TEAM SOLAR FOX: Going the Distance

20 Oct 07: SolarFox Passes Safety Checks

SolarFox are first in the queue for a fastidious inspection by the WSC organisers to gain an Australian license plate. The car’s structure, electrical safety and crash worthiness are tested and at this stage a major problem could remove the team from the competition. Luckily only minimal changes have to be made and we’re first to pick up our license plate.

Next it’s the dynamic test to establish the relative performance of the cars and determine in what sequence they should start. Team SolarFox are first on the track, laying down the gauntlet to the other teams with a scorching average speed for a lap of the Darwin test track of 65.61km/h. The car is placed 17th out of a total field of 38 vehicles, qualifying above many of the adventure class vehicles which have both larger solar arrays and more streamlined aerodynamics.

21 Oct 07 - First Day's Racing

Starting from 17^th place we cruise out of Darwin with 3000km, the Stuart Highway stretched out in front of us. Once the outskirts of town had been cleared, the first major test for is Hayes Creek Hill. A steep gradient is a real challenge for the car because of the short term high power output required (the car is optimised for high efficiency and endurance which is a constant relatively low power output). Fortunately, we pass our first test and continue south towards the first timing checkpoint at Katherine (approximately 300km into the race). This gives us our second indication of our competitive positioning: within the Challenge class we are now placed 9th.

In total, the first day's running sees us achieve 418 km towards our Adelaide target with no major technical problems. High cloud restricted the output from the solar array, which is reassuring as it means that there should be further performance available once we start to get clear sun running days.

22 Oct 07 - Second Day's Racing 

All the solar cars competing have a battery pack on board to help even out the peaks and troughs in supply and demand of power throughout the race. The car starts the race with the cells fully charged but once started, can only top them up using the solar array. A race organiser travels with each team and has to sleep with the batteries in case anyone attempts to charge them using illegal means!

We use 50% of the battery to push us ahead of a weather system that is producing storms and high cloud levels around Darwin. This pays off as on Day Two we enter much clearer weather and are able to run on pure solar power. We make the Dunmarra control stop (633 km from Darwin) at 14:04, and pitch camp for the night just south of Elliott. The day's running, despite not needing to dip into our valuable battery reserves of power, kept us in our middle field position 10th in the Challenge Class.

23 Oct 07 - Third Day's Racing

Day Three was the start of rough weather and this time we’re in the middle of it. 30km/h head winds, low cloud and showers reduce our average speed and make driving tricky. As a result we don’t cover as much ground as on previous days. However, we reached the control stop at Tennant Creek 987km from Darwin and a third of the way to Adelaide at 13:20 and make further progress in the afternoon to eventually stop to camp at Wycliffe Well for a night in the jungle.

24 Oct 07 – Fourth Day’s Racing

Fortunately, the good weather returns as we set our sights on the considerable target of Alice Springs. The weather helps make up for lost ground the day before and despite a steep and twisting section of the Stuart Highway, we make our target by the end of the day's racing, once again holding onto 10th place in the Challenge Class.

25 & 26 Oct 07 - Fifth and Sixth Day's Racing

Bad weather in the Northern Territory forced us to use a lot of battery in an effort to keep up the rate of progress and to try and get ahead of weather systems before they could slow us down. Fortunately days 5 and 6 prove sunny and good runs of 400+ km are achieved both days. All this soon changes however, and on the night of the 6th, we are hit by a fantastic storm which blows most of the camp away and inevitably hampers progress the following day.

27 Oct 07 – Seventh and Penultimate Day’s Racing

We face further weather related problems today, heavy cloud reduces speeds to a crawl as the battery is already badly depleted. Progress stops altogether when the car becomes enveloped in a dust cloud, reducing solar power generation to zero. We try to continue but are eventually ordered to stop by race organisers due to safety concerns. After some discussion we are allowed to continue to Woomera where we have to pull over and abandon racing for the day. At this point some confusion sets into the pack of cars that remain in the race. It appears that some of the teams were advised that the race was being terminated due to the weather, and so loaded their vehicles onto trailers to drive straight to Adelaide. We are not informed that this is the case and choose to camp out for the night in the hope of better weather the following day.

28 Oct 07 - Final Day's Racing

Today turns out to be a fine day and we drive to the Port Augusta control stop, reaching it just 25 minutes before it closed. We have to trailer the final kms into Adelaide due to an instruction from the race organizers because of the weather. We have traveled from ocean to ocean across Australia and one of the earth’s biggest continents under solar power alone – quite a feat! Team SolarFox are very proud to have been involved in the World Solar Challenge.