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Information on this blog is raw and sometimes unverified reporting straight from the road by teams. The event will issue a media release for any events requiring an official notification.

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Sunday, September 25, 2005

Aurora: 25 September, Day 1

This year we had a new starting procedure, with solar cars and support cars sent off from the Supreme Court square at one-minute intervals. It worked well.

At the last set of traffic lights before the highway veers left towards Alice Springs, our chase car stopped for a red light. When they got going again, they missed the turn to Alice Springs and headed towards Perth. Fortunately, we were able to put our lead car behind the solar car and use TIGA's chase car as our lead car until we got our wayward chase car back.

By the outskirts of Darwin, we had passed Formosun and TIGA. Michigan were still ahead.

By 10.00 we were cruising at 105km/h. Nuna overtook us.

Mid morning, the clouds started rolling in.

Just outside Katherine, we caught up to another solar car (Nuna?) at roadworks. But we then got stuck at the lights for 5 minutes.

At the Katherine stop, we were about 8 minutes behind Michigan and 4 minutes behind Nuna. TIGA and Formosun are right behind us.

At 12:30 we passed Michigan, who where changing a tyre by the side of the road.

Michigan passed us again at 14:00. The sky is almost clear again.

We arrived in Dunmarra behind Nuna and Michigan, with TIGA right behind us and Formosun not far behind.

We finished the day 16km south of Elliot, further than we have ever gone before on day one of the WSC.