The format for the Alice Springs Control Stop was not known by officials or the Teams until 5:30 on Tuesday evening. The way it worked is that when we arrived at 11am on Wednesday morning the first 6 challenge class teams had at least 2 hours of charge time (and as much as 10 hours of charge time) while Teams that arrived after only got 30 minutes of charging. The first 3 Challenge Class teams were spaced out the distance they arrived and then each car after that was spaced out in 10 minute intervals. Challenge Class Teams arriving after that treated it as a normal control stop. Basically the slowest cars were allowed the least charge time and the fastest cars were given the most charge time.
Today we are just outside of Cadney Homestead and teams like Nuon got here at 1:54pm, while Umicore arrived at 3:20 in the afternoon. Continuum arrived later than them, but we had to drive another 220km this morning just to reach Alice Springs. It took us 5 hours and 43 minutes to get to our stopping point from Alice Springs, meaning that we should arrive in Cadney Homestead in 6 hours and 15 minutes. Despite setbacks and only running on half of a battery pack's charge, Continuum is keeping pace with even the lead cars. In general, the crew is focused on regaining ground and is extremely proud to see Continuum making so much progress in such a short amount of time. It’s one thing to build a fast Team, but to have a Team who can take on a challenge this great, clear it, and still be so fast is incredible to be a part of. It’s almost impossible to prepare for what happened on Day 1 despite thousands of miles of testing in light and heavy traffic. To have rebuilt Continuum overnight is fascinating to see. We look to arrive in Adelaide at midday on Friday and we are eager to see how Continuum will perform over the next 2 days.
Go Fast, Go Smooth, Go Blue!