Cool a race car without draining the battery

Save the race car battery for the start line

If you’re having a good weekend at the race track, turnaround time can get pretty hectic.

You make a pass, drive back to the pits and start getting the car ready to go again. Part of that job is cooling it down.

For a water-cooled race car with an electric fan and electric water pump, that takes power.

And that power has to come from somewhere.

Run the fan and water pump with an M18 battery

Every race weekend there is at least one race car who rolls up to the starting line and dies.

A lot of Top Sportsman, Top Dragster, Comp and door slammer cars run lithium batteries. Many don’t have an alternator, so the battery is doing the work on its own.

Back in the pits, you plug in battery charger. At the same time, the electric fan and water pump are running to cool the car.

That’s where the numbers start working against you. An electric fan might draw around 15 amps. The water pump might draw another 10. That’s 20 amps or more being pulled from the battery while a typical charger may only be putting 10 amps back in.

The charger is working, but it can’t keep up. On a normal day, you may have enough time to deal with that.

But if you’re going rounds, or running the same car in more than one class, you may only have about 30 minutes before you need to be ready again.

Keep the race-car battery for racing

Night Owl Cool takes the fan and water pump off the race-car battery completely.

The fan and pump are permanently wired to the Cool system and isolated from the vehicle’s electrical system.

When the car comes back to the pits, drop a Milwaukee M18 battery into Night Owl Cool and flip the switch.

The M18 battery runs the fan and water pump. The race-car battery goes on its charger. That’s it.

Cooling usually takes about 10 minutes. During that time, the charger isn’t trying to recharge the race-car battery while the fan and pump are drawing more power than the charger can replace.

It gets to charge the battery.

We chose the Milwaukee M18 platform because these batteries are already pretty common in the pits. Most people have more than one. There are usually tools and chargers in the trailer already. A fresh battery can go into Night Owl Cool while another one charges.

There’s no reason to draw down the battery you need at the starting line when another power source is sitting in the pit.

Be confident your battery is ready for the starting line

Night Owl Cool came out of conversations with racers about the original Night Owl idea: work on the vehicle without depending on the vehicle for power.

With Night Owl Light, that means running service lights without turning on the race car’s electrical system.

With Night Owl Cool, it means running the fan and water pump without touching the race-car battery.

The car comes back. Cool it down. Charge the car battery. Get ready for the next round.

Hopefully there is a next round.

Read more about Steel Sasquatch Performance Products’ Night Owl line.