Race Wrap-Up

Well, the 2011 World Solar Challenge is over.

It was one of the most interesting races in recent memory. While the event usually enjoys nearly perfect sunshine, this year the outback decided to give us high winds, huge brushfires, persistent high altitude clouds, large intermittent cloud banks, and in the driest state of the driest country on the planet, rain. In short, conditions were not ideal for racing solar cars.

As you may have gathered from the provisional race results, we did not finish the entire course. Only 7 out of 37 teams teams traveled the entire distance under solar power, a much lesser proportion than the sunny 2009 race, which saw 10 out of 25 teams finish under their own power.

The last day of the race for us was hard on everyone. We knew we were in bad shape the evening before, when we failed to get any significant amount of array stand charging in due to cloud cover. Despite a forcast for clearer skies, the morning failed to produce much more power – only about 200W from the array. Close to midday, we managed to get the car on the road and start chugging along out of Glendambo at less than 30kph on the dismal amount of power the cloud cover was allowing us to produce. We had a small glimmer of hope that if we could maintain this speed, it might be enough to finish the race in time for the hard deadline in about 28 hours. We fought, very slowly, through many long, gradual hills and some light rain, but at some point we pulled over after we had been reduced to traveling at about 15kph and the battery pack had tripped for low voltage for the umpteenth time. We crunched some numbers, and even assuming that day 7 was all sun, we would not have been able to finish the race. This was the point where the team gathered, and after some quiet introspection, made the crushingly difficult decision to put the car in the trailer and continue to Adelaide. We packed up, got in the cars, and drove quietly over the last 400 kilometers of the race route.

On Saturday morning, we ceremonially rolled across the finish line, and with no less cheer than everyone else, celebrated the end of the race by soaking ourselves in the fountain – several of us even got thrown in by other teams as they rolled across the finish line.

According to the race officials’ calculation, our final placement was 12th overall. We finished 4th in the Production Class, which is generally equal to any team not using Michelin tires. This result, while not terrible, is not what we were hoping and dreaming would come of this car. It’s been especially hard for the many team members who have put immense amounts of time and effort into building this car from the ground up with their own minds and hands. Now it’s time for the team to step back, analyze what went right and what went wrong, confront the problems that arose from new perspectives with new solutions. This car may not have performed to our best informed expectations, but this team is not defeated. To quote the unofficial motto of the Stanford Solar Car Project – ever onwards.