I didn’t read about any more accidents during dynamic scrutineering so that’s a big relief!
I was quite surprised that the monohulls did so well on the race track with the corners. I would expect the catamarans to be more stable and therefor be able to go around them faster.
The catamarans with there narrow fairing probably do not have much space for the wheels to turn. Additionally, they have air currents in the middle causing a hypothetical “urge” to understeer (kind of like water catamarans also not being known for sharp turning circles).
The weight distribution is also different in the monohulls afaik.
I am just guessing though, I am a nitwit when it comes to physics.
It looks like Tony called it right with Top Dutch as best new team. Their whole approach has been really on the mark from the beginning. Now we’ll just have to wait and see if they can overcome their lack of experience on the journey across, personally I doubt it, it would be a hell of a lot to ask, but I wish them well.
I’m just hoping that Cambridge’s failure to post a time was just a glitch and that everything goes well for them now.
Good to see that Cambridge started and is on the tracker chart!
MDH must have been in some trouble as they are far behind. Hopefully it is all solved and they can continue at good speed.
Twente seems quite confident that the reduced energy income from their damaged solar cells is minimal, because they really went for it this first day.
Unfortunately I’m not certain that CUER did start although information is very sketchy.
Twente have done brilliantly today and it looks like it’s theirs to lose now, I estimate that they covered 675km and that Top Dutch and Vattenfall are 40 to 50km behind. Of course it doesn’t take much to change that.
The Cruiser class already looks like a familiar battle with ATN falling back to leave the usual contenders plus ONDA. It still looks unlikely though that many will finish the course without the very harsh penalties that await tomorrow and especially on Wednesday.
Vattenfall had to briefly stop to reconnect a connector from their solar panel.
Eindhoven apparently had to stop at a traffic light at the bottom of a hill and didn’t have enough power to go up and had to offload their 3 passengers. After that all was OK again.
I had expected WSU to be more to the front. Interesting to see what tomorrow will bring.
I’ve just read the WSC Daily report. It’s interesting that they say Cruisers are not judged by speed when any team that arrives at Tennant Creek after 2pm tomorrow will find their score eroded by the minute.
Good news on the CUER front, they did start albeit later than planned and they have a lot to do tomorrow( 568km in 5.5 hours) to avoid penalties but there is life there. Good luck to them.
Good to hear CUER are still in the race!
I read the same about the Cruisers, but I suppose they mean “as long as they meet the time windows”.
Quite annoying that the BWSC organisation took the tracker data offline during the AUSSIE(!!!) night while referring to a results page that doesn’t show results.
Not a good start . . . .
The time windows still penalize lack of speed. The only way to avoid penalties is to be waiting, presumably already at the control stop, as the window opens. Tomorrow that means 2pm. If a team arrives at 2:01 they will lose 1% of their final score. The deduction is applied for each minute that they are late at any of the control stops and the penalty is massive. A cumulative penalty of 45 minutes, ie 15 minutes at each stage, will mean the loss of 36% of a teams hard earned score. To put that into perspective it means travelling about 1.5mph too slowly so it’s a bit rich to say that teams are not judged on speed.
Was there something in particular you wanted to see on the tracker? I refreshed at 5pm and I’ve kept the window open since!
Oh noooooo, CUER had to trailer according to the BWSC summary. This team must have some bad curse on them. For so many years always something essential goes wrong; I feel very sorry for them and admire their perseverance.
Yes, I hope that they can persevere, they are a terrific bunch. At least the Cruiser gives them the chance to work on what they have already done.
It looks like my worst fears for the Cruiser Challenge are coming true, I would still not be surprised if we don’t see a single team complete. Even EHV can fall foul of an unlucky mishap and with some less than perfect weather possible on Wednesday it could finish the event.
It’s worth noting that only the top 8 challengers met the deadline given to the Cruisers.
I noticed that order of the Catamarans and the Bullet cars too. It can’t be coincidence can it?
Hi Tony! Hope you are well. I am missing your maps and analyses.
Wednesday will probably be the day of truth for the top challengers with Red_E and Nuna X now only 2 minutes apart.
Something serious must have scared the Twente team to actually stop the car and wait out a sand storm during this tight race. Maybe they had a near accident? Vattenfall have been able to make good progress in the mean time; maybe they just missed the worst or had better control?
Looks like the weather will be windy but mostly sunny with some haze; might even catch a drop of rain.
Vattenfall was speaking of sailing on the wind. However, the winds are coming from the SW while they had designed the car for the pre-dominant Eastern winds in South Australia this time of the year.
Do or Die for the strategists tomorrow!
Hi Erik
Tony posted his first chart earlier. I watched some of the Nuna livestream today and it was frankly terrifying. They posted that the driver brought the car through safely but it looked anything but safe to me. I’m quite surprised that the observers are not instructed to tell teams to slow down if the car is weaving as much as their car was. Thankfully they were in an area where there were few other vehicles around.
Still it will be interesting to see who comes out on top between the two Dutch teams.
Of less interest I expect is the Cruiser class. I’m guessing that EHV are the only team that has a chance of completing this stage unless something unusual happens and the other teams speed up on the second half. All of the other 5 survivors have to drive as fast as or faster than they drove today which is not usually how it goes.
Scientific Gems 
Good to see you are back!
A lot of damage this year.
I hope there will not be more casualties during the hot laps on Hidden Valley.
Yeah. Heavy damage even before the hot laps.
I didn’t read about any more accidents during dynamic scrutineering so that’s a big relief!
I was quite surprised that the monohulls did so well on the race track with the corners. I would expect the catamarans to be more stable and therefor be able to go around them faster.
The catamarans with there narrow fairing probably do not have much space for the wheels to turn. Additionally, they have air currents in the middle causing a hypothetical “urge” to understeer (kind of like water catamarans also not being known for sharp turning circles).
The weight distribution is also different in the monohulls afaik.
I am just guessing though, I am a nitwit when it comes to physics.
It looks like Tony called it right with Top Dutch as best new team. Their whole approach has been really on the mark from the beginning. Now we’ll just have to wait and see if they can overcome their lack of experience on the journey across, personally I doubt it, it would be a hell of a lot to ask, but I wish them well.
I’m just hoping that Cambridge’s failure to post a time was just a glitch and that everything goes well for them now.
Good to see that Cambridge started and is on the tracker chart!
MDH must have been in some trouble as they are far behind. Hopefully it is all solved and they can continue at good speed.
Twente seems quite confident that the reduced energy income from their damaged solar cells is minimal, because they really went for it this first day.
Unfortunately I’m not certain that CUER did start although information is very sketchy.
Twente have done brilliantly today and it looks like it’s theirs to lose now, I estimate that they covered 675km and that Top Dutch and Vattenfall are 40 to 50km behind. Of course it doesn’t take much to change that.
The Cruiser class already looks like a familiar battle with ATN falling back to leave the usual contenders plus ONDA. It still looks unlikely though that many will finish the course without the very harsh penalties that await tomorrow and especially on Wednesday.
Good fun as always.
Vattenfall had to briefly stop to reconnect a connector from their solar panel.
Eindhoven apparently had to stop at a traffic light at the bottom of a hill and didn’t have enough power to go up and had to offload their 3 passengers. After that all was OK again.
I had expected WSU to be more to the front. Interesting to see what tomorrow will bring.
WSU lost 19 minutes at the start which will be difficult to recover.
I’ve just read the WSC Daily report. It’s interesting that they say Cruisers are not judged by speed when any team that arrives at Tennant Creek after 2pm tomorrow will find their score eroded by the minute.
Good news on the CUER front, they did start albeit later than planned and they have a lot to do tomorrow( 568km in 5.5 hours) to avoid penalties but there is life there. Good luck to them.
Good to hear CUER are still in the race!
I read the same about the Cruisers, but I suppose they mean “as long as they meet the time windows”.
Quite annoying that the BWSC organisation took the tracker data offline during the AUSSIE(!!!) night while referring to a results page that doesn’t show results.
Not a good start . . . .
The time windows still penalize lack of speed. The only way to avoid penalties is to be waiting, presumably already at the control stop, as the window opens. Tomorrow that means 2pm. If a team arrives at 2:01 they will lose 1% of their final score. The deduction is applied for each minute that they are late at any of the control stops and the penalty is massive. A cumulative penalty of 45 minutes, ie 15 minutes at each stage, will mean the loss of 36% of a teams hard earned score. To put that into perspective it means travelling about 1.5mph too slowly so it’s a bit rich to say that teams are not judged on speed.
Was there something in particular you wanted to see on the tracker? I refreshed at 5pm and I’ve kept the window open since!
Oh noooooo, CUER had to trailer according to the BWSC summary. This team must have some bad curse on them. For so many years always something essential goes wrong; I feel very sorry for them and admire their perseverance.
Yes, I hope that they can persevere, they are a terrific bunch. At least the Cruiser gives them the chance to work on what they have already done.
It looks like my worst fears for the Cruiser Challenge are coming true, I would still not be surprised if we don’t see a single team complete. Even EHV can fall foul of an unlucky mishap and with some less than perfect weather possible on Wednesday it could finish the event.
It’s worth noting that only the top 8 challengers met the deadline given to the Cruisers.
I noticed that order of the Catamarans and the Bullet cars too. It can’t be coincidence can it?
Catamarans: 1-2-3
Monohulls: 4-5-6-7
Interesting.
Hi Tony! Hope you are well. I am missing your maps and analyses.
Wednesday will probably be the day of truth for the top challengers with Red_E and Nuna X now only 2 minutes apart.
Something serious must have scared the Twente team to actually stop the car and wait out a sand storm during this tight race. Maybe they had a near accident? Vattenfall have been able to make good progress in the mean time; maybe they just missed the worst or had better control?
Looks like the weather will be windy but mostly sunny with some haze; might even catch a drop of rain.
Vattenfall was speaking of sailing on the wind. However, the winds are coming from the SW while they had designed the car for the pre-dominant Eastern winds in South Australia this time of the year.
Do or Die for the strategists tomorrow!
Hi Erik
Tony posted his first chart earlier. I watched some of the Nuna livestream today and it was frankly terrifying. They posted that the driver brought the car through safely but it looked anything but safe to me. I’m quite surprised that the observers are not instructed to tell teams to slow down if the car is weaving as much as their car was. Thankfully they were in an area where there were few other vehicles around.
Still it will be interesting to see who comes out on top between the two Dutch teams.
Of less interest I expect is the Cruiser class. I’m guessing that EHV are the only team that has a chance of completing this stage unless something unusual happens and the other teams speed up on the second half. All of the other 5 survivors have to drive as fast as or faster than they drove today which is not usually how it goes.