Today we attempted to make up lost time caused by our troubled batteries. We needed to get through the Tennant Creek Control Stop, after its official 11am close, and then on to Barrow Creek by 5pm.  If not we would find ourselves in a position where we were forced to trailer the car in order to catch up with the pack. CUER’s aim had always been to finish the race on solar power alone so this was not an option that we were willing to take.

The day started well, we set off from Dunmarra at 8:27am after serving our 27 mins of battery time penalty, and then maintained an average speed of 70kph until 11:30am. It then became clear the battery problems that we suffered from yesterday were not resolved and the battery pack was under considerable pressure. Chao, Jonathan and Julian, our ace electronics team, managed to get the car back on the road and nurse it through another few hours driving.

However, despite the determined effort of the electronics team, the problems did not subside and we were obliged to pull off the road again. This did not bode well for our 5pm deadline in Barrow Creek.…
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Day 2 of the Global Green Challenge has certainly had its ups and downs. We find ourselves tonight in the lap of luxury, in a real campsite at Dunmarra. We’ve had big problems today with our battery pack – unfortunately one of the worst parts to go wrong, since we generally can’t even use the array to charge the battery whilst any repairs are done. Time penalties are also imposed for replacing battery cells which we had no choice but to do. Chao, our battery guru, did an absolutely brilliant job of replacing the dead cells firstly, at dawn in the campsite, and then in the back of a broiling truck in the Outback. He succeeded in getting us back on the road and back in the race.

Even with a 2.5 hour stop to replace battery cells and the 36 minutes of time penalty that this involved, we still managed to cover 268km at an average speed of 53kph which is an increase of yesterday’s average of 49kph. This is a very good sign and it is only unfortunate that although the battery pack was functioning exactly as it was designed to do; it suffered from unforeseeable cell death.…
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Day One has turned out to be an event full of eventful eventualities. The start itself was remarkably smooth and well-attended for a Sunday morning. Forty cars lined up gleaming for the last time. Forty teams did something remarkably similar. Small pcokets of national pride prevailed and as each car started off from Parliament Square (to the theme tune from ?)

While Endeavour trundled trustily towards Katherine at around 60kph, the scout vehicle and truck remained behind to do some last minute shopping, which then allowed them to beast it down the Stuart Highway to catch up to the convoy. We were all surprised to see so many solar cars at the side of the road, presumably stopping due to problems, so very early on – we spotted the Eclipse VI team stopped just outside of Darwin. It was a journey almost as exciting as that of Endeavour. We had no idea how far the convoy had travelled and who they had overtaken. For every solar car convoy we overtook, we felt a little bit of glee that Endeavour was ahead of another car. This glee rapidly turned to downright surprise as we passed both Bochum entries – SolarWorld No…
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After a successful day out on the track Endeavour has qualified for the Global Green Challenge 2009!

Only a flat tyre just before our brake test prevented us from getting through in one go, but one quick change later and we were given our start time of 8:15am from State Square, Darwn tomorrow morning. It was a great experience to be out in the pits at the Hidden Valley Raceway in Darwin with all the other teams with some of them looking very competitive indeed around the track. Aurora and Nuon fighting it out for fastest lap time with Aurora beating Nuon’s lap time of 2min 2secs by a significant margin. We were perhaps not the fastest at 3mins 40secs so let us be thankful that it is a stamina race! It was really exciting to see all the teams out on the track and there was a gre at sense of team spirit and sportsmanship, and only…
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A quick report to test out our satellite internet connection. Six hours until qualifying begins!

With the start of the Global Green Challenge just a few days away, this morning marked Endeavour’s first test: scrutineering. Race officials checked over every minute detail of the car, to check that we had complied with all the regulations. Endeavour passed with (mostly) flying colours – great work by the technical team, all those hours pouring over the rule book paid off!

There was excitement during the driver ingress/egress tests. Each of our four drivers had to demonstrate that they could get in and out of the car unassisted in under 15 seconds. Unfortunately, Mike’s bleeding shins were rather obvious proof that the front edge of the cockpit needed some sharp edges removing, but once this had been fixed Endeavour met all the organisers’ requirements. There was some disappointment too, however, when we found out that we were not going to be able to run using Dunlop’s specialised Solarmax tyres. Tests over the last few days have shown us the potential huge improvement in performance that these tyres could give, but it appears that our wheel rims are slightly too large.

It was great to see some of the other cars at the showground today. The Umicore car…
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Hi all! Time for another non-work-related blog post from me.  This one is about the “adventure days” that CUER have had whilst in Darwin.  I personally have had three great days off, though not all in a row, don’t worry.

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!