Dear Friends of Arizona Solar Racing,

I sent my previous report from Flagstaff after the team had already left on Monday morning. They took the road with the goal of (hopefully) reaching Barstow CA by the end of the day. We had learned a lot about how well our battery pack was working and so the team was ambitious about reaching that far in a single day.

We reached the checkpoint in Kingman without incident. In fact, the caravan of cars was so fast that I wasn't even able to catch up with them before they reached the Kingman checkpoint. Temperatures were blistering hot, over 100 almost everywhere. And, with our battery pack being sensitive to possible combustion at high temperatures then the team was taking very good care not to over-charge or over-discharge the battery.

After Kingman we continued on into the desert toward California. This crosses a very DESOLATE stretch of land. Here is a picture of the car on the road near Ludlow (the town where we ended up spending the night):

We found that our high speeds early in the day had used enough power that we were not able to make it to Barstow. However we made it within 50 miles and stopped in a 'town' called Ludlow. This was more of a ghost town than anything. For example this building was across from where we camped out for the night:

As soon as we stopped in Ludlow, we set up to capture solar power before sunset. Here Dave and Billy are working to re-build the tracker that the solar team had used for last race. This gadget allows for easy tilting of the solar-array body to capture the maximum power as the sun is setting (or rising). Another thing about Ludlow: It was 110 degrees F when we arrived there just before 6PM local time.

This morning, when we awakened we also tried to capture more power, but the skies were quite overcast in the AM. Here, several team members nibble on yoghurt and coffee while the sun tries to burn through the cloud cover. (Also note the boarded up windows of another abandoned building in the background.) Ludlow is DESOLATE, both for organic life and human occupancy.

Unfortunately the sun never really came out that much this morning and we were forced to drive the remaining distance into Barstow at relatively slow speed because of the low charge state of our battery pack.

Here is a picture of our car limping along at about 25 MPH along the way to Barstow this morning. They have marked the road with Route 66 logos:

Finally, we arrived in Barstow. We arrived slightly before Kansas State and also perhaps 15 minutes before McGill, though these differences are not likely to adjust our standings that much. Right now I think we are still in 10th position.

Here is a picture of our team holding the solar array at the optimum tilt to catch power in the Barstow checkpoint parking lot.

We will leave here tomorrow morning starting at 9:00 to drive the last short leg of the race into Claremont CA. This route will cover many miles at high speeds on more developed and congested roads. We are looking forward to these last miles.

We have been very happy with the performance of Turbulence. It has been holding up very well in spite of the difficult and bumpy condition of the road in many places. Tomorrow should be smoother, though the speeds will be higher.

Please keep us in your thoughts tomorrow in the morning. We are proud of our performance and of the competitiveness we have displayed in remaining organized and on top of things throughout the whole 10 day race.

Cheers

Stay tuned by visiting the American Solar Challenge website: www.americansolarchallenge.org

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