Today was the best day so far. The car had a total of 11 minutes off the road, which was for a driver change and wheel check. For what had to be done, 11 minutes is quite good, so we were pretty happy.
We had cloud cover for most of the day, from when we left Tennant Creek, until two hours before Alice. We kept a constant 60km/h, and passed a few teams along the way.
The drive into Alice was absolutely stunning, our car building up speed down the hills, and handling like an absolute dream. It has definitely the best driving of the trip so far.
On arrival into Alice we set up the array to charge, and went to find the time boards.
The picture says it all really,
We are coming 4th in Adventure class, and 10th overall! The team was absolutely over the moon. We are two and a quarter hours behind the next car in our class, so it’s unlikely that we’ll make 3rd, but we’ll be chasing as hard as we can anyway. Due to the stopover in Alice, we’ll be leaving half an hour behind them, so we might pass them on the road, but they’ll still have a major time advantage.
The atmosphere in Alice Springs is great – all the teams are here, and camped together overnight, the Dutch team Nuna, who are currently coming first, had a swimming pool set up, and there are showers!
Tomorrow morning the Challenge class will leave, starting with Nuna, at 8am, followed by the Belgian team, Umicore, at 9.22. The Adventure class will start to leave at midday, at intervals of half an hour. The team that was coming first overall, the Japanese car TIGA, will leave first in our class. They also have a chance of catching up the first Challenge class vehicles, and both Nuna and Umicore have had some minor troubles that have cost them some time, so it should make for an interesting finish.
We needed our sleeping bags for the first time tonight, as it’s started getting a little chilly.
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| Our Placing At Alice Springs |
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| Our Descent into Alice Springs |
