The eCOPO Chevrolet Camaro

One of the most eagerly anticipated vehicle debuts at the 2018 SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) show was the unveiling of the  “eCOPO” Camaro, an electric-powered Central Office Production Order concept car built by a partnership of Chevrolet and  the pioneering electric drag racing team Hancock & Lane Racing.

The car’s usual gasoline engine was replaced by electric motor based on a pair of BorgWarner HVH 250-150 motor assemblies, each generating 300 foot-pounds of torque. The motor is connected to the conventional racing-prepared TH400 three-speed automatic transmission that transmits the motor’s torque to the same solid rear axle used in the production COPO Camaro race cars.

The 700-horsepower motor is powered by an 800-volt 32-kilowatt per hour battery pack comprised of four 200-volt modules, each module weighs approximately 175 pounds.  Two packs are mounted in the rear seat area and the other two are mounted in the trunk - one in the spare tire well and the other in the area over the rear axle.

In testing, the eCOPO Camaro’s best quarter-mile run was an elapsed time 9.837 seconds from a standing start with a trap speed of 134.07 miles per hour.

All photos by the author

An update on Larry Dixon Jr.'s 

two-seat dragster 

On April 11 drag racer Larry Dixon Junior filed an antitrust lawsuit against the Glendora, California, based national Hot Rod Association (NHRA) with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana in Indianapolis. Dixon’s suit accused the sanctioning body of wrongfully suspending him and blacklisting him two years ago, which has deprived him of his livelihood. The plaintiffs in the suit are Championship Adventures, LLC, Larry Dixon, and Larry Dixon Racing, LLC.

According to the suit, Dixon, with 62 career NHRA victories and his investment partner Nick Salamone, a Philadelphia-area businessman, spent two years and “hundreds of thousands of dollars” to develop a unique two-seater car that caters to the popular fan-experience trend.  

Larry Dixon in happier times 

at the 2017 SEMA show

The two-seat dragster unveiled 

at the 2017 SEMA show

Dixon said the NHRA supported the idea he pitched it to NHRA officials in 2016, but the trouble began when the vehicle went on display at the Traxxas booth at the 2017 SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) trade show in Las Vegas Nevada. Dixon distributed a press release unveiling Larry Dixon Top Fuel Experience, billing it as the “fastest ride in drag racing.”

Larry Dixon Jr.'s two-seat dragster 

as shown at the 2018 PRI show 

Dixon’s complaint claims that on the opening day of the trade show, an NHRA official “strategically visited Championship Adventures’ booth at a time when Mr. Dixon was not there and conducted an unauthorized ‘inspection’ of the prototype of the two-seater car.” 

The NHRA official spotted an expired NHRA safety inspection sticker in the car, which Dixon said was there “simply because the chassis for the prototype for the two-seater dragster was originally a car that had competed in the NHRA.” Dixon argues was that “no one had removed the sticker, as there was no need to remove an expired sticker when the car was not built as a competition car.”

Days after the SEMA show the NHRA issued a “statement of action against participant” notice which claimed Dixon had violated NHRA rules and suspended him indefinitely as a driver, team owner or crew member. Dixon’s suit alleges that the NHRA’s action was “an obvious effort to use NHRA’s unfettered control over professional drag racing to control the market in which two-seater exhibition cars compete for business.”

The complaint said Dixon “has now been entirely deprived of his livelihood and sole source of income by this unjustifiable suspension — which is, in effect, a lifetime ban from NHRA — unless he relinquishes an investment of hundreds of thousands of dollars, as well as the future profits that he could derive from that investment.”

All photos by the author