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Hottest, fastest race kicks off with seventh World Solar Challenge
Darwin, Oct 22: 22 solar-powered cars are racing across the Australian desert in the seventh World Solar Challenge.
Darwin, Oct 22: 22 solar-powered cars are racing across the Australian desert in the seventh World Solar Challenge.
A fleet of 22 solar-powered cars began their epic race across the Australian continent on Sunday (October 19) in the seventh World Solar Challenge.
Billed as the ultimate test of technology and endurance, this year's race, the 3,010-kilometre (1870 -mile) journey from Darwin to Adelaide, is tipped to be the hottest, and thus fastest, on record. The cars left Darwin for their journey through Australia's centre at 8am local time (2230 GMT) and are expected to start reaching Adelaide on Wednesday. The car belonging to Dutch favourites Nuon Solar Team - which set the race record of 32 hours and 39 minutes in 2001 - took an early lead.
At the first of seven checkpoints in Katherine, 320 kilometers south of Darwin, Nuna II had a two-minute lead over second-placed Tesseract, driven by team MIT from the US.
On day two Nuon team member Die Derik-Kinds said things were going well so far. "It's still first place so we're quite satisfied with that."
But the team is hoping for more sunshine. "We drove a little bit slower than yesterday, just to charge the battery, this morning we had a static charge, standing still to try to get energy as the sun comes up, it wasn't so good so we had to drive a little slower to catch the sunlight."
Other competitors shared the frustration with the weather. "It was really clear last night so we thought it was going to be clear this morning, but the clouds just rolled in," said one team member.
"Today's a big uphill day so we're going to try and, you know, conserve our battery power and hopefully you know just maintain our position for the day."
Melbourne's Aurora, the winner in 1999, and runner up in 2001, is in second place. The Aurora team has set eight world records, including the longest solar car journey, 13,054 kilometers around Australia.
Team MIT from the US, driving Tesseract, is currently in third place. There are 22 teams competing in the challenge, with seven cars from Australia and other vehicles from Japan, Taiwan, Puerto Rico, Malaysia, the Netherlands, France and Germany.
The event was started in 1987 by Danish-born Australian adventurer Hans Tholstrup, who in 1982 drove the world's first solar car, the "Quiet Achiever", more than 4000 kilometers across Australia from Sydney to Perth in 20 days.
Bureau Report
A fleet of 22 solar-powered cars began their epic race across the Australian continent on Sunday (October 19) in the seventh World Solar Challenge.
Billed as the ultimate test of technology and endurance, this year's race, the 3,010-kilometre (1870 -mile) journey from Darwin to Adelaide, is tipped to be the hottest, and thus fastest, on record. The cars left Darwin for their journey through Australia's centre at 8am local time (2230 GMT) and are expected to start reaching Adelaide on Wednesday. The car belonging to Dutch favourites Nuon Solar Team - which set the race record of 32 hours and 39 minutes in 2001 - took an early lead.
At the first of seven checkpoints in Katherine, 320 kilometers south of Darwin, Nuna II had a two-minute lead over second-placed Tesseract, driven by team MIT from the US.
On day two Nuon team member Die Derik-Kinds said things were going well so far. "It's still first place so we're quite satisfied with that."
But the team is hoping for more sunshine. "We drove a little bit slower than yesterday, just to charge the battery, this morning we had a static charge, standing still to try to get energy as the sun comes up, it wasn't so good so we had to drive a little slower to catch the sunlight."
Other competitors shared the frustration with the weather. "It was really clear last night so we thought it was going to be clear this morning, but the clouds just rolled in," said one team member.
"Today's a big uphill day so we're going to try and, you know, conserve our battery power and hopefully you know just maintain our position for the day."
Melbourne's Aurora, the winner in 1999, and runner up in 2001, is in second place. The Aurora team has set eight world records, including the longest solar car journey, 13,054 kilometers around Australia.
Team MIT from the US, driving Tesseract, is currently in third place. There are 22 teams competing in the challenge, with seven cars from Australia and other vehicles from Japan, Taiwan, Puerto Rico, Malaysia, the Netherlands, France and Germany.
The event was started in 1987 by Danish-born Australian adventurer Hans Tholstrup, who in 1982 drove the world's first solar car, the "Quiet Achiever", more than 4000 kilometers across Australia from Sydney to Perth in 20 days.
Bureau Report