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By Richard King
U.S. Department of Energy |
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ROLLA, MO., July 14, 2003 - Another exciting day from the American Solar Challenge. The leaders are still as close as ever. Waterloo, Minnesota, Rolla and Kansas State are within 25 minutes of each other. The leaders also broke last year's record for this first leg from Chicago to Rolla by 33 minutes! This year Rolla beat its old record by five minutes, but the team still is in third place, so far.
I'm going to give you the times the cars arrived at the University of Missouri-Rolla campus, the site of the end-point of the first leg. But before I do, please remember that this is the order of the current race standings. Penalty times need to be factored in, as well as start times in Chicago. Please visit the standings page for more complete results.
| End of 1st Leg (Rolla) |
Time In |
| Waterloo |
10:51 a.m. |
| Minnesota |
10:51 a.m. (14 seconds behind) |
| Missouri-Rolla |
11:19 a.m. |
| Kansas State Univ. |
11:19 a.m. (12 seconds behind Rolla) |
| Missouri-Columbia |
11:42 a.m. |
| Western Michigan |
1:05 p.m. |
| Cal Sol (Berkeley) |
1:53 p.m. |
| Principia |
1:53 p.m. (14 seconds behind) |
| McGill |
2:42 p.m. |
| Purdue |
trailered (blown controller: new one being FedEx-ed) |
| Toronto |
4:53 p.m. |
| North Dakota State |
4:58 p.m. |
| Pennsylvania |
trailered |
| Arizona |
5:07 p.m. |
| Stanford |
trailered (fire from short in electrical system) |
| Iowa State |
trailered (shorts in solar array) |
| Auburn |
5:37 p.m. |
| Texas A&M |
trailered |
| Queens |
5:37 p.m. |
| Cal Poly San Luis Obispo |
trailered |
The requirement was for everyone to get to Rolla by 6 p.m. or receive a penalty, so don't assume all the trailered cars had breakdowns - some may have been 10 miles out just before 6 p.m.
Lots of action on the road, but before I get to that, I need to tell a great story from the start on Sunday in Chicago. Cal Sol from Berkeley was not able to move from the start line because they burned out their motor controller, which also harmed the motor.
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| Photo contributed by Richard King |
| Cal Sol's car - with a motor borrowed from the Kentucky team - recharges at the Rolla, Mo., stage stop on July 14. The Berkeley team was stuck at the start with a faulty motor until Kentucky pitched in. |
Without a spare, Cal Sol was doomed. Fortunately, the University of Kentucky team came to their rescue and offered the use of their motor and controller. Kentucky, if you remember, was one of the teams that did not qualify and were there just to watch the start before driving home. What it meant was that Kentucky had to take their motor and controller out of their car while Cal Sol was taking theirs out.
By noon Cal Sol was ready to go and left the starting line. The great part of this story is that Cal Sol's car now has the heart and soul of Kentucky!
The Cal Sol team is now proudly displaying a Kentucky logo on the front of their car.
The University of Purdue team did well yesterday. I caught up with them this morning. They drove as far as they could and ended up in front of a church last night. They said they were let in, fed, and allowed to clean up and get a good night's sleep in the basement. The team all seemed in really good spirits because they were refreshed and felt blessed to have had such good fortune.
Others have not had such good fortune. Queens University from Canada was also fixing their car yesterday at the start line with Cal Sol. They had electrical problems that took quite a while to fix. Once on the road their front wheel alignment was off and they ground down two sets of tires within the first hundred miles. They finally had to stop to fix that or use up all their tires. Someone saw them this afternoon screaming down the road trying to get to Rolla by 6 p.m., and they made it, with 20 minutes to spare.
Stanford University's car had a small fire break out. This is a car with two people in it. Evidently they both stopped and got out safely. All the officials and observers who witnessed the incident said they acted safely and calmly.
Tomorrow the longest leg starts. At 9 a.m. the whole group starts fresh again, and the next stage stop is Albuquerque, New Mexico. This leg will test the cars more thoroughly, and since it is so long, we should see more separation.
REPORTS FROM THE ROAD
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