After a polite email exchange with Seal Beach environmental/electric car/anti-Bush activist Doug Korthof — he was catching This Ticking Time Bum up on what he's been up to lately (lots more than us, that's fer sure) — it occured to us that if the automakers are telling the truth, our heads will all explode right now: DUCK!
We kid.
No, what we wuz thinking wuz if automakers are being truthful that Californians just never embraced the barely advertised, sales un-pitched, tucked-on-the-corner-of-lots electric vehicles (EVs), perhaps one reason is they've never gotten any play in this NASCAR nation. We can't recall ever witnessing a solor-powered automobile race, unless it was one of these university egghead deals at the Flats with their gizometers and parallellagrams and the itching and the abrasions and PRETTY LAAAADDDYYY!!!
ANYWAY! Yes. No NASCAR's bad, mmmkay! Fortunately, as Environment News Service reports, there is the nautical version of such a race. The Metropolitan Water District Solar Cup, which is the largest solar boat competition in the nation, has a record 37 teams, mostly from Southern California high schools, competing the weekend after next, May 19-21, at Lake Skinner near Temecula. Students build 'em, equip 'em and race 'em, and people can come watch 'em for free. The event's proven to be such a hit that Australia is staging its own based on Metropolitan's in November–meaning, of course, that Australia will eventually kick American ass in such competitions as they do with surfing.
We're still trying to confirm the rumor that the racer who lands in the winner circle gets a big kiss from the Coppertone girl.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.