Magazine: Knack (Weekend edition) www.knack.be Type: Prominent info-magazine in Belgium Date: 24/07/2002 Author: Pierre Darge Title: Little by little true the forest. Most of the participants came from France or Belgium, there were also teams from Portugal, Germany, the Netherlands and even one couple from Japan. Hisanori Nakane is a technical engineer and worked initially for Mazda, At Mazda he helped to develop the rotary engine. These days he stands on one’s own feet and a major part of his time goes to develop more economical engines. His “Fancy carol” is a real jewel, which is driven by a homemade monocilinder engine, with an exact displacement of 30cm3. “I wanted to use even a smaller displacement, but it turned out to be not interesting because of the big heat losses. There are no secrets, you have to search the most accurate combustion, the lowest friction of the tires and internal organs, and to design an optimal aerodynamic shape. And off course the weight has to be kept as low as possible. Our Fancy Carol, with wheels made out of composite, weights exactly 28 kg. I’m afraid that there’s not much I can do anymore to lower the weight.” His wife Chiharu drives the vehicle, she is selected because she weights only 45 kg incl. helmet! 5 years ago this Japanese team was able to travel 1199 km with just one litre of fuel, they ended second. “That’s really not a record”, smiles Hisanori. “This track is definitely not flat, so it increase simply the consumption. The perfect circuit is in Scotland, it’s as smooth as a pool table. Last year we could set up a new WR with an incredible…. 3624 km.” In an ideal, flat world without traffic lights and oncoming traffic, they would have enough fuel to travel around the world with almost 11 litres. In Brussels the finally ended first with 2060.848 km, they amazed friends and enemies. 578 km more then the previous record. They could count like 9 others teams on the support from Michelin, who especially developed a low friction tire for this event.