North American Solar Car Challenge 2005
Greg Thorne
To the many friends and members of the extended CalSol family,
Celebration is in order, for CalSol has returned triumphantly from the 2005 North American Solar Challenge after taking second in its class. Over ten and a half days of often arduous effort, we successfully drove our car Beam Machine the 2,494 miles of the race route from Austin, Texas to Calgary, Alberta. Averaging speeds of 40-45 miles per hour, this year's trek across the North American heartland took the members of CalSol through a total of fourteen US states and four Canadian provinces. For those who were along for this epic adventure, let me simply offer my thanks for your hard work and positive attitude under even the most trying of circumstances. For those members left behind, and for the many of you folks who've taken an active interest in our success, I'd like to offer up a written recap to accompany the extensive photo history that can be viewed on our website (CalSol Photos).
Before telling the story of our hot, exhausting, smelly circuit of the continent's center, let me first make a note about the end result. For this race CalSol competed in the Stock Class where restrictions on solar array cost make the competition less about who has the deepest pockets and more about who can build the best car on a budget. In a field made intensely competitive by the recent introduction of significantly improved silicon solar cells and NASC rule changes, CalSol finished a remarkably close second, just twenty five minutes behind the first place stock team with a total time of 68:25:17 (just to clarify, that's 68+ hours). With its second place standing, CalSol ended ahead of seven other stock class teams competing in the event, as well as several more stock teams that attempted to but did not qualify. The car performed well over the many (bumpy, windy) miles traveled, a strong credit to the hours upon toiling hours put into the design, construction and testing that took place before the actual competition.
Our journey began on Friday, July 8, as we left the Bay Area for the sweltering climate of mid-summer Austin, Texas. After a few minor complications and an aborted attempt to finally get Reman some on-road driving experience (John, Jonny and Vivek all drove during the practice run the week prior) we hit the road for real, spending the night at a notably windswept truck stop outside of Palm Springs. Saturday was spent near entirely on the road with the two highlights being a brief stop to pick up booster panels in Phoenix and a decidedly filling dinner at the Cracker Barrel in El Paso. We hit Austin, specifically the Travis County Expo Center, mid-afternoon on Sunday and set about putting the finishing touches on the car in preparation for the three days of scrutineering that would start the week. NASC provided us with a workspace alongside the other teams to facilitate the last minute changes/additions/repairs that constitute the characteristic frenzy of scrutineering before any solar car event. The space we were afforded was more than adequate from a size standpoint, but unfortunately all of the teams were housed within a giant barn (typically meant for showing horses and the like) that trapped, amplified and held the brutal summer heat until well through the night. This added a nice dose of sweaty discomfort to what was already a healthily stressful situation.
Having qualified already at Formula Sun Grand Prix (FSGP) in May, CalSol was afforded a relatively smooth first two days of scrutineering. The critiques by the NASC safety officials were minor and predominantly easy fixes. Monday and Tuesday were thus busy days but comparably trouble-free ones.
Wednesday however was a different story. Thanks to our progress through the other stations on the prior two days, Wednesday was devoted near-exclusively to passing the dynamic testing station. With Jonny at the controls we breezed easily through the U-turn and figure-8 tests. From there we moved to the braking test, which we had already passed with only minimal trouble at FSGP in May. Unlike that test, the brake test in Austin was on a curving, downhill stretch of asphalt that made it significantly more difficult to stop in the allotted time. We started runs through the test at about 9:30am. We were still there at 12:30pm and began scrapping some competitive edges in attempts to meet the required stopping time. Nothing seemed to work. Finally, we figured out a way to make the motor's regenerative braking more powerful. By 5:00pm we'd not only passed the brake test, but had done so with our competitive edges intact. We celebrated our completion of scrutineering with showers (courtesy of Martin Koebler, our solar sage) and dinner at Chili's before driving the two hours to College Station for qualifying.
Thursday and Friday were spent at the Texas World Speedway outside of College Station under continually threatening skies. Teams that hadn't qualified during FSGP were required to complete 120 miles during one day of driving in order to compete in NASC 2005. We were saved this trouble by having done so at FSGP, but still had to go to the qualifying event to finish qualifying drivers and pass the slalom test. Near the end of the driving on Thursday, a severe thunderstorm swept into the area, sending the teams scrambling into the covered pits to avoid torrential rain and hail (things solar cars really don't like). Unfortunately, the sides of our pits were open to the elements and the strong wind accompanying the storm forced the teams into erecting temporary tarp walls, a process that ably demonstrated the comradeship between fellow solar raycers as teams worked cooperatively to protect one another's cars. We left the track early on Friday with the intention of getting Reman some road-driving time but were foiled on two separate accounts by a thunderstorm and a minor electrical bug, continuing what we were beginning to consider a curse.
Saturday was a mess of a day: displaying the car for a local NBC affiliate in the morning, a scouting trip to acquaint ourselves with the supposedly 'very difficult' first forty miles of the route, another foiled attempt at a Reman test drive 'this time by an unmarked river ford. From there we headed to the complimentary barbeque and a lengthy NASC team meeting before setting up shop in a downtown parking garage to perform the last minute changes the car needed before starting the race the next morning.
Storms loomed over Austin the morning of the race start, forcing us to keep constant watch on the skies as we sat in line with the other teams waiting for a procession of photographers to cycle through their turns in the appointed cherry picker vantage point. The weather held through the pictures and other pre-launch ceremonies and shortly after 9am we were on our way. The weather remained spotty that first day with heavy clouds and occasional storms that showed the value of the weatherproofing we'd done Friday night. We hit the stage stop in Weatherford, Texas just as a pounding storm was about to break; we had no sooner gotten the car into the trailer than buckets upon mighty buckets began to drop on us. After the storm passed we enjoyed a pleasant schedule of charging that was interrupted only by trips to enjoy the slate of free food that local restaurants had made available to the raycers.
After another tasty complimentary meal in the morning (breakfast from IHOP), we resumed charging and prepared to depart with the other teams at 9am. Shortly before we were due in the que, minor miscommunication resulted in a broken accelerator pedal which we scrambled to fix before leaving the staging area a few minutes late. We did not have another stage stop until reaching Winnipeg, meaning that the teams became much more spaced out along the route. Due to this fact, and our slightly delayed start, we spent Monday almost completely on our own as we drove through the northern reaches of Texas and a majority of eastern Oklahoma. We stopped for the day in a bank parking lot, just short of the checkpoint in Broken Arrow. After impounding our batteries and eating a little dinner, we drove out to a ranch operated by Sara's family friend, who allowed us to use his barn to perform typical end-of-day inspections and additional alterations that the day's minor dilemmas had shown to be necessary.
We started early Tuesday morning in order to get back to the bank and set up before charging started at 6:30am. Sara's mom provided us with a fantastic morning breakfast of fruit, muffins and coffee which we devoured happily before hitting the road. We spent most of Tuesday on our own again, but it was finally starting to feel like we were in a solar car race as we got our first taste of truly consistent sun. As we approached the Topeka checkpoint the team got a welcome surprise as we caught up to Auburn and Iowa State, both of whom we had thought to be further ahead of us on the road (and who seemed a bit alarmed to see us in their rear view mirrors). Our spirits soared a bit higher as we passed ISU just outside of Topeka before calling it a day at the Kickapoo Truck Plaza where we feasted on a blazing sun and oversized servings of sandwiches and pizza.
The sun continued in decent form on Wednesday, which saw us catch and pass Auburn on the stretch between Omaha and Sioux City, Iowa. Late in the day we hit the Sioux Falls, South Dakota checkpoint where we were greeted by an escort of motorcycle policemen, a winding string of American flags and the biggest crowds we'd yet seen. We were back on the road with only a scant hour of driving time remaining, but we managed to make it to the town of Manley, Minnesota (population 16). Out of necessity we pulled into the parking lot of Manley Tire and Oil (the town's only commercial establishment), where we discovered the true depths of Midwestern hospitality. The owner of the facility, a wonderful woman named Trudy, not only allowed us to use her parking lot for charging, but provided us with an empty mobile home as shelter from an approaching thunderstorm and bought us all a pizza and chicken dinner delivered from the neighboring town. We were profoundly taken aback by her kindness, leaving her with a few team shirts and a solar car tire signed by each team member as our humble thanks.
Thursday was relatively uneventful, which, in solar raycing, is a fantastic thing as it means everything is working correctly. Amid occasional clouds we ran solidly north through the farm fields that blanket the western edge of Minnesota before slipping into North Dakota slightly before Fargo. We stopped for the night at the other major North Dakotan city, Grand Forks, and opted for hotel rooms to avoid what looked to be a certain downpour. The rain never materialized but we managed to enjoy a restful sleep indoors, as well as a remarkably comprehensive continental breakfast.
Though he'd driven into Grand Forks the night before, Vivek requested an immediate return to the driver's seat on Friday so that he could drive across the Canadian border, which we hit late in the morning. After filling out some papers at the US-Customs office and solving a minor case of mistaken identity on the Canadian side, we entered Canada proper. Our initial elation at having crossed this major milestone in the race gave way to slight trepidation as the extremely poorly maintained road into Winnipeg bounced our poor car (and driver) mercilessly for kilometer after kilometer. We made it to the green grass of the Red River College front lawn in the early afternoon and got our first real breather of the trip. Teams wouldn't be departing Winnipeg until Sunday morning, meaning that we had a solid day and a half to recharge our batteries (and ourselves) for what promised to be a sprint to the next stage stop in Medicine Hat, Alberta, some 600 miles to the west. During this time we enjoyed hotel rooms and showers again, wolfed down another complimentary barbeque, competed in a street-hockey tournament organized by the University of Calgary, and attempted to avoid being eaten alive by swarms of unforgiving Manitoba mosquitoes.
We departed from the majestic Manitoba Legislative Building on Sunday morning, this time without accelerator hang-ups. We raced into a stiff 20 mph headwind that forced most teams to scale back their driving speeds to avoid extreme aerodynamic drag. Besides the required stop at the Brandon, Manitoba checkpoint, we rolled solidly along all day, past countless fields of wheat, canola and flax. The sun was bright all day long and we found ourselves in regular contact with other teams as we moved along the long stretches of Trans-Canada 1. We decided to stop for the night about ten miles outside of the small Saskatchewan town of Balgonie, utilizing a convenient highway turnout as our charging/sleeping zone. After a fantastic pasta dinner cooked on our camp stove we finished our end of the day routine and retired to enjoy the extra hour of sleep that the day's time zone change had provided.
Though the sun was already well up by the time charging started on Monday morning, the cold Saskatchewan dawn still had us shivering. After a return run to Balgonie for what meager breakfast supplies could be obtained we hit the road again and discovered a rather puzzling dilemma. As we turned onto the race route it became clear that one of the tires on the lead vehicle was flat and would need to be changed. The solar car and chase vehicle continued along while lead pulled off to change the tire and then catch up to the convoy before the Regina checkpoint that lay about thirty miles ahead. While charging during the mandatory thirty minute stop, the trailer crew took the tire to a local tire shop, had it replaced, and took up a position outside of the city where it waited for the convoy. Lead pulled off when we reached the trailer, executed a rapid tire change, and caught back up to the incomplete convoy as it persevered towards Medicine Hat. Monday was cloudier than the day before, and a patch of clouds just before the stage stop caught us a bit off guard. Regardless, we kept moving and rolled into the parking lot at Medicine Hat College in a dead heat with our closest competitor in the stock class. Like our arrival in Winnipeg a few days earlier, we were again faced with a day off the road as we waited for other teams to arrive for the final leg of the rayce on Wednesday.
Conveniently for us, Medicine Hat College was renting out their dorm facilities for teams, which meant we were able to rent out a four bedroom, two bath condo with kitchen and laundry room to house the team for its last two nights of raycing. Monday night was given over to celebration at having completed the first 2,300 miles of the route: we dined on extravagantly thick pizzas, played some ultimate Frisbee, caught a showing of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at pleasantly low Canadian prices, baked cookies and consumed root bear floats aplenty. After a complimentary breakfast Tuesday morning, work resumed. We charged our depleted batteries in the solid Albertan sun while the drivers scouted the last leg into Calgary to determine strategy and spot potential trouble spots. Tuesday night found us again treated to dinner, this time as part of a soup/chili feed organized for other teams by Iowa State.
We left Medicine Hat Wednesday morning only a handful of minutes behind the current stock class leader. After leaving Medicine Hat, we found ourselves in a caravan of caravans as several teams ran at nearly identical speeds with the goal of finishing the race with a perfectly emptied battery pack. After initially losing sight of the first place stock team, we later caught and passed their caravan, using well timed stoplights to leave them scanning the horizon for our caravan which had now moved out of sight ahead of them. The excitement was palpable in our caravan as we got closer to Calgary. We knew we'd need to gain over ten minutes on the stock leader in order to take first place and we tried to milk our batteries and array for every additional mile per hour we could get. Regrettably, our primary competitor caught us at the first stoplights into Calgary, solidifying their lead and assuring us of a second place finish. In a way, this made it easier for us to enjoy the thousands of spectators who lined the streets of Calgary along the race route, cheering the teams on as they approached the finished line.
The finish line was a truly spectacular finale. Somewhere on the order of ten thousand people attended the festivities that included the actual finish line, a series of alternative energy booths and the display of the vehicles inside the Olympic Oval (Calgary was host to the '88 winter Olympics). After sprinting across the finish line with the car, we guided it onto the ice where it stayed on display through most of the afternoon. In between joking with the other finished teams and enjoying yet another spate of free food, we took the car out into a campus parking lot where we let MSNBC reporter Miguel Llanos take it for a brief spin (the resulting feature can be seen at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032493/). Wednesday night was spent in glorious celebration, including a team dinner at local favorite Nick's Steakhouse and attendance at a party hosted by the University of Calgary at their campus pub.
Despite the race being over, Thursday was another busy day. In the morning, a handful of team members displayed the car at a publicity event for our sponsor, Hybrid Technology, while the afternoon was devoted to the NASC awards ceremony and barbeque. At the event CalSol received an award for best Stock Solar Array in addition to its trophy for Second Place in the Stock Class. We were also swarmed by other solar raycers who eagerly requested team shirt trades so that they could get their hands on the apparently wildly desired CalSol uniform. After the flurry of shirt trading the team again hit the road, though now with the car tucked safely back into the trailer. We headed west to Banff and then south through amazingly gorgeous mountains before reaching the US border shortly before nightfall. We stopped in Spokane, Washington for the night and realized that Berkeley was within striking distance the next day if many long hours of driving were logged. About half the team opted for a final session of marathon driving, returning to the welcome streets of Berkeley late Friday night. The remainder adopted a more leisurely pace and reached Berkeley Saturday afternoon after stopping for some more free food at my parent's place in Oregon on Friday. We met back up to clean and return the rental vehicles on Sunday and so marked the end of our trek which to me still seems to form a blurred collage of smiling and sleeping faces, never-ending roads and limitless wheat fields, whirring mosquitoes and chirping birds, brilliant sunrises and awe-inspiring sunsets.
Looking back on the team's efforts during the race, and during the two years leading up to it, I believe we should all be exceptionally proud of what we've accomplished. We built a car, virtually from scratch, that we managed to race across two countries powered only by the sun. If you think about it, that's a pretty spectacular thing to have been a part of. For what it's worth, I have been amazed and overwhelmingly pleased by the ability of our team to push the limits of our physical and mental abilities and work together to create something magnificent and I want to commend the members of CalSol for their hard work. I also want to offer profound thanks to our sponsors for all that they have done to make our car possible.
And as much as I've tried to hide it, I should admit that the team who narrowly beat us in the stock class was none other than our archrival, Stanford. It hurts me a bit to say it, but they ran a great race, and though we lost out, our heated competition within NASC 2005 will serve as a stellar example of what makes our rivalry so great.
Without waxing poetic any further, let me simply reiterate two messages. To those who helped us do this: thank you. To those who slaved to do this: well done.
Greg