teacher. and he says, Gillespie, you’re a teacher. What are you doing for the kids? Well, I was just selling my artwork, trying to make a few bucks, and he kept saying this every year. Then there was an event in Saratoga called the Tour de Soul that was a mini version of a road rally done around a park that had electric vehicles and alternate fuel vehicles.

It went belly up back in, uh, 2004. Well, I was a volunteer on the last Tour De Soul. When that was canceled the following year, I thought, well, you know, maybe I could do something like that at Watkins Glen. Maybe I could bring together some organizations. I knew a lot of people, people in the Sports Car Club America, people at the International Motor Racing Research Center.

Later, the Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association, which was a charity, knocked heads together and we decided that we could put together an. , which actually it started out being a [00:03:00] static car display on the Watkins Glen Courthouse lawn. We had five vehicles on display and we were talking about doing laps around the old Watkins Glen circuit.

Well, that never happened, but we began by having a road rally around the perimeter of Senneca Lake, which was about 80. and we ran that for a few years and then I think it was 2014, we were invited by the racetrack to come up and hold it there. So everybody was delighted and thanked them very much. They charged us nothing to use the track, by the way.

They still do and we’re very appreciative of them. Toyota is our major sponsor. They’ve been absolutely wonderful. So we moved up to Watkins Land International about 2014. It has kept evolving since then. So, Bob, one of the other things you mentioned in all this is your artwork. So a little known fact. You are actually responsible for a lot of the murals in downtown Watkins Glen.

Yes. All [00:04:00] except one. There’s a NASCAR mural that was just done last year or the year before. I didn’t do that one. That’s kind of like a beer commercial or something, but that’s not mine. I did the one that’s got the Cunningham and the Ferrari, and then I did the one. Bill Millikin’s Bugatti, which is on the building just south of it.

So Jason, how about you tell us how you got involved in this origin story of the Green Grand Prix? How do you play into this? I actually work for Alfred State College. I’m an automotive instructor. I didn’t come along till about 2016. and about that same time, we also started an autocross event on the track.

So the morning is, uh, rally the afternoon is an autocross event, so we’re doing what we can to get students involved, experience alternate fuel, electric hybrid vehicles, learn the technology they’re gonna be working on in the near future. And there’s another component to the history of the Green Grand Prix, and that’s in the story behind Doris Bovet.

So why is she so important to this event? Bovey was a Glenn region, s C a member. She was a faithful [00:05:00] rarest and she was a teacher. She worked in a public school. She was a lifetime educator, and she was also an environmentalist. I found out about that foundation, found out about Doris Bovey. Through a great friend of mine, his name is Dave Davies and, and he’s in the Glen region, so they have been sponsoring us forever.

We continue the things that she cared about because the event has evolved to serve auto tech students. It’s environmentally minded, and we have a rally. All the things that represent Doris. Do you both personally own or drive an alternative fuel vehicle? I got a 2018 Prius and I’ve had three pre I and I’ve put 240,000 miles on my first two Prius’s.

I got about 85,000 miles on this one now, but I plan to drive it for the next few. I do not own one yet, but like I said, I do teach it. I’m also a, uh, GM tech for the last 20 years, I have been trained at a dealership. I’ve worked on ’em in a dealership. I’ve [00:06:00] serviced quite a few of ’em. I teach ’em and work with this event, so I, I appreciate the technology.

So what’s the overall expectation for the students? Have they been working up to this throughout the years? There’s some sort of curriculum that backs this up. Obviously this is grounded as a STEM program. So are there hands on exercises? Are there things they’re working? The takeaway here for people that maybe wanna try this for the first time, my class is senior automotive students getting ready to graduate in May, and with newer technologies, I mean, they’re gonna be working on these cars in the field as soon as they graduate.

I actually have a four week course that I teach where students learn the safety aspects of the vehicle, all the high voltage issues, proper safety gear, all the way to removing the high voltage batteries, putting ’em back. That’s taking the drive lines apart. So in class in the fall semester, they’ve learned how to work on the cars, and this event gives ’em an opportunity to drive on the road, say two-thirds of my students, three quarters of ’em have never driven in a hybrid.

Probably 90% have not driven an electric car. So this gives ’em a chance to experience. [00:07:00] A little bit more than normal what they’re gonna be working on. I’ve had faculty from other schools that have competed saying that they use this really as kind of a hotdog to hang in front of the wagon. In their course, they tell ’em, you know, in the spring you’re gonna be able to go to the Green Grand Prix, and so you need to learn this and learn that.

And our students attend the event compete. And our students assist running the event. Our students act as tech inspectors, transponder workers, autocross workers, et cetera. So we compete in it and we help run it. And uh, they all look forward to driving. I mean, everybody wants to drive on the walkin insulin track and somebody who gets to drive four an hour and a half.

For two hours. How can I get any better than that? Within the next month, my students will be going through all the cars we have. The building that I’m working in, we have three classes, 15 students a class. Each class is gonna have two cars a run, and they’re gonna go through car prep before we get there.

So it’ll be checking the vehicle condition, making sure it’s safe, performing alignments, [00:08:00] maximizing angles, stuff. And because they’re learning that he can’t just show up at the track and compete. We have to make sure we’re gonna pass tech inspection for the morning event tech inspection for autocross.

We gotta make sure we’re legit, nothing’s gonna fail. As we talk about the evolution of the program over the 17 years, you keep mentioning the rally. Jason briefly talked about the autocross, but it’s held at Watkins Glen. So how does this all work? Is there a rally at the track? Are they doing laps of the track?

Obviously there’s autocross lots at the track, so. This event play out over the course of the weekend. Uh, it was just a road rally and we figured out a way to do it on the racetrack itself. It’s interesting because it’s a road rally time speed distance event that is run on A world famous Grand Prix circuit usually takes place on opening weekend of Watkins Glen on a Friday before opening weekend.

The morning event, basically 10 to noon is a on track event. It’s time, distance, it’s about 80 miles, give or take. We’re on a track for two hours and there’s different classes for different vehicles. Four [00:09:00] cylinder hybrid, six cylinder, you know, different alternate fuels, different versions of Toyota Prius’s.

Students are timed on their laps, so the drivers of the most number of perfect laps will win certain categories and best fuel mileage wins other categor. , so it’s not truly bumper to bumper racing. It’s time, distance, and it’s got that fuel economy aspect. Yeah, so we judge these vehicles on two sets of rules.

One is how consistent their lap times were. We hang transponders on the cars and so we know they’re times down to a thousandth of a second. And then also we can monitor their fuel economy. Most of the cars that are in the. Have onboard computers that tell the miles per gallon. But if a car does not have an onboard computer, then we require them to top off their tank before and after the event.

We can measure how many miles they traveled, and then from that we get to their fuel economy. So are you using Watkins Glen full course, the NASCAR variant? How is [00:10:00] the rally laid out if you’re using the track itself for. We used the NASCAR short track last year. We used the long course. Of course that’s got all the elevation changes and it introduced a new challenge.

This year we’re going to use the bus stop also, so we’ll be using the the whole thing. So is the idea then, To maximize the fuel efficiency by, let’s say hyper modeling or something like that. I’m trying to figure out what the perfect lap is. You guys mentioned that a couple of times, so how do you qualify that?

For example, the average speed is limited to about 45 miles in an hour, and the last few years we’ve been announcing at the event what the speed’s actually gonna be to throw another challenge. Well, the elevation changes, you’re allowed about a 10 mile an hour range difference. You can go uphill, a little bit slower, downhill, a little bit faster to gain speed, to work your fuel mileage to your advantage.

But we have to keep the lap times perfect. The morning event, we have a driver and a co-driver in the car. The code [00:11:00] driver can use a stopwatch, fix points around the track to help calculate their time, try to ensure the perfect. All of this has to be done on a single tank of fuel. Like there’s no pit stops here.

Right. But they’re still running for two hours straight. Well, they do have one pit stop, but that doesn’t involve refueling. It’s basically a potty break. . . But that pit stop has to measure four minutes exactly from the time they enter the pits until they’re at the pit. , even the pit stop is a challenge.

It’s gotta be done just right. Let’s dig a little deeper now. So you talked about the cars themselves. Now, are these cars that are provided by, let’s say Toyota, or are these cars that the students have built sort of like a formula, S e a e type of program? So most of these cars are stock cars supplied by whoever’s gonna drive ’em.

You know, if they can borrow ’em from a parents, if the school has ’em, whatever. For example, I’m representing Alfred State. We bring six cars that are street legal. We bring three Chevy Volts, [00:12:00] 2012 to 2013 Toyota Prius, about 2010, a Ford Fusion, about 2009, and a Honda Insight. This year we’re trying to borrow a 2022 Rivian from a local person to run.

So, you know, Carbon, get your hands on. In the past we’ve had modified vehicles, different arrow packages, other items, but usually lately they’ve been mostly stock EVs, hybrids, alternate fuels. What do you consider alternate fuel? Is it a hydrogen car? Is diesel considered an an alternate? Sure. What’s in that list?

when we used to run the cars around the lake, I think in the final year we had it, there were eight different fuels that our entries had. I think that was the record, possibly nine. So we hit a Stanley Steamer. He didn’t go the whole distance around the lake. He went maybe 20 miles and we had a solar car.

Same story there. They didn’t make it very far, but we said, sure, come on in. It’ll be a photo op, you know, and then you can explain your project card to all the students, because really one of our goals [00:13:00] was, and. To expose the students to as, as many different technologies as possible and get ’em really interested in all kinds of things that might be considered offbeat right now, but who knows what the future holds.

We did have a hydrogen powered Toyota Prius from the Vermont Department of Conservation that worked on bottled hydrogen. We impaired fuel cell cars. We’ve had, of course, regular hybrids, EVs, vegetable oil powered diesels. We had a wood chip. , but we had to blackball him early on because he was stealing the show.

Nobody else wanted to know anything else. He was a magnet. He provided the eye candy. This wood powered car was very interesting and very entertaining, but totally impractical. Then there has to be some sort of limitation to this, let’s call it competition. It’s not a race. It’s sort of a rally. Let’s call it a competition.

Let’s say I’ve got a diesel, even if it’s lowly, VW Diesel, something like that, from 20 years ago, if I set [00:14:00] the cruise control, the diesel’s super efficient. It’s like barely running at 45 miles an hour. And even on the hills of, uh, Watkins Glen with an automatic, the diesel’s just gonna build boost with the turbo, and it’s still pretty efficient.

So how do you do? What we would call in the racing world some sort of balance of performance. Are there things that the drivers aren’t allowed to do? What are some of the exceptions to the rules here? One thing is like for diesels, we have different classes. So if we did have a diesel for Saunder, that’d be in its own class.

It’s not directly competing with a gas or an electric. Okay. For fuel mileage. And there are rules, the events he’s designed lately for uh, students educate ’em about the vehicles and most of the students, this is a first time on a. So there’s no drafting Stay in the right hand lane if we’re passing, passing the left hand side.

Don’t just take all the apexes, you know, respect traffic. So how are passes handled? Are they point bys? I know you talked about get in the right lane, passing the left, but are you using like typical almost H P D E style passing rules or how does that work? [00:15:00] Basically, since we started running the boot last year, we have a standing rule.

The boots SNA with all the hills. No passing in the boot. Turn one we want single file also, but pretty much everything is fair for passing to include the uphill Ss from two to four. Uh, they usually don’t there , I wouldn’t a race car, but you know, hey and you’ve gotta watch your mirrors. Uh, also because none of these cars have old bars, they’re just street legal.

And this is a full S C C A time speed distance rally, and it’s insured and sanctioned by the S E C A. Those are concerns we have to deal with. There is a tech inspection. The car is basically have to have safe tires, proper air pressures, whites, windshield wipers. For a stop class, there’s a maximum limit on tire pressure, obviously higher pressure, less rolling resistance, and you can’t run four spare tires.

It gotta be street legal , you know? So we do have some rules, but we do have people. In a modified class run different arrow packages, you know, they’ll add parts of the car, tails, whatever, trying to, uh, [00:16:00] increase aerodynamics. And some have done that wood success. And we do lift a little bit, pick up trucks, so you know, high center gravity, no motorcycles, stuff like that.

So there are some rules for safety. SUVs are allowed, not normally, but this year we’re gonna try to run one of the rivian SUVs just came out that has air. And with a low center of gravity of the battery and a floor that can drop right to the ground that has 15 inches of suspension travel. So as long as it is all the way down , we have had SUVs before, mostly hybrids.

For example, the uh, Toyota rav4 Prime got incredible fuel economy last year. , I think I got something like 70 miles to a gallon off an suv. That’s unheard of. Of course, they were driving 45 miles an hour, but still they’re going uphill down and they had to manage everything just right in order to get that.

And it becomes a game because you get instant feedback from these hybrids with the monitors that they have. It helps you drive it from maximum economy. So it, it’s a challenge. Just so you know, when [00:17:00] I’m there, I. College 15 passenger van and I give students that are watching rides around the track during the event, staying out of people’s ways.

So I think I get the worst fuel mileage . How many cars are entered in an event? When we run a track event at the Glen, there’s usually a equation of how many cars per mile. Usually it’s between 40 and 45. Okay. 50 cars is really pushing it. We don’t want a crowded racetrack. That’s not bad. At the Glen being three and a half miles, you’re doing better than, you know, 20 cars per mile.

So that’s pretty good. You’ll still have trains either way, because you don’t have closing rates and things like that. So you do, let’s say 80 miles of walk-ins, Glen. There’s gotta be some sort of break in there, a lunch, maybe some sort of tech talk, and then the autocrosses in the afternoon. Is that how the rest of the day plays out?

Yes. Lunch is in noon. and we have a uh, seminar, which is gonna be Livestreamed this year. Then in the afternoon we’re going to have some mock pit stops by the Alfred Motorsports department on [00:18:00] their e VSRs. It’s a sport racing car that’s all electric. And then also Cornell University is bringing their S SAE formula car, which is all electric also.

And they’re gonna do two different talks on their car, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. But the autocross, I think, about 1 45 and runs until maybe four o’clock, four 15, something like that. And that’s done with the same cars that were used for the on track exercises or are there a different dedicated set of cars for the autocross?

Same cars, but we do have different rules. So the morning event, Is alternate fuel. You can have fuel efficient gasoline vehicles, diesel, electric or hybrid. The afternoon event, we narrow the field down. It’s strictly only for electric cars or hybrid cars. And then you just score that on best run or whatever.

Is that how it works? Uh, just regular S C C A. We got a time and the students have the opportunity. They can run 15 runs throughout the day. They really have a lot of fun. Are they jumping between cars? Trying different. What I do with my students, um, I’m gonna [00:19:00] be bringing about 45 students from Alfred State.

I have six dedicated drivers. I let them try five or six times to do the best they can. Then they’ll start giving other students rides in the front seat as a passenger. Then they’ll let the passenger try it. So a lot of the students get an opportunity to try it, and sometimes they’ll swap cars. just to get the experience.

I wanna know the inside baseball here. I wanna know the super secrets. What are some of the things that people can do to maximize their competitive advantage when they’re out there on the tracks? Are there some things you can share, some tips, or maybe even the pre-brief that you guys give to folks that might be helpful?

As far as driving tips? Go. For hybrids, it’s really the same for any. I remember when I was a kid, I read a book by Sterling Moss and he said, A lot of people can drive fast, but very few drive fast, smoothly. It’s all about smooth driving and being easy on the car using all the road when possible. Just evening everything out, back off a little bit on the hills, but you can make up for it on the downhill sections.

It’s like hyper [00:20:00] stuff, but not extreme because you don’t want to drive in a dangerous way, but you just wanna be consistent. And even on the throttle, it’s just. Anyway. Actually, the event is kind of unique because the morning event is designed for maximum fuel mileage and efficient driving. But if you know what autocross is, fastest car wins.

So that’s the opposite. Use for a hybrid. Fuel mileage, doesn’t matter. Tire wear, doesn’t matter. Drive it , you know, and we actually have our students practice a little bit ahead of time. We do a mock event, and then there’s an awards dinner in the evening. So it’s kind of an all day affair, right? Oh yeah. We try to do it all in one day.

As we kind of, let’s say, wrap up the thought on this, how can people get involved? How can they help? What kind of help do you need? Do you need volunteers? Even looking to next year’s program, you know, there’s a lot of logistics, even after 17 years of repetitive success, there’s a lot that goes into this.

So how can people get involved and what can they do? I would say that if listeners know someone that’s an educator, either in a high school or at a college, Tell them [00:21:00] about it, direct ’em to the website, have ’em watch the live stream. It’s something that we want as many schools as possible to compete. It would be great if we had no room for private owners and it was all just entries from schools.

Right now as it is, I think we’ve got maybe two thirds of our entries come from schools and one third private owners of unusual. Vehicles. So gentlemen, as we wrap out here, any final shout outs, promotions, or anything else you’d like to share that we didn’t cover thus far? There’s one big thing I’d like to mention, and that is that this is an event that could be replicated throughout the country, but what would be needed is a sports Car Club of America chapter that’s near a racetrack that has a good relationship with.

A university or college nearby that has an auto tech program that’s interested. And then you have to have a charity because this is an S C C A charity event. It’s a charity road rally, and S E C A [00:22:00] allows every region to have one charity road rally per year. This is it for us, and, and it’s the same throughout the.

The Doris Bovey Memorial Foundation sponsors our event along with the Upstate Toyota Dealers Association is our primary sponsor and has been for years and years, and we are very grateful for their constant support. We’re also very thankful for Walkins Glen giving us the use of the truck. Just watch for the future because I think it’s going to continue to grow.

I hope it will be replicated and it’s an awful lot of. The Green Grand Prix is an annual event that showcases and promotes environmentally friendly and fuel efficient vehicles. The event typically includes demonstrations and competitions that test the fuel efficiency and emissions of vehicles, as well as seminars and exhibits on green transportation and related technologies.

The Green Grand Prix aims to raise awareness about the importance of sustainable transportation and to encourage the [00:23:00] development and adoption of clean efficient vehicles. To learn more, be sure to log onto www.greengrandprix.com or follow them on social at Green Grand Prix Corporation. On Facebook, Jason and Bob, I can’t thank you enough for coming on Break Fix and sharing the history of the Green Grand Prix.

Getting people excited about this. I am looking forward to being at this event in person and being able to relay back some of the stories and the antics and things that are going on with this. So very excited to be a part of this this year and looking forward to seeing what happens next. Well, thank you very much.

It’s great to, uh, have you promoting our. And this is something that people need to know more about and needs to be discovered. All right, gentlemen, thank you so much. Thank you, Eric. Thanks.

If you like what you’ve heard and want to learn more about gtm, be sure to check us out on www.gt motorsports.org. You can also find us on Instagram at Grand Tour Motorsports. [00:24:00] Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future. You can call or text us at (202) 630-1770 or send us an email at crew chief gt motorsports.org.

We’d love to hear from you. Hey everybody, crew Chief Eric here. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix, and we wanted to remind you that GTM remains a no annual fees organization, and our goal is to continue to bring you quality episodes like this one at no charge. As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon for bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies and GTM swag.

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