Team TU Delft (Netherlands) has a Formula Zero gokart racing in Challenge Bibendum in Rio de Janeiro.  The F0 cart is a hydrogen fuel cell model and it’s won some awards and set records in the sustainable racing event called the Michelin Challenge Bibendum.  The car, raced by Greenchoice Forze and built by the TU Delft university, raced during the event which ran from May 31 to June 3 followed by a parade of vehicles through Rio’s city center.

Another hydrogen F-Zero racer raced by the Solvay Umicore Zero Emission Racing Team in Belgium, is set to compete in the Formula Zero Championship.  The little car was racing warmups at the Belgian Circuit Zolder with students from Leuven fine-tuning the car, when it set a new record.

Setting aside the fact that these are go carts (glorified children’s toys), let’s look at the cars themselves.  Imagine sitting in one of these little machines and racing around an 1/8th mile track in only 10.4 seconds.  That’s the unofficial record that the little hydrogen racer from Belgium made.  No Formula International Association officials were on the track during the practice run, so the speed could not be logged officially, but they beat the current record of 11.6 seconds more than handily.

Think about that speed, folks.  That little go cart went 660 feet in just over ten seconds.  That’s about 63.5 feet per second which translates to about 43 miles per hour.

Forty-three miles per hour in a go cart.

Wear a helmet, pal.  I doubt your lawnmower-powered go cart from childhood got much more than 5 or 6mph at top speed.  It definitely made a lot more noise than these HFC go carts do.

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