BBC video report

A former participant reports that a video is available from the BBC web site.

It's got a lovely interview with Chris in the middle and a healthy dose of dubious facts (like the article is "Solar energy: A sun-powered car race"

Calgary: A Big Thanks to Everyone

Hey Everyone - As most of you have probably seen and know, we had ourselves a good crash on thursday - only hours before Scrut. Well, today we passed our scruitineering after a long night and frantic day, and we couldn't have done it without all of you.

Every team has been very helpful and generous in supplying tools and materials. Tonight we are putting our spare cells on and hope for the best tomorrow.

Must keep this brief, but wanted to extended our sincerest thanks to all of you! For those of you who haven't seen it - I've put up a video of us pulling our aeroshell out of the side rail.



Enjoy, and good luck to all of you.

SolarFox: Reportage from the track

Further testing has been carried out in Darwin this week. A handling problem caused by damage to the steering knuckles during transportation resulted in severe wear to the tyres. Whilst the problem is now resolved thanks to some nifty realignment work by John and Ray, the severe wear has degraded our race stock of tyres, so now we are trying to find a few spares. Thanks to team member Dave, we have a video showing the team working in the garage at Hidden Valley:

Endurance testing has been undertaken at the track, to see how the team handle the local weather and so far an hour squashed into the solar oven has been accomplished without much complaint. In the meantime, speeds have been cranked up to break the significant 100km/h barrier.

Whilst that isn't the speed achieved in this video, it does show how the beautifully designed chassis handles the bends at Hidden Valley, what a pity the Stuart Highway is so straight...

SolarFox: First tests in the sun

With SolarFox reassembled, the team got down to some tests. Using the new lightweight "anti-slop" bearing housings, speeds were gradually increased up to a giddy 90km/h.

Despite their hard work, the team still had time to collect video footage of the car. Here is SolarFox leaving the pit garage:

Here is SolarFox on track at Hidden Valley:

Speed trials, reliability testing and system fine tuning will continue as the team work towards scrutineering this Friday when they will be told whether they pass the regulations to enter the race.