Autocrossing a Gator

Sunday April 25th at the tail end of "The Gathering" some British car owners were deftly defeated by a simple John Deere "Gator" utility vehicle while competing in an autocross competition.

It was a beautiful spring day in Winston Salem North Carolina. The sky was clear and dozens of British sports cars turned Groves stadium parking lot into a prestigious museum that honored British auto engineering. There was however one blemish. A green utility vehicle that dodged in and out of the cars and owners dropping off cones and delivering people here and there. Next to the beauty of the rest of the vehicles like the Italia, or the Sprites, Cooper Mini, TR-6's the "Gator" was as noticeable as a busboy during high tea.

I did not want to detract from the attention and fun of this car club but I did want to run a few laps around the course for the fun of it so I waited until all of the cars had made their runs and got in at the end of the line.

The course was laid out pretty tight with no straitaways longer than 18m (60ft). To add to the challenge of the course two 360 degree cones were placed in the course right after some hard turns. Everyone eyed the beautiful Cooper Mini and they were all sure that car would clean up the field.

Times were coming in the high thirty's and low forty's. The larger TR's were slow but the smaller cars like the Mini, Sprites, etc screamed through the course at a best time of 37 seconds. One race prepped scca regular Lotus Green bug eyed sprite equipped with autocross springs, suspension members, rollbar, and 5 point harness turned a field dusting 33.91 seconds. But nobody was surprised. I borrowed their helmet to make my runs even if I never got going fast enough to need it.

The announcer called off my name twice to get it right and announced with great mirth that I was going to make a run in a John Deere Electric Gator. It was a joke almost. The attitude was to let this guy have fun too....what can it hurt??? I got the signal to trip the timing gate whenever I was ready..

It was full throttle through the hard right and sweeping left turns. The extra wide front tires with dual coil-overs understeered to within scant centimeters of the outside cones. I approached the 360 cone full throttle until the last possible second then released the throttle initiating a real hard regen, and shifting as much weight off of my 335 (13') wide lower profile tires as I could. With a lot of howling the rear whipped a 270 loop and I hung on with a leg gripping the Gator body, hands white knuckled around the steering wheel and the right foot stabbing the pedals. The last part of the turn was executed in a shallow acceleration away from the cone toward the next turn gate. Again I was full throttle squealing and oversteering through the turns within a few centimeters of the cones. At the last moment before contacting the cones the tires got a better bite again and I was off to the next turns. Somewhere I may have hit 25 mph or more but it's hard to tell. The race continued like that for three more turns and another 360 cone to end with me skidding up to the stop box at the timing lights. As the cone attendant let me out of the box the announcer sputtered out "We have a new Fastest time of the DAY" and then shouted "33.25 seconds"

The helmet hid my ear to ear toothy grin and the crowd applauded even with their jaws all slacked. As I drove down the staging line to return the helmet I chatted with people about "Where do I get one?", "How did you make it do that?". I spent the rest of the time between racing talking EVs. The next run was a 33.75 that ended full throttle into the lights and then almost skidding through the stop box and taking a DNF, but that did not happen. The last run of the day I turned up the Acceleration to "instant" and the oversteer problem slowed me down by 2 more seconds and the dreaded 5 second cone. Guess I need more rubber on the front. By the end of the day the Lotus green bug eyed Sprite did manage to recapture the FTD by 1.5 seconds to give a 31.75 best time and leave me with second fastest time of the day.

Since I was not a British Sports car I could not take home any trophies but who needs a trophy when you made history with a bunch of British gearheads.

The race was for this event: "The Gathering" http://www.cris.com/~jamiep/gather.html

The production version of this Gator is similar only in looks, motor. Frame, controller, batteries, tires, wires, and suspension are all different. http://www.deere.com/cce/golfturf/html/prodspec/gators2.htm This was not a company sponsored race but a private endeavor to turn a few heads. John Deere is in no way connected to this public appearance.

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Dale Glubrecht
My Porsche Would Be Zero Emission
But My Tires Keep Smoking...
John Deere WC&CE div.