The ETO annual membership meeting was held at the Cracker Barrel on July 17, 2017.
Charles Harrison gave a breakdown of last year’s season which saw considerable growth for ETO. We met a large number of our business plan goals and objectives. There was a lot of discussion about the upcoming season which will see even more growth and be very busy.
The new season that starts with our opening event at Hillsborough Community College/Brandon Campus in September will see even more growth. Representatives from teams as far away as Fort Myers (I Will Mentoring Foundation) and Orlando (Electrocutioners) were present and teams in South Florida (Pro EV) sent in material that was read at the meeting. We were honored to have the new Electrathon America Vice President, Don Morgan from Quitman Georgia, attend our meeting.
Don went over the changes in store for Electrathon America. Electrathon America has a whole new slate of officers headed by President Kirk Swaney who has a lot of new ideas to move everyone forward.
New rules at the national level are in the works for car and driver safety. They are substantial but will not be difficult or expensive to comply with. The main one concerns the roll bar set up and how it is measured. More info will be forwarded when the rules are adopted in their final form.
Locally we should see the return of Lennard and Wharton High School. Plant High School has a car ready to go for the season opener. Brandon High School is working on a 3rd car but lost their sponsor and needs a new one to step up and help them out. Middleton High School has new drivers and a new 3rd car in the works.
ETO has several loaner cars and we are working on getting new schools involved in Electrathon Racing.
Our local schedule and other out of town events will afford many opportunities for our teams to compete on a higher level and push that one hour envelope.
Sai and his guys from University of South Florida are working on their Lithium Powered car and have come up with some innovative ideas for battery management that will increase the reliability and safety of the batteries. Sai has also come up with a very neat way to implement 2 way communications among the teams, officials and sponsors using our cell phones and an ear bud set up. More info as the system is implemented.
Vic