Nerd’s Eye View: Honda R&D’s Acura ILX Endurance Racers

A tiny little lightweight battery from Braille is relocated inside the car where the passenger seat would usually be.

Here is a great example of simple engineering that shaves seconds and removes error from a process. What is the duct tape on the fuel door for? It makes it super easy and quick to open the fuel door. Why is there Velcro on top of the gas cap?

There is no losing the gas cap during a fuel stop!

Here is the team at work during one of the all-important pit stops. Seconds matter!

As you can see, the cars got a little banged up. Rubbin’ is racing! As you can also see, there is nothing exotic about these cars. They are downright simple in fact. The simplicity plays into their reliability, a crucial characteristic to surviving the 25 Hours of Thunderhill. No exotic or super high-end components were used as the cars were built on a budget you and I can relate to, just parts giving a lot of bang for the buck. The guys at THRW threw in their own homebrewed and low-cost solutions to improve the car and shave important seconds off of every pit stop. Combine thought-out cars with thought-out pit stops and you end up taking the big trophy home.