From 15th till 17th of November the Professional Motorsport World Expo took place in the Koelnmesse in Cologne, Germany. This is one of the most important expo’s in the world concerning motorsport. It is a meeting place for professionals to exchange technologies, innovations and ideas on how to drive the industry. The big difference in quality in comparison with other motorsport shows is that this event is exclusively open for people that are actively involved in motorsport. There is no entry allowed for the general public so there are not too much people visiting the show what makes it easier to really get in to detail about the products that are offered by all the different producers. It’s also a big advantage that everything you see at the show are the latest state of the art products and you find everything you could imagine that is needed to be involved in motorsport. From the biggest testing rigs to the smallest bolt.

We have visited this show on Thursday the 17th because the theme of the day was Sustainability & Sponsorship. This means that four presentations were given by leading men in the motorsport business that were related to this theme. The first presentation was given by James Meredith from the university of Warwick and handled about sustainable lightweight materials for motorsport. The second was about Noao: the hybrid race school car of the Pôle de la Performance Nevers Magny-Cours. It was given by Gilles Alegoët, a member of the board of PPNMC France. Then the third and most interesting speech of the day was given by Alastair Moffitt of Toyota Motorsport GmbH. It was about the past, present and future of EV racing. This was very informative and we learned that EV motorsport has a very big future ahead. Then finally the last presentation was given by the Belgian racing pilot Nico Verdonck. His subject was: sponsorship acquisition and marketing techniques for young professional drivers.

Ofcourse we also visited the expo itself and found a whole load of very important information about all kinds of products. We discussed about different products with engineers from the suppliers. We talked with many people about the future of motorsport and the role of electric vehicles and fuel cell vehicles in particular. Everyone agreed that there will be a diversification in types of cars that will be used for motorsport and the most growth will be for electric vehicles. The fact that works teams like Toyota Motorsport GmbH invest so much money and resources into electric vehicles proves that there is definitely a big future for electric vehicles in motorsport. For fuel cell cars in particular there are no big teams or manufacturers that are already building them for race purpose. At Regeneracing, we believe this is our big advantage in comparison to other teams. We already have knowledge in the domain of fuel cells and electric drivetrains and we will continue to expand this knowledge. So we can conclude that this edition of the Professional Motorsport World Expo was a big success and it was definitely worthwhile to make the trip to Cologne. So we’ll meet again at Koelnmesse next year!

During a very sunny day of the Belgian Masters at the Zolder Circuit, Regeneration have written history. With a time of 10.230 seconds on the 1/8 mile sprint we beat the old record for hydrogen powered vehicles with 0.17 seconds. We also set a new record on the quarter mile sprint for hydrogen powered vehicles. It is now set on 19.28 seconds. These times still need to be made official by the FIA. This time about 6 officials were present to judge the timings and scruteneer our kart, so the records can be made official. (not like in 2009 ... click here for the link to the article)

Erwin Janssens, pilot of our team: '' The preparation was intense but we knew that we could pull it off. The kart won the World Championship in 2009 for similar karts so we were convinced that we could beat the record. I am proud that a Belgian is able to put his name in the records of the FIA (Federation Internationale Automobile) 112 years after Camille Jenatzy."

Jan Van Nylen, Team Manager of Regeneracing: “It is great that we were able to put our name in the record books. With this achievement we are showing everyone that Belgian students, with the support of innovative Belgian companies like Umicore and Solvay, can achieve world class results. With this record we also want to pay tribute to the Belgian Camille Jenatzy, who already broke records in 1899 with an electrical vehicle. He was a true pioneer in automobile history. Camille Jenatzy broke the world speed record 3 times on land (last time in 1899) and was the first man to go faster than a 100 km/hour ... and he also achieved this with an electrical motor with his car named 'La Jamais Contente'."

Regeneracing is showing everyone, just like Jenatzy, that Belgium can play a role in the development of the car of the future!

Today, at Challenge Bibendum in Berlin the Zero Emission Racing Team officially became Regeneracing. A new name for the same team, it is shorter and will allow us to distinguish ourselves better in the future. Regeneracing refers to the fact that by racing we make water which can be used to regenerate hydrogen for racing again.

As a treat for the audience, Jan Vliegen (Umicore) and Holger Dziallas (Solvicore) officially unveiled our new superkart. This second version of the kart will be about 50 percent faster and will be able to drive about 10 times further than the first kart. Currently it is still under development but on the third of September the new superkart will race versus other karts in Lommel Begium.

Around 4p.m. both karts were also present in the official parade in fornt of the Brandenburger Gate.

... more pictures and movie online soon... :)