Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday All Done!

Firstly a correction has to be made to an earlier Blog entry in which I stated that Tokai had crashed on day one (I officially apologise to Tokai for my error, at the time I believed that this information was correct). In fact it was Umicore who basically totalled their car on day one. I guess this is an example of the rumour and "Chinese whispers" that the teams at the rear of the field receive, there is no one official who can tell us the facts and information about what happens at the top of the field, rumour gets past from observers to teams and to observers and so on.

Thursday night we stay in the Underground Backpackers in Coober Pedy. The temperature 10m underground is cool and for the first time I need my sleeping bag to stay warm. Up early again (thanks to Rick Astley set as some ones alarm tone, waking me) but others have beaten me to the array and it's already set up for the morning charge, well before the sun peaks over the horizon.

We elect to put some extra charge in the batteries. The sun doesn't help us much early in the morning unless you can point the array at it, so rather than use the charge we have stored in the batteries, driving early, we wait for the sun to get higher in the sky when it is much more useful for driving. We want to maximise on road solar kilometres and the solar car leaves at 9:00am. We tow the solar car a couple of k's back to the control stop. There is a big hill that I don't want the solar car to climb I don't want to risk heating the motor and I definitely don't want to take precious charge from the batteries. I push Trent off and walk back to the camp.

This morning I will ride in the bus, the basic plan is that those left in Coober Pedy will finish packing and then catch up with the solar car whilst it solars toward Adelaide. We will then swap and I will drive rear support down to Port Augusta after we have solared as much as possible. We have to be in Port Augusta by 5:00pm solar time.

In 2005 when I spent time on the bus we had a flat tyre (inside rear) which we had to change it was a big job and took quite some time. When I get back to camp I find the bus has a flat battery Doh!!!! We un-hitch the trailer an I roll it out of the car park, which is fortunately down hill and doubly so the bus is pointing in the right direction, a brief push by the team to get me rolling and the bus starts easily. We decide to have the local auto electrician to check that it is charging. Our auto electrician is driving the solar car and my multi-meter is in the solar car trailer, just in front of solar car. The auto electrician checks that the bus is charging and suspects something was left on (other than Engel fridges) all night draining the batteries. We turn it off and then start it again to check that it starts, we decide its best to do it here where the auto electrician is, it's all good.

We pick up the support team and head off to chase down the solar car. We catch it about 90 km south of Cober Pedy and they tell me that motor or controller has cut out a couple of times. We swap drivers, Leonie jumps in the bus with Peter and they head off to Port Augusta. We choose to solar some more and the car goes really, really well, there's no sign of the problems the team had earlier in the day. We are now in the situation that the car is running really well and I could see us clocking up over 250km for the day (maybe more) but our hand is forced by the shortening of the event and the rules that forced us to spend lots of time in the trailer to make check points rather than being allowed to solar. As we tick over 141 km for the day which also marks 950 km for the challenge we decide that we'll trailer the rest of the day. We are about 350km from Port Augusta and it is now 1:30pm.

I am disappointed we have had to stop, the car is running really reliably and we are fairly confident that we have ironed out all of the crinkles. In the last challenge we still would have had another day and a half to go and we could have beaten our past total easily. I console myself in the fact that if I do some simple maths i.e divide this years total by the number of days, and divide last challenge total by the number of days, on a kilometre per day comparison we have beaten our previous best. It's still not quite the same.

We put the car in the trailer and head toward Port Augusta. On our drive we listen to each of the occupant's music the styles vary greatly, I also reflect on what we might have been able to achieve if we had 1 or 2 more days and if the event organisers had relaxed the control stop rules earlier. It is a long drive and the scenery is unremarkable lots of flats, no hills, no trees and nothing out standing on the horizon. We pass the occasional salt lake which breaks up the scenery. Lester our observer, is on his first World Solar Challenge and tells us that this is what he has come to see. He mentions the changes of scenery as we have travelled south and is in awe of whatever he sees.

We stop at Glendambo for a break and I buy some classic roadhouse food, the first for the journey and then remember why I have avoided doing so until now. I casually ask if they have seen a bus load of Leeming kids go by. They say "oh yeah they went through about half an hour ago, but they'll be back soon" I enquire as to why and they say they didn't pay for fuel and their boss is chasing them down in his car. I ask if they can contact their boss and suggest that if they didn't pay it was an honest error and I am happy to pay now. They contact the boss, he hasn't left he was simply going to call the police. I pay the bill and all is okay. It turns out however that it was the attendant's mistake. He watched Peter fuel the bus then come in and purchase some water and food. Peter handed over his card and the attendant only charged him for the food and water. On ward to Port Augusta.

7 km from Port Augusta we see Heliox (Swiss) solaring at around 20 km/h, their batteries are dead flat and they are desperate to make 1000km for the trip. As we pass we flick to their radio channel and wish them well. We make Port Augusta at about 5:09pm, it is windy here, and if I hadn't been here in 2007 in extreme conditions I would have said very windy. It was windy here in 2005 too. We meet the clerk of course who tells us we need to be in Adelaide tomorrow before 12:00, he says not to worry about sitting for the ½ hour control stop and to just take a time penalty. I wasn't planning to wait another half hour. Peter calls ahead to Port Pirie and is told the wind is calm and there is plenty of camping spots available, we go.

When we get to Port Pirie the park owners allow us to stay for free, Heliox also end up here and they stay for free too. It is dusk and the team, after reversing trailers and busses into the camp spot, go about setting up camp. I have my first attempt at putting up one of the tents, I fail miserably and gain an extra appreciation of the work that the support crew have been doing. Some of our younger team members take great pleasure in pointing out where I went wrong in trying to put up the tent. Within half an hour or so the camp is set and the BBQ is cooking up the last of our food, I am very impressed with the team effort, everyone has worked well and things run smoothly. Dinner is a mish-mash of baked beans, tinned spaghetti, eggs, bacon, ham and toast followed up by tinned fruit, we won't need food in Adelaide so we are trying to finish up what's left. No one complains and all the food gets eaten.

Everyone is tired and there is no need for a dawn charge tomorrow so we might be able to sleep past the sun coming over the horizon. 5:00 AM Rick Astley joins the camp with "Never Gonna Give You Up." The student who owns the phone desperately tries to turn it off but by now is fearing for his own existence, for two days in a row many team members and I have been subjected to Rick at 5:00am.

Eventually the rest of the camp rises and we pack up and head off on the final leg into Adelaide. We make it around 10:40am (11:40 civil time) and line up for the ceremonial drive over the finish line. Rhys does the honours. The team bar three, jump in the electric solar bus which ferries team members from Torrens parade ground to Victoria Square, the others jump into the pilot vehicle and call traffic conditions to Rhys via radio. The driver is impressed that our car still has the legs to climb the hill to the finish line. He says many have had to push their car the 2km's up hill. I think of the extra solar kilometres we could have done with what is left in the batteries.

The bus drops the team and we walk behind Rhys over the finish line. Willetton and some of our team members' parents are already here and provide a huge cheer for us as we cross the line. I am very impressed with Willetton and am pleased with how many kilometres they have done, 906. At the beginning of the Challenge Darren told me he would be happy with 750. Photos are taken Batteries are scrutineered and our car is put on display. We head back into town to set up the final camp site, a backpacker's hostel, right in the heart of the city at the western end of the Rundle Mall.

Saturday night we all head to the convention centre for the official closing ceremony and awards. Team members carry extra shirts to swap with others, this is a solar car racing tradition and is probably a much more important part of the evening to many of the participants of the challenge than the awards presentation. We sit through the awards, eco cars first and I count 11 awards for the 17 eco entrants. There are about 9 awards including place getters for the 32 solar cars that participated in the challenge. In past years each team was acknowledged and team managers were presented with participant awards in front of the group. This year it was simply mentioned at the end that teams could pick up their participants memento in the corner of the room.

After the ceremony all team members moved to a large room where the frenetic shirt swapping begin and soon it was difficult to know which team member was from which team. Our team eventually heads off to subway for dinner, but I am keen to talk to a few people whom I have met over the past 4 years. I get the chance to congratulate Dave Snowdon and UNSW on their challenge class (silicon) win and speak with many of the observers, scrutineers and team members from other teams. I guess an unofficial debrief of sorts.

I eventually leave and catch up with the team at Subway however I now seem to have team members from Michigan, Turkey, Japan, Malaysia, France, Germany and England as they are all wearing their new prized shirts.

We retire for the evening.


Sunday, clean bus, pack up trailers, throw out rubbish collect others discarded solar car tyres (some brand new), electrical bits and pieces etc… I pick up Hedgie from the airport and take him to see the remaining cars on display before he heads off on his journey back to Perth driving the bus.



Monday relaxing day before heading to the airport at 3:00 to catch our 5:15 flight home. All is well and we all make it home safely. I am sure many heads hit the pillow not long after getting home. We are done for 2009.





Solar kilometres for 2009

• Sunday 25 Oct 163km Katherine overnightMonday 26 Oct 181km Renner Springs Over night
• Tuesday 27 Oct 65km Alice Springs over night
  (Tuesday 27 Oct trailered long distance in dust storms and strong head winds).
• Wednesday 28 Oct 187km Kulgera Road house over night
• Thursday 29 Oct 213km Coober Pedy Underground back packers.
• Friday 30 Oct 141km Port Pirie Caravan Park over night
  (Had to stop solaring at 1:30pm to make Port Augusta by 5:00pm)
• Saturday 31 Oct 2km Adelaide 2 km to official finish not counted in total.

Total 950 solar km
2071 diesel km

Oct 27 - 28 - 29

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday

On Monday afternoon after putting a little charge in the batteries we solar forward from Mataranka.  As we drive, around 50km/h we discuss our options.  In 2009 the world solar challenge has been shortened by 2 days.  And if you are not one of the top ten teams it is actually shortened by 2 and a half days as solar cars are not allowed to proceed past port Augusta after 1100AM on Friday. A note the World Solar Challenge is staying on solar time and not Daylight saving time in S.A.  

This year the control stop times have also been shortened and teams must make controls stops to stay in the challenge.  This presents us with a dilemma.  We have to make the stops but we also need to solar.  We calculate how long it will take us to get to the next stop before it closes and we discuss the value of spending a long time in the trailer to get ahead on the race so we can get some solar time in.   

We are still solaring as we discuss the options.  There is reasonably strong head wind and this is making our going slow.   We decide to put the car in the trailer and  go ahead to control stop at Dunmarra 163 solar km today.  As we get closer to Dunmarra I see dust in the air and the head wind seems to be picking up.  I have thoughts of 2007 when dust filled the air and we crawled into Glendambo being pushed by the wing but with little visibility and no power from the sun. as we travel we also see many other cars who are thinking the same as us and they are all trailering to Glendambo.  A Truck driver travelling North, talks to us and tells us of a huge dust storm that he has driven through.  This might make our decision to trailer forward tomorrow easier.  We do our Control stop, say goodbye to our observer Colin and Pick up John, we have enough time to go ahead to Renner Springs to camp the night.  When we get here we discover that there are about eight teams here and all have done the maths that we need to be here to make the next stop at Tennant Creek.

Tuesday Morning,

It has been a windy night and the tent Morgan and I are in has blown over.  I suspect some sabotage as no when else's tent has blown over. 

We set up the arrays for a morning charge and tie them down.  The wind is strong  from the south and the dust is thick in the air.  We drive south as we have decided there is no point solaring because there is a huge head wind and the sun will struggle to penetrate the dust laden atmosphere.  We stop at Tennant Creek, drop off John and pick up David.  John has not done any solar kilometres with us but we have had some very interesting discussions about solar cars and his collection of fossil cars back in the UK.  We head to Alice, the air is beginning to clear but the head wind is still strong.   65 km from Alice we set down, the sky is now clear the wind has dropped and it's down hill into Alice.  The car goes well and apart for a ridiculously stupid over taking manoeuvre performed on us by a Japanese team the ride to Alice is smooth.

Navigating through Alice Springs is tricky, and we have a pretty good idea of the town lay out.  We make it even though there is a small error in the route notes.  I do pity teams that have limited English and those that have not been here before. I am sure there will be teams that get lost.

We pick up our new observer Lester, and say goodbye to David.

Our batteries are really low and we grab the last of the afternoon sun before we make camp at the caravan park we have visited twice before.  65 Solar Km for today.

Wednesday.

We charge our car and let it charge till about 10:30am. I speak to the Clerk of Course and then ring the Event Director to see if we are able to miss more than one of the control stop so we can spend some more time on the road solaring accumulating precious solar kilometres.  He is sympathetic to my (and many other teams) plight but suggests we try to maximise our solaring opportunity within the rules of the challenge.  We then go and serve our remaining 12 minutes at the control stop before trailering to the top of a hill about 30k's out of Alice and then solar.  The car runs well and we get 187 km's for the day.  Again we have to make control stop so we have to trailer into Kulgera.  We get in at 12 to 5  there are five or six other times already here and three or four more roll in some after 5  some teams are distressed that they have missed control (some only by 2 minutes) and are effectively out of the race as this is the second stop they have missed. 

An hour or so later a Red Shirt calls a meeting with all team managers  at the camp and explains that event organisers have relaxed the rules a little to allow the many teams at this end of the field  to miss control stops and maximise solaring but we must be in Adelaide on Sat by 12 noon.

Thursday.

We charge till nine and with good sun last night our batteries approach half full.  We have a breeze at our tail and the sun is shinning. 9:00am off we go.  No we don't, a faulty brake switch prevents us from taking off.  In short the car goes well a total of 213km Pizza for dinner and a cool underground bed. 

809km for the challenge so far.

Friday our last day to solar lets see what we can do.

John Beattie
Leeming SHS Solar Car Team

Sitting at Mataranka

Currently 1145am sitting at mataranka to replenish batteries, will leave here at 1200 to make next control at Dunmarra.

Car running well motor cooler but batteries low from yesterday

Hot Hot Hot

Up early sundy 4:30am

The car needs to be on the grid between 5:30 and 6:30.

From Past experience we have learned it is best to get there early otherwise it is bedlam.

We are first on the grid we sit and wait.

8:39 we leave Darwin city traffic is horrible we sit on mitchell st for 10 mins before we get on to the Stuart Highway.

For 40 km all is well with onlookers cheering as we pass. We also pass several cars who have already had problems. Then our car stops. It is hot i mean the temperature is hot the car is hot and the motor is very hot. For a moment I fear that this is our race. we summise that the motor has overheated and I cling to the vain hope that as Doug has suggested the motor has an inbuilt Thermal cut out. after about 10 min the motor spins up. My heart starts again.

We are now aware that we are suffering from a motor that is getting way too hot. so we can now work around this . We ar pushing into a very strong head wind and the car is struggling so are other teams. At every stop we cool the motor with a water spray and keep the motor fan running. We have decided that we can't make Hayes Creek hill but we can beat last times day one record beyond Adelaide River.

During the day the motor cuts out twice more and we end up with 181 solar km and 137 trailered.

We make Katherine by trailer and there are about ten teams here, many have done less that us a Canadian team has only done 51km's. We hear tha Aurora have had a blow out and this resulted in them having to repair their car and restart at Katherine. Tokai Uni [Editor: That is Umicar Inspire from Umicore, Belgium] is out having been pushed off the road by a huge gust of wind, and the resulting crash has destroyed there car. The driver is fine.

We will start at 8 while it is cool and there is no wind. We think we have 3/4 in our batteries this is a guestimate.

5 to 8 off we go stay tuned.

John Beattie
Leeming Solar Car team.

Ready to go!

Friday and Saturday Oct 23 and 24.

The last two days have seemed to Blur into one .

We finish rebuilding the battery pack and in a couple of hours we are ready to do some laps.

Tom laps and on his second lap after being baulked by another solar car travelling slower than him he slows and the car stops. We have to tow back down the drag strip and across the track at the end of the pit lane. Peter S helps us by clearing the track so we can cross.

We find the problem, an Anderson connector that has not been pushed in firmly has worked its way loose with vibration. Phew and easy fix. We do some more laps, we are happy with the car's performance and we set up ready to go tomorrow.

Sat. Tom, Doug and I get to the track around 7:30 the other drivers arrive at 5 to 8 and we go to the driver briefing. 8:45 Peter S walks past I say we are ready. He says get your driver in and go, we do.

We sit at the end of the pit lane waiting for our partnered car but it doesn't show so Trent ends up going round the track by himself. Leeming is first on the track and Leeming is the first car to Qualify and be registered for the World Solar Challenge. For the rest of the day we charge the batteries and pack up.

During the day Aurora posted the fasted lap and whilst trying to beat them Unicore from Belgium slides their car off the track and breaks the front suspension. We hear later in the day that they fix their car but have another crash trying to beat Aurora's time. This is rumour passed on by the Nuna team. We will confirm this morning on the grid.

It is currently 5:00am many team support crews staying here have already left we will take the car to the start grid at 5:30am.

Adelaide here we come.

Thur Oct 23 - Scrutineering

Up early and take a small crew of three, Ellie, Roxy and Kirsty and I go out to the track to get the car ready for scrutineering. We remove the tape from the battery boxes and I remove the charging wires from the batteries. The drivers arrive minus Doug to practice ingress and egress. The boys easily manage to get in and out in the 15 sec allowed, this includes fastening the seat belt. Car goes in the trailer and off we go to Foskey pavilion at the show grounds.

We are the second car for the day, I get the team organised and signed on then we bring the car in. Stickers on and photo taken, next the weigh in. 310kg, heavier than I thought, but their weighing method is not precise as they only have two scales and can only weigh half the car at a time.

Next ingress and egress but we have to wait for Cambridge University, They struggle to demonstrate that they can get in and out in 15 seconds. We do it easily. Next a mechanical check. No problems, now NT licensing, they suggest we cover some of the brake lines with duct where they pass through the Ayres composite panel, that's an easy fix.

Now electrical, it seems I should have read more into that rule affecting the charging wires coming out of the batteries. It also means that we need to have the batteries isolated at the battery box and no "live" wires can come from the battery. This will cause us quite some work and we may struggle to find the parts needed in Darwin. Doug I will end up spending some hours talking through the problem and a particularly helpful guy, Denis at Delta electronics helps us work through it and sends us to where we can get some appropriate circuit breakers. Our solution will be a mechanical one with pull wires to the outside of the car and to the driver.

Next we go to battery scrutineering and we are done.

Back to the track and work on the car.

We don't quite get the batteries finished, we head back to camp. The team except for my self heads to Mindle beach markets. I get some washing done and watched the News, ABC TV cameras visited our car today and took quite a bit of footage, There was nothing on the news. By the time the team gets back from the markets I am ready for bed.

Friday get car finished do some laps start preparing for the journey South.

Stay tuned.

John Beattie
Leeming SHS
Solar Car Team.

Vist to St Johns and Preparing for scrutineering

Wed Oct 22.

This morning we visit St John's College this afternoon we will need to get the car ready for scrutineering. A few of us head out to Hidden Valley to do a little work on the car prior to taking it St John's for the visit, we are keen to get the telemetry going. When we get there we have forgotten the laptop with the Bluetooth dongle in it. I go back to get it. Fortunately peak hour traffic in Darwin is not so peak and I make the 15km round trip in good time.

When I get back the trailer is washed and the car is lined up with ramps I throw the Bluetooth to Doug and go about moving trailers to hook the Hilux onto the the solar car trailer. We check the lights and only the brake lights work, I fiddle with, pull plugs apart, check cable joins but still only brake lights. Ross arrives and we decide that he will follow the car and be our indicators. Radios allow us to tell Ross when we are changing lanes etc…

We get to St Johns and enjoy Morning tea and mingling with the student leadership team before meeting the rest of the school. Our students talk to theirs and we take a couple of them for a spin on their oval. I feel the morning has been a success and we head back to the track.

In the afternoon the team gets busy with the car, brakes are a concern and group work together to solve that problem. It seems joins in brake lines that were connected two years ago need to be revisited. Telemetry is now working, not sure why but Doug can't seem to break it so lets hope it works tomorrow. We apply mandatory stickers, check tyres, hook up head lights and collect and sort safety equipment. We go through a mental list with the team making sure we haven't forgotten any thing. In the evening we re-read the rules to make sure that we have not overlooked anything. I discover that the way I have set up the batteries for external charging contravenes one of the rules so I will have to change that first thing in the morning.

Hamburgers for Dinner, The patties made in the Girls room and I cook them in ours. Nuna have beaten us to the BBQ tonight. We beat them to it last night.

Scrutineering tomorrow 9:30am at Foskey Pavilion. Stay tuned.

John Beattie
Leeming Solar Car Team.

Wow what a dinner!

Tuesday Oct 20

We are all up at a reasonable time and I get the opportunity to speak to Eoin Cameron on Breakfast Radio in Perth. It's 7:45 here so I am on the radio at 6:15 at home. He has been a very keen supporter of our project and generally gives us a few calls during the challenge.

After breakfast the team heads out to the track to do a bit more work on the car, telemetry being the major thing we need to get sorted today. There are a lot more people at the track today and we have lots of visitors. Michigan come by and check out our car along with some one from Japan TV asking if they can take some video of us and ask some questions (we might be on TV in Japan). David Rand also drops by and we get a choice of time for scrutineering, 9:30 am Thursday.

Yesterday we got some software emailed from John Treen which allows us to monitor the current use, battery temp, cabin and motor temp and voltage amongst other things and after a cal to John at 9:00am 7:30 Perth time (sorry John) we get a small but vital piece of info and telemetry works. We then decide to move the position of telemetry system in the car to a safer location I am concerned that it might get bashed and broken when we are installing batteries.

We do this and head back to camp for lunch I go and get some supplies from Jaycar, amazingly the first trip to Jaycar whilst we've been here, in past years I would have been to Jaycar 10 times by now (that's not an exaggeration). I then go and pick up Morgan, Trent and Tom from the airport. Back to the Alatai for more lunch Morgan's hungry, surprise, surprise. After eating we head out to the track for more track testing.

We put batteries in the car and fire it up with the hope that we will be able to receive telemetry whilst we do a lap around the track but the telemetry won't work. The car side of things is okay and the laptop can see the car but we suspect Windows is and issue, Doug mumbles some words of the effect, "Bloody Windows Blah Blah Blah."

We manage a couple of laps without telemetry but rely on Tom to relay some numbers from the displays to get some idea of what's going on in the car.

Some of us stay till after 6 trying to solve the problem, Doug talks to John for quite some time trying to work it out, we try various reboots and different sequences, we try different laptops and many other options within the network software, but eventually we are beaten and we head home. I turn on to Tiger Brennan Drive and Doug asks if I turned the car off, I can't remember so we do a quick u turn and go back, the car was still on.

We get back to camp and James ahs been busy preparing tempura vegies and prawns. We also have some fish fillets Morgan crumbs them and I cook them on the BBQ. Dinner is sensational. James has out done himself and I suspect that we've probably had the best meal of the trip. James has worked like a trouper to get this meal prepared and then cooks it all. A huge effort. I ask James if he'd consider being a chef. No! is the answer.

Tomorrow we head off to St John's School to show of the solar car and get the car ready for scrutineering in the afternoon.

More updates to follow.

John Beattie
Leeming Solar Car Team.

Mon 19 Oct running smoothly (touch wood)

I get up early as usual, there are plenty of things that need to be done, whilst I know the car is here and safely locked in the pits at Hidden Valley, I still haven't seen it and it hasn't been out of the trailer, so we need to get it out and make sure things are up and running. We also need to go and get the support trailer which is in a transport company yard on the outskirts of Darwin.

I sort a bit of gear out and eventually the team begins to arise. I ask if they've slept well and what time they got to sleep, they all assure me it was around 11pm. I'm not so sure, it'll be interesting to see how well they make it through the day.

Around 7:30am I have seen that all of the team members are up and about, at 7:45 Julian, James, Jeandre and I take off out to Pinelands to get the support trailer. The rest of the team will meet us at Hidden Valley.

When we get there the team is busy unpacking the solar car trailer but have had to borrow some spanners to remove the wheel chocks to get the car out. Ours are in the crate at the bottom in front of the car and inaccessible with the car in. Mental note: Place tools required to get car out of trailer in box accessible with car in trailer.

The car comes out of the trailer and a number of teams come by to check it out. We remove the tape securing the array panels and look inside. The car seems to have survived the journey well and we set about installing batteries whilst Doug installs the brand new driver interface control board. This was the part that caused us problems in 2007 and I ordered a new one which arrived last week. I have one other one which works but does not allow us to have our display panels and a second spare that was given to us by the guys from UNSW, just trying to cover all bases.

We make changes to the current sense board, the readings were negative so we had to swap the wires around, and we install the batteries. Each Battery Pack weighs around 30kg and they are awkward to slide into the car but they seem to go in easily and it seems to be getting easier each time we do it. A quick check to see that every thing is plugged in correctly and we hold our breath as we power up. Everything boots first time including display panels for the motor controller. We are happy.

By this stage we have decided to send some of the team back to the apartments. They have some lunch and then go into town for some souvenir shopping. The crew at the race track fit the telemetry and current sense interface boards and go for a couple of laps around the circuit. Ross our Principal has taken some leave to come up to Darwin to see the start of the race and has come out to the track to see what is happening. He jumps into the support vehicle as we lap Hidden Valley Race track.

I am pleased with today's efforts and the crew left at the track head back to the accommodation. Spaghetti Bolognaise, garlic bread and leafy salad is on the menu for tonight and it goes down a treat. There seems to be enough to feed two teams though, but this is a bonus as we will freeze what is left and take it on our journey to Adelaide. Tomorrow night James is preparing a surprise for the team, I'm looking forward to it.

John Beattie Leeming SHS Solar Car Team.

Leeming Team and Hammerhead make it to Darwin.

Mid Morning on Saturday 17 Oct Keith, the bus and Hammerhead rolled safely into Darwin. After 4000km on the road, a broken door handle on the trailer, a couple of brushes with kangaroos in the night and a bit of dirt, the "A" team arrives relatively unscathed.

Keith made his way out to Hidden Valley race way and after a couple of phone calls parked Hammerhead securely in pit number 19. He meets a couple of the teams already at the track and hears rumours of Nuna's road testing and reconnaissance trip to Adelaide. He then headed into Darwin for a well earned rest in air conditioned comfort.

On Sunday the 18th I arrive at Perth airport at 7:00AM. To my surprise I am almost the last to arrive, we check in pretty easily and make it through security up to the departure lounge. I have some issue with one of the boxes I am carrying, it contains a Lithium Battery that failed to make the bus before it headed to Darwin. It's a fairly heavy object (3kg) and would like quite suspicious when passing through an X-ray machine I would imagine. I had some concerns about wether I could take it on the flight with us and on Friday afternoon I had made a call to Qantas and very helpful assistant organised a dangerous goods approval number after contacting a Qantas official based at Sydney airport. Not bad considering it was 8:45 pm in Sydney at the time. After a brief look at the package, a phone call and a chat to the security supervisor I am allowed through with the battery.

While we sit in the departure lounge Leonie twitters on her iphone and reads of Nuna's crash during road testing and that replacement solar panels have arrived in Darwin, For those who are only following the Blog for the first time the Nuon team and Nuna 1,2,3 and 4, have won the last 4 world solar challenges and for them to have crashed before the challenge is big news.

The team says last goodbyes to family and board the plane for a relatively smooth flight to Darwin.

As we get off the plane and make our way into the airport terminal I feel a blast of hot air and I am instantly reminded of the heat and humidity of Darwin, we'll have some time to acclimatise. We meet Keith in the airport, he looks remarkably refreshed considering the distance he has travelled in the last 5 days. We exchange keys and brief stories of his trip before he boards the plane that we got off and heads home.

We find our bus and support vehicles then load up and head into town. We get to the Alatai and decide to have a quiet afternoon. A few of us head off to the shop and get some supplies for tonight and tomorrow's breakfast. The rest have a swim and relax before dinner, BBQ. We discover that the Nuna team are staying here and we share the BBQ with them. I talk to the cook who was also driving their car at 110km when the rear tyre blew out causing him to lose control and spin out. He said that there was a lot of dust and when it settled he was facing the wrong way with the array on the ground some meters away. They damaged 4 or 5 panels on their array which are now repaired and they spent all day yesterday road testing. They seem pleased.

Today we will head to Hidden Valley and start work on getting Hammerhead ready to go to Adelaide. Some will go and get our support trailer, others will stay with the car while the rest go for some shopping and prepare tonight's dinner Spaghetti Bolognaise.