ASC 2016: Day 5

Day 5 of the American Solar Challenge marks the start of Stage 3, the longest stage. Beginning at Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield near Republic, MO, the solar cars pass through checkpoints at the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site (Topeka, KS) and Homestead National Monument, camping along the road en route to Scotts Bluff National Monument:

The day seems to have begun with rain again. Here is Principia’s morning charge:

However, skies cleared by the start:

The chart below (click to zoom) shows the standings as of this morning (i.e. for the first two stages of the race). The horizontal axis shows the distance (in km) from the start. The vertical axis is the time (in hours) that cars are lagging behind a theoretical baseline car that drove 75 km/h all the way. Higher is therefore later, and steeper lines are slower. Data is taken from the official timings. The vertical segment at the end of some lines represents the combined Stage 1 and 2 penalty time (this includes a small daily width penalty for Michigan, and larger penalties for some other teams). Teams with large trailering penalties (6, 17, and 55) are not shown.

Steep line segments on this chart mark the Day 1 problems experienced by Toronto (77), the general effect of the rain on Day 3, and the specific problems that hit Minnesota (35) that day. Michigan (2) are several hours ahead of everyone else, while Toronto (77), Dunwoody/SER (51), and Principia (32) are very, very close in 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th.

In early racing today (see map above – click to zoom), Principia (32) is fighting hard for 2^nd place.

Update 1: Michigan (2) reached Topeka, KS at 14:30:31, followed by Toronto (77) at 15:20:26, Dunwoody/SER (51) at 15:25:54, Missouri S&T (42) at 15:41:25, Principia (32) at 15:55:32, App State (828) at 16:00:51, and Berkeley/CalSol (6) at 16:07:35. Illinois State (17) were 8^th, Minnesota (35) 9^th, Iowa State (9) 10^th, Poly Montreal (55) 11^th, and ETS Quebec 12^th – almost 3 hours behind Michigan. It is very good to see all 12 cars running well today. Here is the Toronto car in Topeka:

Here are the night-time positions of the cars at various motels and campsites. App State (828) are in Holton, KS, for example. These positions may therefore not accurately reflect positions in the race. And Michigan are well ahead of the GPS position on the map, having stopped at Beatrice High School, only 7 miles from Homestead National Monument.

Here are Michigan, in fact, doing their evening charging:

Update 2: Here is a revised race chart incorporating the unofficial timings into Topeka, and penalties for Stages 1 & 2 only:

Update 3: And here is a copy of the Topeka timing board, if anyone wants it:

Team	Start	Topeka In	Topeka Out
2 Michigan	09:00	14:30:31	15:15:31
6 Berkeley	09:08	16:07:35	16:52:35
9 Iowa State	09:07	17:13:45	17:58:45
17 Illinois State	09:07	16:46:45	17:31:45
32 Principia	09:01	15:55:32	16:40:32
35 Minnesota	09:03	17:00:42	17:45:42
42 Missouri S&T	09:02	15:41:25	16:26:25
51 Dunwoody	09:02	15:25:54	16:10:54
55 Poly Montreal	09:09	17:22:51	18:07:51
77 Toronto	09:01	15:20:26	16:05:26
92 ETS Quebec	09:08	17:25:52	18:10:52
828 App State	09:05	16:00:51	16:45:51

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