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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118593442187584293.html?mod=todays_us_page_onePAGE ONE
Those Muscle Cars On the Drag Strip Are Really Electric
Clunker Run on Batteries Trounces Latest 'Gassers';
John Wayland's Close Call
By JOHN J. FIALKA
August 1, 2007; Page A1
PORTLAND, Ore. -- On a recent Friday night at the Portland International Raceway, John Wayland scanned the dragsters, looking for an opponent for his geeky looking 1972 Datsun sedan. Finally, he challenged the owner of a souped-up 2005 Corvette, the hottest-looking car at the track, to a quarter-mile race.
<embedded video> See how an electric car dubbed the White Zombie is leaving conventional muscle cars in the dust.
When the starting light flashed, the Datsun, known as White Zombie, shot silently past the Corvette and kept widening the lead as the two cars faded into the distance. "Oh man, right off the
line he had me," said the Corvette's owner, Robert Akers, shaking his head.
Electric cars are typically known for their fuel efficiency and environmental bona fides, not for their speed and muscle. But Mr. Wayland, 47 years old, is changing that, and has become something of a hero to a small group of hot rodders dedicated to humiliating gasoline-powered cars. The night White Zombie beat the Corvette, it also trounced two other "gassers," as Mr. Wayland calls them -- a blue BMW and a bright orange 1964 Pontiac Tempest.
The electric-car racers, who go by nicknames like "Father Time" and "Electric Louis," hope to jump-start public interest in electric vehicles. "Getting electric cars going in the U.S. has been like shoveling sand into a tsunami," says Roderick Wilde, who sometimes races here in his electric-powered Mazda.
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