Truck set to make racing debut April 21
No word yet on how Lordstown will deal with long distance race
Electric startup Lordstown Motors is taking an electric pickup trick to Baja to enter it in off-road championship racing. The goal is to prove the truck’s rugged credentials, and now they’ve released a video showcasing a first look at their racer.
Called a prototype version of the Lordstown Endurance, this is a race truck using the company’s EV skateboard platform, but with bodywork and suspension more in-tune with the off-road racing series. IT will be entered in the 2021 Score International San Felipe 250, a 290-mile race that starts and finishes in San Felipe, Baja California, Mexico this April.
The rendering of the race truck looks like a fibreglass body dropped over an extensive roll cage attached to the skateboard chassis. Though it’s a rendering, so the final product might look a bit different, that’s exactly what you get with most of these off-road endurance racers.
“Our goal is to be the first electric vehicle to ever complete the San Felipe 250,” Lordstown Motors CEO Steve Burns said in the initial announcement last week. “With the superior traction, weight balance, and advanced software control of our hub motor-based Endurance, we are confident that we will do just that.”
The Endurance has an estimated range of 250 miles, and the desert race is 290 miles long, so we’re not sure what steps Lordstown will have to take in order to make sure the truck makes it to the finish. Dune-jumping, deep sand, and large tires aren’t what we’d call conducive to adding extra range to an EV’s battery.
