I have been asked about covering the Cruiser (MOV) cars this year. As the ASC photo above shows, Minnesota was the first team into La Junta (at 18:23:47 MDT). Cruiser (MOV) scoring is complex, but it’s mostly a complicated nonlinear function of speed. External energy usage, number of people in the car, and penalties also have an effect, but they are minor.
The chart below is an attempt to visualise who is ahead (I may not have gotten it quite right). For each team and day, there is a group of 4 bars. Mathematically, multiply the first two bars (distance with and without penalties) and divide by the third bar (the speed derate, which penalises going less than 35 mph) to give the fourth bar. Visually, just add the first two bars and subtract the third. So App State was well ahead on Day 1 (because they averaged 34.1 mph to Minnesota’s 29.6 mph), but Minnesota is well ahead now (averaging 35.6 mph to App State’s 34.3 mph).
To relate these numbers to the official ranks, multiply by the average number of people in the car, and divide by the scaling factor for the day, which is the largest of all the distance bars for that day. For example, for App State on Day 1, 20,548.5 × 2 / 244.1 = 168.36. I emphasise again that the numbers for today are estimates.
For a simpler view, we can just assess the cars based on average speed. The chart below does this, with the dashed red line indicating the target speed:
Scientific Gems 
Thanks so very much for posting the MOV class and the photo of Freya pulling into the LaJunta checkpoint. Another question: why is the start date so late today when the cars have 269 miles!! to cover?
Thanks. FYI:. Granddaughter Kate Huelskamp earns a big pan of my favorite brownies recipe if Freya comes in first for the MOV class.
Go, Freya. Thanks, Scientific Gem.
Fanatic Grandmother, Karen O’Rourke
The first day of the race was run on Central time, but the second and subsequent days are run on Mountain time (i.e. starting and ending an hour later).
And Freya is definitely a much faster car than AppState’s ROSE. We knew that from the track race. But ROSE is a veteran car with the bugs ironed out, and Freya is a brand new car that still has teething problems sometimes. If Freya keeps on working perfectly, it should win. Both teams have done a fantastic job, however.