John Wayland runs a political machine on 12 lithium polymer batteries.

It's a 1972 Datsun called "White Zombie," and it's one of the fastest street legal electric cars in the world. It's been clocked doing zero to 60 mph in 2.95 seconds. It's walloped Corvettes, Camaros and 600-horsepower Vipers in quarter-mile drag races using lead-acid batteries.

This weekend, White Zombie returns to Portland International Raceway for what Wayland hopes is another round of record-breaking electrical hot-rodding. The car also is Wayland's vehicle to champion a host of causes important to him, from promoting clean air and water to fighting against dependence on foreign oil.

"I run on American-generated electrons," Wayland says outside his Northeast Portland home. In his garage, a crew of three mechanics were putting the finishing touches on the Datsun's new batteries, which they spent six months making by hand.

The cells originally were designed for the rotor crank on military helicopters. They'll be half the weight and twice the power of White Zombie's old batteries.

"I'm not going to save the world," says Wayland, who just turned 59 and has been building electric cars since 1980. "But I might help tip it one way or the other."

As the White Zombie and other electric vehicles continue to blow the doors off gas guzzling hot rods and muscle cars on the race track, they do more than shatter the common misconception that battery-powered cars are still slow, dull and boring.

Through zero-emission, high-power performances, the cars have converted many hot-rodders and drag-racing fans into EV acolytes. The National Electric Drag Racing Association, which Wayland helped co-found in 1996, has seen a seven-fold increase in membership since 2007, with 350 people now paying annual dues from as far away as Australia and Croatia.

The association also sponsors a number of electric car races throughout the country. The largest, The Wayland Invitational, takes place at Portland International Raceway each July and will happen this weekend. On Friday and Saturday nights, EVs from across the country will square off against gas and diesel hot rods in a series of drag races.

But the main attraction will be Wayland's White Zombie, which will try to be the first electric car to run a quarter mile in under 11 seconds.

"I don't want this to sound bad, but I'm the top dog in my class," Wayland says.

Several years ago, Rick Glover watched White Zombie blister past a Camaro with a huge block engine at PIR.

"I couldn't believe it," says Glover, 60, a Portland mechanic who has built his own hot rods for more than 40 years. "These guys are opening the eyes of skeptics like me."

He's still a fossil fuel guy, but now appreciates EVs: "It's the power. It's the torque. It's the novelty," he says.

EVs don't make a lot of noise when they tear down the track like gas-powered hot rods. They don't spit flames out of their tailpipes. They don't burn the eyeballs of spectators with a cloud of nitromethane fumes.

"But they're faster than snot," says Mark Wigginton, PIR's track manager. "They launch fast. People love them. And that's what racing's all about."

White Zombie's new lithium batteries store 355 volts of energy and can generate 2,400 instantaneous amps, says Wayland. That allows for face-distorting acceleration. Storing 22.7 kilowatt hours on energy can allow the vehicle to travel up to 120 miles at freeway speeds. White Zombie's total weight is only 2,275 pounds.

Its power, energy and weight makes some EV converts drool.

"It's just unreal. People have no idea what this thing is capable of doing," says Tom Whipple, 43, who was a shop foreman and technician for Toyota for 18 years, and wasn't initially sold on the potential of electric vehicles. He then took an electric vehicle out for a spin.

"That thing accelerated like I was shot out of a cannon," he says.

Wayland believes the best way to win over hot-rodders to EVs and other environmentally sustainable vehicles isn't by legislating or fingerpointing, but by beating them at the races. "I don't want to guilt trip people," he says. "I want them to have fun. And then I'll kick some butt."

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IF YOU GO

What:

Wayland Invitational V

Where:

Portland International Raceway, 1940 N. Victory Blvd., Portland, www.portlandraceway.com

When:

Fridayand Saturday. Gates open at 6 p.m.

How much:

$8 for adults and $5 for children

More information:

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