SOLAR DERBYTHE TRUE STORY OF A SUN-LOVING, ELECTRIC-POWERED HOT-RODDER

A car with this power plant will do everything. Ultracapacitors give it enthusiastic acceleration. A high-power density battery gives it hill-climbing ability. The gas motor, he says, is "a small electric factory that allows you to go 400 miles." A car with this driving it, he says, is no longer a second car. If it sounds too good to be true, Bos is thinking about putting his prototype motor in a race car, the traditional way technological advances have been introduced. The ultracapacitors, he says, make a car "do the Lamborghini thing." He says there are no limits to the acceleration you can develop.

That has Ernie Holden concerned. He's worrying that someone is going to get hold of one of Peter Bos' ultracapacitors, stick it under the hood of an electric car and blow away the competition. And maybe some walls, and his insurance policy. So he doesn't even want to talk about the rumor of a four-second dragster, which he heard from a General Motors guy, who heard it at a meet somewhere. He's sorry he ever mentioned it.

He doesn't want these cars to go too fast this weekend.

The Solar and Electric 500 will be held Friday through Sunday at Phoenix International Raceway. The solar race will be run in two segments, at 1 p.m. Saturday and at 10 a.m. Sunday. The electric race is at 2 p.m. Sunday. For ticket information, call 953-6672.

If a get-together of solar and electric cars sounds as exciting as a Greenpeace convention, consider an electric motor that runs like a Lamborghini.

Holden became a convert to electricity much like Saint Augustine became a convert to Christianity, after a lifetime of sin.