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Today's stage took us from Mildura to Charlton. There was frantic action at the start line when our wheel motor wouldn't turn. As we let the other teams past we tried our spare motor controller first, then discovered that the problem was with the Hall effect sensors in the wheel which detect the speed of the wheel and the position of the windings relative to the magnets. When we pulled the motor apart we found that the sensor cable had been unplugged accidentally when the tyre was changed the previous evening.
Despite passing the start line 25 minutes late we didn't lose any time in the race since the start of timing was outside the town. We soon caught up with and passed the slower electric vehicles. From there it was fairly easy driving on the undulating road. We pulled into the first control stop at Ouyen and tilted our array to the sun to get a bit more charge in the batteries.
The next leg was fairly uneventful, and we pulled into Sea Lake to be greeted by eager school children who crowded around the car to see what was inside it. We followed Chisolm's Blue International Eagle out of the control stop, and it wasn't too long before we caught and overtook them, but we burnt a fair amount of energy to do so. Our driver had an interesting moment when a willy-willy picked up UNSW Sunswift II and put it down a few feet to the right.
As we approached the end of the leg at Charlton we again struck battery problems again, though thankfully right at the end of timing. We were able to use our momentum to get almost to the finish line, stopping short about 10m short on the grass. The problem was sorted, and our car rolled slowly through the finish line.
Willy The Whale
Willy!
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