WSC 2013: Friday night

I’ve put together an overall race chart for the World Solar Challenge, based on official timing data [edit: updated chart below]. As before, the chart is relative to a baseline average of 85 km/h (including wait time at checkpoints) or 97 km/h (driving speed) – a speed that would complete the race in 4 days. Cruiser Class entries (shown as dashed lines) are treated exactly as if they were in the Challenger Class, which means that for those cars the chart tells us road position, but is not very helpful on speed. Arrival times can be read off on the right-hand scale. Onda arrived at Finish of Timing just before it closed today!

This chart shows the trouble many teams experienced in the rainy weather on day 5, the battle for 5^th place, and the great recovery by Michigan after their crash. In the Cruiser Class, it shows Sunswift’s speed-based strategy, as they sped ahead of Eindhoven and Bochum, who were concentrating on collecting passenger points.

See also solarracing.org for a recap. Or see the story in tweets:

• 16:31 yesterday: Stanford (4^th)
• 8:13 today: Solar Energy Racers (5^th)
• 8:28 today: Punch Powertrain (6^th)
• 11:38 today: Arrow (7^th)
• 11:42 today: Sunswift (Cruiser Class)
• 13:03 today: Eindhoven (Cruiser Class)
• 13:38 today: Blue Sky (8^th)
• 13:55 today: Michigan (9^th)
• 16:25 today: Onda (10^th)

The official video wrap is here:

Tokai, who finished in second place this year, tell their story here:

Eindhoven, who are waiting on final Cruiser Class results, have this to say:

Advertisement