Have racing cars with huge electric motots >4000hp, powered the same way bumper cars are, but each car has a supercapacitor/battery onboard, that would allow the cars to run without being connected for about 30 seconds.
On the straight fast sections the road turns to tarmac and the electric pickups retract. On the corners and such, the road goes back to metal and the electric pickups connect to the floor and roof to recharge the car for the next fast section.-- EkranoMan, Oct 05 2014 4000 Hp electric motor https://www.bid-on-...or.htm#.VDbBudF0yHsSeems to be more of a stationary unit... [RayfordSteele, Oct 09 2014] [+]
Alternatively, wasn't there some toy car system where the cars went through motorized rollers that fired them out at high enough speed to do a lap of the course?-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 05 2014 Presumably you have to put a kruggerand into the dashboard slot to start it going? And you get a christmas-tree sized stick of candy-floss to eat as you drive.-- pocmloc, Oct 05 2014 I'm not sure what a motot is but 4000 hp is probably a bit excessive. 3000 kW, at 480V 6250 amps are likely to need some heavy-gage wiring.-- RayfordSteele, Oct 09 2014 4000HP is more than most trains.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 09 2014 //480V 6250 amps are likely to need some heavy-gage wiring//
That's easily solved. Up the voltage. Nothing like the threat of a few hundred thousand Volts arcing through you to make the taller people crouch down a bit.-- bs0u0155, Oct 09 2014 Scalextrics is fun.-- skinflaps, Oct 09 2014 //4000HP is more than most trains//
I always thought that I had a fairly good handle on how powerful things were. Yet I was way off here. I always assumed locomotives were in the >10,000 hp ballpark. How do you get so little power out of something so big, burly and noisy?-- bs0u0155, Oct 09 2014 //How do you get so little power out of something so big, burly and noisy?//
Send him into US politics?-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 09 2014 //How do you get so little power out of something so big, burly and noisy?//
If you have 10 400hp diesel pickup trucks running at max HP (which they probably can't sustain very long), I'm guessing it will be much louder and take up more space than a locomotive. Also I'm guessing the locomotive engine design is a bit more heavy duty so it can output 4000hp continuously and last much longer.-- scad mientist, Oct 10 2014 //How do you get so little power out of something so big, burly and noisy?//
Ask the creators of the 1979 Cadillac Eldorado, who managed to get only 140 horsepower out of a 500 cubic inch (!!) V8, the largest engine ever put in a production car. Paired with a 3 speed automatic, that was a winner.-- DIYMatt, Oct 11 2014 random, halfbakery