Qualifying Preparations

With our first pass through scrutineering yesterday, and with our second pass and qualifying scheduled for tomorrow, today was quite a busy today. During the morning we worked on preparing our car for the track, so that we could make our last practice laps before the single-lap time trial. We were inconvenienced by one of our telemetry radios failing; however, our back-up radios are a different technology that we have used for many miles of testing, so we don't expect this failure to show up again in the future.

After we got Infinium rolling, we were met by Ford Australia's Global Green Challenge Team. Their eco-cars are starting in their respective class of the Global Green Challenge tomorrow, so they came and visited us at the Hidden Valley Speedway so we could meet each other and see each other's vehicles. Their eco-cars side-by-side with Infinium and our support vehicles was quite a sight!

After our quick meeting, it was back to the track to get in more practice laps! Our driver, Sudeep Rohatgi, has been able to achieve consistently faster laps each day, putting us in a good position relative to our competition. We did lose some time on the track after Infinium suffered a flat tire after going over a patch of grass. However, after getting back into the car, Sudeep was able to achieve a time that would have challenged for pole position in 2007--quite a feat for a car carrying 25 extra kg of batteries compared to the competition.

At the end of the day, we rolled Infinium through the garages and out into the track's parking lot. Once in the parking lot, we set up Infinium's concentrators for an evening charge to further test the system. We received quite a crowd of onlookers--many competing teams were curious about the system, of course. We will be testing the system once again tomorrow for sunrise, then making final bolt-checks before our qualifying run. While Infinium was certainly not designed to be the fastest car around the track, we are very pleased with its track performance so far, and hope that our qualifying result will set us up well for the race.

Comments

Sweet pictures, looking
Sweet pictures, looking sharp!
Haha, that was supposed to be
Haha, that was supposed to be "try NOT to melt too many stators." Anyway, don't get too cocky about your lap times, Nuon might surprise you. There's a youtube video here of Nuna5 drag-racing Nuna4. I don't know if they got a new motor or what, but it's about 10% faster than last year's car.
Looking good guys! Get that
Looking good guys! Get that pole position and cruise to victory! Try bit to melt too many stators :-p @tclambert: A quick way to get the local time anywhere is to just put it into Google, like this.
Thank you. Silly me, there I
Thank you. Silly me, there I was looking up time zones and doing math while I'm sitting in front of a computer..
Thanks for the photo
Thanks for the photo postings, very cool shots and sure to be used in future CoE publicity! To all members of the 2009 Race Crew, good luck and enjoy the start of the race experience! Go Blue!!!
Can someone double-check me
Can someone double-check me on the time zone difference between Ann Arbor and Darwin? I get Darwin is 13:30 ahead of us. So a race starting at 8:30 AM Sunday in Darwin is at 7:00 PM Saturday here. Daylight Savings Time is giving me trouble. I think we observe it and they don't. You know what? I think from last time I remember the Northern Territory doesn't observe daylight savings time, but South Australia does. According to http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/custom.html?continent=australasia Darwin and Adelaide are one hour different.
That is correct Darwin is
That is correct Darwin is +13.5 hours. Adelaide is +14.5 Hours.
Nice weather station on one
Nice weather station on one of the support vehicles. Of course I would mention that as we provided it. Where are the other two located?
The Swiss team reports:
The Swiss team reports: "Swissipirit should be able to take part in the World Solar Challenge despite being badly damaged travelling to Australia. Switzerland's entry in the 3,000km race, the world's toughest test for solar cars, incurred serious damage to the front wheel, engine and steering system in transit, but the team has done its best to fix it."
Question about the other
Question about the other event, the Eco Challenge: How is a Tesla Roadster going to drive across the Australian Outback? The Roadster has a range of 200 miles (~322 km) between charges. Aren't there stretches in the Outback where there are more than 200 mi. between electrical outlets?
Doug said MomentUM (two cars
Doug said MomentUM (two cars ago, from the "big array" era (8 m**2)) did a lap in 1:47. Can InfiniUM beat that? I presume it has already beaten ConinuUM's best time, I think that was 2:08. How fast are other teams? (I'm starting to get antsy for numbers.) -TC Lambert
Comparing Momentum's track
Comparing Momentum's track time to Continuum and Infinium isn't entirely fair. We switched motors. The new CSIRO does not put out as much power as the old motor. Continuum had the old motor for a few laps at qualifying for NASC and the difference in acceleration was huge. Steve mentioned earlier that Continuum's qualifying time was 2:30. That was about as fast as Continuum ever went in Darwin with the upper surface on. With that giant tail and concentraitors behind the rear wheels, Continuum didn't like to turn. Without the upper, Continuum could run a lap about 10-15 seconds faster.
I think the best Momentum lap
I think the best Momentum lap was Joe's qualifying lap at 2:01.74 (according to Aurora's archives). I don't remember turning one faster than that. I'm thinking Ashiya was the 1:47 lap. They were wicked fast.
Adams -- (Michael?). Yes,
Adams -- (Michael?). Yes, you're right. Momentum's fastest lap was 2:01.74. However, I have Ashiya as 1:59.18 -- had to dig through my binder for the official qualifying results. (Taiwan started 2nd with a time of 2:01.57) @Paula -- You're right, comparing Momentum to Continuum and Infinium isn't quite a fair comparison - three totally different cars. Every new car will certainly be different than the previous .. new motor, new array, something new -- if it wasn't, what's the point?! Its still impressive the times these cars are able to achieve going around that track - something they were never designed to do. Good luck Team - bring home 1st Place!
That's quite a sharp looking
That's quite a sharp looking fleet!