Bio-Diesel Jet Car Makes a Pit Stop in Wetaskiwin
by Nichole Goetz (The Wetaskiwin Times) Not many people can say they have taken a car down a quarter-mile track in 6.3 seconds going more than 250 kilometers per hour.
But jet car driver Kevin Therres can.
Therres, and his wife, Gwen, were in Wetaskiwin last weekend at the Reynolds-Alberta Museum with their biodiesel jet engine funny car as part of the museum’s Farming Fridays.
The bio-diesel jet car runs on fuel made from canola seed.
“We’re here showing people that alternative fuels can work, especially canola based bio-diesel,” Therres said in an interview with the Times during their stop in the city on Sunday.
“Last week, we raced at the Castrol Raceway (in Nisku) and came in second place. We came right from there to here to show that biofuel works,” explained Therres.
The jet car, a 2006 Mustang F/C is powered by a J 85 engine from a F-5 fighter plane and puts out 7,500 horsepower, with 7,000 pounds of thrust.
The car has a hand-built afterburner and burns through 24 gallons of canola bio-diseal fuel per run.
The bio-diesel that their jet car and car hauler runs on starts out as number 3 or non-edible canola seed. READ MORE