Dyson Racing, defending American Le Mans Series champions, announced Thursday that they would be using a flywheel-based KERS (kinetic energy recovery system) in the 16 Dyson Lola-Mazda for the rest of the 2012 season.
“We have been researching and working on the KERS hybrid system with Flybrid since the end of last season,” said Chris Dyson, Vice President and Sporting Director in a press statement. “We have done extensive dyno testing and have tested the system in the car. We had encouraging enough results and will be running it in the car this weekend at VIR and at the season-ending Petit Le Mans.
“We are in close contention for the championship, and as a race team, we are always looking to better our performance.”
The system, built by Flybrid Automotive Limited, includes a steel-and-carbon-fiber flywheel spinning at up to 60,000 rpm inside a vacuum chamber inside the bell housing which stores braking energy and releases it through a three-speed clutched transmission to transfer up to 134 horsepower over five seconds to the drive wheels.
Dyson is the first ALMS team to employ a flywheel hybrid system. “The ALMS is the leader in green racing and the perfect series to showcase this technology,” Dyson said. “The regulations are encouraging of regenerative technology and up until this point, there have been very few customer-friendly options. Flybrid was very interested in developing their product and linking up with a front-line organization.
