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27 October 1996: Day 1
We rose at 4:30am after getting to bed at 2:00am.

The car was unpacked and on the grid at about 6:00am. About one third of the cars were already on the grid, all the top teams (except Aurora).

Dot was the first driver. The start went OK with a car not starting in front of us delaying us slightly. In the first couple of kilometres Sunswift passed many cars but unfortunately the Bus got stuck behind the slower solar cars and did not catch up to the solar car for some time. 26 minutes from the start we had our first blow out.

Tyre changed in < 3 mins with minimal crew (we usually have two more vehicles of people to lift the car and change wheels). We passed many more cars but Tokai University were difficult to get by because of the masses of traffic in either direction.

Scattered cloud made solar insulation levels low with the car running mostly on batteries (until Katherine). Our strategy (if you would call it that) was to run our lowest gear ratio at full speed until the first driver change (planned to be the top of Hayes Creek Hill, the steepest part of the 3000km race).

Continued to pass many cars. Passed Lake Tuggeranong College just before Adelaide River. At the top of Hayes Creek Hill a media car pulled in front of the solar car and Dot had to brake and turn the power right down. Ako freaked, John freaked, everyone who saw it freaked. There was all sorts of abuse hurled in their direction because we were all fearing that the car would not have the momentum to get up the hill! We passed Mitsubishi on the side of the road with motor problems (although they passed us later in the day).

A bit further on we changed all three wheels and Driver, taking 3mins (the best time we did in practice was eight minutes). The next stop was a ten minute media stop at Katherine, which was extremely rushed. We lost our small toolbox for changing wheels, sprockets, etc. Meg drove for the rest of the day and we finished up at Larrimah.

Had the best camp site of any team that night being in the middle of a cricket ground (with a pub next door). Travelled 495km which was good considering the conditions (cloudy and hilly). Battery capacity at end of day one < 5% but we were happy. We were in seventh place with Waseda camped about 50m behind us. We got a very good charge from the morning and afternoon periods.

Several other teams visited us during the night. Most of us got to bed early for a change.

28 October 1996: Day 2
We got away well in the morning, having to shoo a peacock out of the path of the car at the start. Our second tyre blew out at 8:30, front taking 4 minutes to fix (changed only the front).

At 9:10 the brake calliper fell off. It took 30 minutes to make some new bolts up to size (John learnt the value of loctite). This was our first real time off the road in the whole trip including practice, so it was pretty frustrating. Had second gear on, which would give us speeds of up to 75km/h. The weather was looking very good. Waseda University were rolling backwards as we passed them. At 1:30pm we changed driver and wheel but only drove about 50m before the chain fell off. It took a long time to fix as it was very fiddly.

Meagan drove until the end of the day. At About 3:30 the Strategy Team decided to go for Tennant Creek, which we would just make by our estimates of average speed required and available power. It was very tense in the bus as the time got shorter, the sun got lower, and the power went down. At about 4:45pm Matt made the decision to pull back as the batteries were low and there are some reasonable gradients just before the town. So we camped near a dead donkey 10km out. (NOT by choice!)

The site had a windmill and a huge expanse of flat ground - quite a good spot. That night went to Tennant creek and got some supplies. Started to notice that the front wheels were packing it in.

29 October 1996: Day 3
John started the day by taking pictures of the dead donkey with the solar car in the background. He now believes this cursed us for the rest of the day.

Left on time getting a full charge in the batteries (had to tilt the array away from the sun as batteries full). Day 3 weather was perfect for solar car racing, clear blue skies all day. Dot started the day and we charged into Tennant creek.

Got there at 8:12am and left 30mins later (batteries were once again full). We drove into a slight headwind thus playing havoc with Ako's strategy At 9:09am tragedy again with the right axle snapping. The car careered across the road, into a ditch and ended up coming to rest against a tree. The whole team pretty much freaked but it was stunned silence. Dot was OK which was the main thing.

We replaced the broken axle and bearings but amazingly there was no other damage (the array was OK even with a branch poking into it). While we were on the side of the road Waseda passed us but we didn’t have time to worry.

At 11:09am we changed another front wheel which had broken spokes. At this stage we had one front wheel left. Drove until about 2:07pm when we changed the front tyre instead of swapping wheels. Restarted at 2:17pm - that tyre blew-out and bulged off the rim at 2:21pm - hitting the brakes burred up the front rim. Rolf and Ben filed the rim back until it was ok, taking 48mins.

The rest of the day was very frustrating. We were not prepared to risk the last, damaged rim at full speed so we travelled at 50km/h instead. John spent about 1hour on the Satphone organising new rims and to get them respoked in Alice Springs. The rims were couriered that night from Sydney They arrived at Alice via Adelaide that morning. George met them at the airport and took them to the bikeshop at 6:30am. Sascha meanwhile travelled into Alice Springs with a good rim and hub to get respoked that night.

The Aurora team arrived (they called us on the Satphone and asked us if it was OK). Many of the team discussed the problems with them ie. breaking front wheels etc.
The girls went into town that night to have a shower (also to pick up our good front wheel). On the way back Georgie (who was driving) hit a kangaroo destroying the radiator in the 4WD. Fortunately they were OK and were able to get a lift back to the camp. The Prado was left there and shipped back to Sydney the next day. We had to press on, now towing the race trailer with the Longreach.

30 October 1996: Day 4
We had to turn our array off for the last hour before leaving, because our batteries were fully charged. Seeing a constant 1000W of power going to waste due to mechanical problems is a depressing sight. If you can’t store the power, you get punished twice for unreliability. Dot drove for the relatively short run into Alice Springs, reaching 94km/h on the way. Queens University pulled into the media stop just as we were leaving but by the end of the day we had left them in our dust.

Meg drove from Alice to Erldunda, where we were overtaken by NTU Desert Rose while changing drivers to Georgie. We maintained a constant 70km/h for the rest of the shift.

Changed drivers to El, all very uneventfully which was a relief after the day of the donkey. Continued on at speed until the end of the day. Only two minutes on unscheduled stops (the only time we stopped was after a driver change John forgot to do up the chain adjuster). Our new set of front wheels seemed to exhibit the same poor quality as the last ones, so we were hoping luck would be on our side.

Camped at a cattle grid, 14km north of Marla. After tilting the array we all relaxed and ate some watermelon. This ended up as a pip and watermelon fight. We were fortunate to meet Klaus and Nitay, two German cyclists. Klaus, we found out owned a bike store in Germany. That night he trued the wheels, front and back. We had to grind 4mm off the back of the calliper due to the new wheel spoking pattern. Other work was done but nothing too major.

31 October 1996: Day 5
First media stop at Cadney Homestead, which resulted in a spectacular stop in which the brakes failed to operate properly. Ingo had set the lifting arms up and was preparing to stop the solar car when the brakes didn't work properly. Georgie slammed into the lifting arms, nearly taking out Ingo in the process. Although this was rather dramatic the bus didn't seem to care and thought it was rather amusing. She wasn't so amused, however.

The next driver change was at 1:56pm. We also changed the driver wheel and chose a lower gear. The weather was beginning to turn ugly.

Later that afternoon we passed under a large low front. The power dropped to literally nothing and we ran on batteries alone. Our strategy was to run the motor efficiently at a decent speed and outrun the clouds. We were moderately successful, compared to the teams behind us. During this day we obtained our highest power, 1640W. This was in broken cloud where we got direct sunshine plus diffused sunlight.

Camp was set up at a truck stop which gave us adequate clearance (it was starting to get more dense with shrubs etc.). Klaus along with our friends from Purdue University redrilled and respoked another front wheel. Got a reasonable charge under bad conditions. The team must have started to get frustrated with many unusual events happening: shaving cream fight, chain massage, Bruce and Michael causing bushfires and all this being filmed (maybe we're just TV junkies).

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01 November 1996: Day 6
Starting 40km north of Glendambo the weather was looking terrible. We eventually arrived at 8:49am not cracking a terrible pace. We were trying to conserve as much battery capacity as possible in case the conditions deteriorated.

The next driver change was at 12:29pm. We were holding 9th place with no cars 100km in either direction. The pace was slow and the crew were bored. The result was grid warfare in which the occupants of the scout car getting pelted with random food bits etc. at grids. Rolf that afternoon was driving the van, towing the trailer, when a gust of wind hit. The result was the trailer was sent into a death wobble at 70km/h which grew until the trailer jack-knifed into the car. Luckily they were able to replace the bolts which broke and set off again.

The rest of the day was incident free. We camped near Mambray Creek fuel station on a side road with the weather looking atrocious. There was no sun and the batteries were nearly dead. The forecast for the next day was for much of the same, and we were getting worried being only 250km from Adelaide. Most of us had our first shower that night for the whole race with the service station opening themselves to us. It was quite a relief but we all lost our pseudo tan which turned out to be crusted on red dust.

02 November 1996: Day 7
The finale - the day of the flying pig!
Our observer was woken up at 7:00am with sun beaming on the array. A break in the clouds had appeared and we were once again charging our batteries. The observer, who the day before stated that the only way we were going to charge was if pigs could fly, was left wondering why God was smiling on us.

At 8:10am our luck changed with the right side axle breaking for the second time. The car, travelling at a slower speed this time, slid on the wheel fairing but came to rest still on the road. 17 minutes later we were once again away with Georgie still at the tiller.

11:29am saw our last driver change with El taking over for the run home. We were finally coming to realising that we were going to finish the race. The last few hours were spent organising how much beer and champagne to order. The weather had turned good and we were charging our batteries, unable to use all the available power. The run into Adelaide caused no problems - until the finish.

Crossing the official time line was no problem, however, crossing the finish line proved a drama. Slowing down to take the bump, the ensuing hill caused the car to stop, having not enough torque. El, after fixing the problem was able to cross the line and take the chequered flag (9th place overall, 2nd in the Lead Acid class and 3rd Australian team).

Champagne flowed freely, probably too freely, smoke belched from the tyre proving that solar cars could do burnouts and most of the team ended up in the duck pond. The rest of the time in Adelaide was extremely relaxing, sharing anecdotes with all of the other teams, just enjoying the satisfaction of finishing the race in the top ten!

Overall the trip was an excellent one. Two cars, one roo, two dinted trailers, a dinted solar car, 50 tyre blow outs, numerous cuts, bruisers and wounds, but it was all worth it many times over. Do it again - you bet!

The World Solar Challenge Route: