Don't you love it when an underdog team wins? That's what happened at Richmond International Raceway in April 1994. It was the quietest win ever recorded at the beautiful 3/4-mile layout, except for the cheers that greeted the winners.
The only sound heard during the running of the event was the sound of squealing tires. That's because the event was for electric vehicles only. It was the first annual EV GRAND PRIX sponsored by Virginia Power and staged for a number of years at the Richmond track.
But none of the future events ever rewarded the heart like the very first one in 1994, captured by a group of disadvantaged underdogs from a poverty stricken county high school in northeastern North Carolina.
There is much focus today on electric vehicles, but back in the mid-90s the late Paul Sawyer, always a forward thinker, agreed to allow his showplace Richmond track to host the inaugural event. There was both a high school and university division. The winners would compete for national honors in Chandler, Arizona at the nation's largest gathering of electric powered vehicles.
The entry list for the first Richmond event contained schools from Maine to Floirida. Many were technical schools and most all were very well funded and from large metropolitan areas. From the beginning, it seemed apparent that a little team like the one from Conway, NC, near Jackson, couldn't possibly compete against the large technical schools with big budgets and exotic vehicles.
The Northampton East High team had been put together by the county school's automotive shop teacher. They didn't have new vehicles donated to them by big local car dealers like many of their competitors. They got theirs from junkyards and rebuilt them, like many an independent racer in the good ole days.
Teams were awarded points for innovation, endurance and speed. The final event was an on-track race between the electric vehicles.
Northampton East High School had built two Ford Escorts and one Metro for the competition. When all was said and done, David slew Goliath and Northampton East outjudged the big dollar teams for innovation and beat them on the racetrack.
For their efforts, the little team that could from a poverty stricken county was awarded a brand new electric pickup truck from Virginia Power. That would have been a terrific ending if it was the end of the story. It isn't, however.
After the Richmond win, the tiny North Carolina high school team held fund raisers and somehow got the money together to send their Richmond winning entry to Arizona for the National Championship. They competed against the best electric vehicles from across the United States, Canada and Mexico.
When the Arizona dust settled in 1994, the little team that could DID and won the entire NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP event. There wasn;'t a dry eye at the Richmond track when we heard the news. It was a big win for the underdogs, the kind of win any NASCAR fan can appreciate.
The two electric Escorts and the electric Metro fielded by the Northampton East High School team of Jackson, NC who won the inaugural 1994 EV Grand Prix at Richmond International Raceway and went on to win the Electric Vehicle National Championship. Also displayed is the electric powered pickup awarded to the high school by Virginia Power.
I looked around online and found a release we issued from the Raceway to announce the 1995 edition of the EV Grand Prix.
May 8, 1995
ELECTRIC VEHICLE GRAND PRIX RETURNS TO RICHMOND INTERNATIONAL MAY 5-6; NASCAR DRIVERS ELTON SAWYER & PATTY MOISE '95 EDITION GRAND MARSHALS
RICHMOND, VA - Electric vehicles take center stage at Richmond International Raceway May 5-6, as Virginia Power hosts and sponsors the second annual EV GRAND PRIX, featuring competition among twenty high school and eight university affilated teams.
The high school teams, representing Virginia, North Carolina, and the District of Columbia, are headlined by 1994 winner Northampton County High School East of Conway, NC. Northampton went on from the Richmond event to capture top honors at the country's largest electric vehicle competition, staged in Chandler, Arizona - besting teams representing schools across the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
The recent naming of husband/wife NASCAR race drivers Elton Sawyer and Patty Moise as Grand Marshals of the 1995 EV GRAND PRIX already has participating students seeking advice on the quick way around the Richmond track layout from the popular Grand National duo. Sawyer and Moise will make a number of special appearances in both the infield and spectator areas during the 1995 EV GRAND PRIX.
Richmond International Raceway grandstands are open to the public at no charge on Saturday, May 6 for all EV GRAND PRIX related events, including the University EV race and High School EV race.
Noted Paul Sawyer, Richmond track president, "We are pleased to once again provide facilities at Richmond International Raceway for some of the brightest and most innovative young minds in the country to demonstrate on the track the exciting theories they have developed."
Here's an article that appeared within the past year about the dedicated teacher who started the electric vehicle program at Northampton County High School East:
Citizen nominee
Published 10:39am Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Harold Miller lives as he has taught.
A tour of his farm on a battery operated golf cart will tell you that.
From his geothermal heated/cooled home, to his manure fertilized garden, to his most recent project, a battery operated 49 MG TD, Miller believes in sustaining all things green.
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- Harold Miller still has fond memories of the Electric Vehicle program he helped to build in Northampton County, as evident by these two photos he keeps in his Jackson home. Staff Photo by Amanda VanDerBroek
If I can get this going this is what youre going to see us driving around, he said.
Despite his out-of-doors surroundings at his farm, Miller is half mechanic and half teacher by trade. It was those two trades along with Millers passion for the environment that came together and lead to the creation of the electric vehicle program and the NEAT Team at Northampton County High School-East, one that is still successful today.
If you have enough time, Miller will happily explain to you the benefits of electric vehicles and how they outweigh their gas counterparts with those advantages.
Back in 93, 94 no one ever thought electric cars would get off the ground because it was so low power then, he said.
During the earliest part of his career while working with the likes of GM and Ford Motor Company, Miller saw the effects of gas pollutants by way of his fellow employees coming down with carbon monoxide poisoning. He later learned other ways gasoline was poisoning the environment around him through the water, land and air.
Any civilization, if you look around, that has automobiles then youre going to find the water around them are going to have gasoline in them, he said. And there has to be a correlation, theres got to be a reason. The cars are there and the water is polluted, youve got to look at the car.
Where it all began
Born in Mount Airy and raised in Virginia, Miller came to Northampton County Schools in 1969, where he became the automotive shop instructor.
Miller began his work as a mechanic and in other roles for larger automakers and first began teaching at Chesapeake Community College.
I kind of liked it, he said about that first teaching experience.
After the teaching bug bit, Miller set out looking for a job in the profession and landed in Northampton County.
I started the automotive program at Northampton (County High School-East), he said. I guess what makes it interesting is that when I first came here I said, we need to take the engine and throw it away and use a starter, because its the most efficient of the two types.
In one of his very first classes at NCHS-East, Miller had a student named Tom Pope, who now teaches the automotive and electric vehicle classes at the same school.
Im very proud of that, Miller said. Hes a good man.
Even though the classes were held in the agriculture building the first couple of years, the automotive class was still cutting edge.
We were one of the first programs to have computers, because there were already computers in automobiles. he said.
In 1976, Miller really saw a more relatable need for electric cars with the oil embargo that had an effect on gas supply and prices.
Everybody had to get in line (for gas), if you had an odd license plate you went on one day, even was the next, he said.
It would take 17 more years before electric would eventually win big in Northampton County.
In 1993, John Parker, then assistant superintendent, came to Miller about that electric vehicle he had always heard Miller talk about.
Virginia Power, one of two local utility companies, was gearing up for a electric vehicle competition to be held on a NASCAR track in Richmond, Va. Parker told Miller the school could do it but would have to combine resources with schools in neighboring Halifax County.
I said, Well run with the big boys, Miller recalled.
Miller credits Parker for being the visionary and said his own role in it all was to work with the students, build the car and give advice on what to do.
And so, NCHS-East, NCHS-West, Weldon High School and Northwest High School started meeting at East after school to begin work. Miller along with a Teach For America physics teacher, Eric Ryan, set out to make Parkers vision reality.
He (Parker) said if we put them togetherthe academics and vocation subjectsthis is what education is all about, he said.
The crew started working on the car (aptly named The Shocker) for the EV Grand Prix competition slated for spring of 1994. Local race car driver Keith Edwards helped to teach the team how to be competitive with the car.
I think the citizens, myself, the administration all knew that this was an opportunity where we would be on the same playing level as anybody else, he said. And no longer could you say, Well, their test scores arent high enough to compete.
Electric success
The team (North East Automotive Team or NEAT) had little resources, only $6,000 worth of donations to put into their automobile.
But Miller said there was something else there pushing the team on, an unfaltering dedication.
Youd be surprised at the talents our students have when you just let them use it, and start letting them use their creativity, he said.
With that dedication, the students were also a hodgepodge of kids from different backgrounds, racial, cultural and academic.
They werent handpicked to be the cream of the crop and that was our success, he said.
Acceleration, handling and breaking, design, question and answer, video were just a few of the basics the students had to master. Its an array of skills, Miller said, the students have to demonstrate and master in order to be successful.
The thing about the EV program, in the competition, its not just car to car, its team to team and most of the competition has to do with education, he said. They have to do presentations, they have to do community service projects.
Miller said like any of the high schools who went to that 1994 challenge they didnt know what to expect and they were nervous. But skill, (and perhaps some luck) was on their side as NEAT captured first. There were a lot of firsts when it came to NEATs success, including the first girl driver on the NASCAR track in Richmond. Miller said that student ran the range event.
We had girls helping to run that team, he said. They were keeping up with what had to be done, whether it was right or wrong.
Parade Magazine, the Wall Street Journal were just a handful of national and local publications that came calling. A parade was held in the teams honor in downtown Raleigh.
Ive always had the belief that the kids will do what you ask them to do, he said. Its like any other team or any sport if they catch on to what you want them to do and you give them the chance to come up with their own ideas then they will succeed.
The team was successful in an array of other electric competitions and its a legacy that continues to today.
The passion continues
In 1999, Miller went out in pretty good shape retiring from Northampton County Schools. Despite his retirement, Millers passion and support for electric vehicles and the local NEAT rallies have never wavered.
No matter where and when the rallies may be Miller is not far from NEAT keeping an eye on what he helped created.
Ill tell you what, those kids were dedicated and the ones I see out there now have that same dedication, he said. They want a cleaner world and we can give it to them.
Last year, the NEAT team tied with Topsail High School for first place at the teams annual rally. In most recent years, NEATs annual rally has been held at the North Carolina Center for Automotive Research (NCCAR), a premier testing track, in Garysburg. The partnership between the modern facility and NEAT is cutting edge, bringing the roots of electric vehicles together with the most recent technology in the field of automotives.
Miller credits NCCAR Chief Operating Officer Simon Cobb along with another NCCAR employee Sam True and Northampton County Economic Director Gary Brown for their work to accommodate the team.
In the end, its those innovative and progressive thoughts and ideas that Miller wants to stay with his former students and those who are in the class now.
The students feel good about a car that is clean, he said. No matter how we try to paint it, gas cars are very, very, very pollutant. You can sweep it under the rug, but its kind of like you cleaning the house and putting all the dirt under the bed, its going to come out somehow. People are worried about the high price of gas, but you know, change is coming.
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"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"
updated by @dave-fulton: 12/05/16 04:00:58PM
