On Thursday, CUER invited the press of the Northern Territory to come along and see the car testing along the Channel Island Road. This was very exciting - for CUER it was our first time testing the car on the road in Australia with the shell on. There was much to learn, for instance; does the aerodynamic shell actually reduce the power consumption? Is the driver too hot? Does the chassis interfere with the shell when running at full speed, and, for example, over cattle grids? We managed to answer a lot of these questions – but this is not the purpose of this post (I will keep you on tenterhooks about that!)

CUER’s announcement yesterday that we are now the only British team remaining in WSC 2009 has elicited an amazing amount of support from back home. In particular, we received a wonderful message of encouragement from the Welsh Solar Car team, NOS Gwawr:

My Dear Friends,
 
It is good to read how you are doing in Darwin right now.
 
 We the Welsh Solar car team would like to wish you the very best as you take the British dreams on your shoulders.
 
Good luck & make us Proud! (and we look forward to buying you a beer on your return)

We’d just like to say a big thank you to the Welsh for their support, and wish them the best of luck next year, when they hope to be competing in NASC 2010.

The updated entrants’ list on the GGC website has revealed that University College London, the only other British team planning to compete in the race, has withdrawn its entry.

This must have been a difficult decision for the UCL team to make, given that they’ve clearly put a lot of work into the design of SolarFox 3. SolarFox2 came an impressive 11th place in the last WSC, and we were looking forward to meeting the British race veterans.

The withdrawal of UCL means that CUER is now the sole British entry in the 2009 race. Endeavour will be prominently displaying the Union Flag on both rear fairings, and we recently acquired a hard copy to wave about in a patriotic way.

Keep an eye out for it!

After many months of grappling with the complex world of the shipping industry our final container arrived at our workshop, with the help of BOC’s flatbed lorry, 5 days ahead of schedule. The shell and an assortment of boxes emerged undamaged much to the glee of everyone who had spent many long hours covered in epoxy and carbon fibre back home.

There had been concerns that our shipment would be quarantined for containing organic matter but our scrupulous cleaning ensured that we passed quarantine inspection in under 10 minutes, the fastest of any team so far. At least we’ve won at something!

Now that the whole car has arrived everyone is working hard to reattach the shell to the chassis ready for final on-road testing later next week.

- Chris

We are happy to hear that Nuna 5 is getting back on her feet wheels. They report having received a great deal of support from all their sponsors who are working hard with the team to get her race-ready. More important than that, though, is the amount of support that Nuon have received from the other solar teams around Darwin.

They make a very good point, which we want to reiterate to our supporters as well: that the World Solar Challenge has not yet descended into petty rivalry. The spirit of the competition is flourishing, and teams are able to maintain a friendly relationship (look out for Jonathan’s post about some epic Nuon-CUER nights out – coming soon!) while still competing with each other.

The response to the Nuna5 crash is a great demonstration of this. Resources, manpower and materials are freely offered and shared – a common acknowledgement of the immense amount of time and effort it takes to build and race a solar car. An accident of this severity so close to the race strikes a chord with everyone, and empathy is inevitable. It could easily have happened (and might still happen) to any of us.…
Read more →

Hooray, first post for me! It’s been long time coming…

6^th October 2009 was an important day for one reason.  If you hadn’t guessed already, it was the first time Endeavour ran on public roads.  More specifically - a 15km stretch just south of Darwin.

We were sad to hear that Nuna 5 had an accident on Cox Peninsula road while testing over the weekend. The tyre burst while it was driving at 110kph, sending it crashing into the verge and damaging the cells and shell (but thankfully not the driver). Check out the story on their blog:

http://www.nuonsolarteam.nl/2009/10/nuna5-beschadigd-na-ongeval-bij-testen/

We’ve got to know the Nuon team quite well since arriving in Darwin – they’re a really great bunch, and we wish them all the best of luck with getting Nuna 5 back on the road in time for the race.

Get well soon!

Love from CUER