2018 Solar Car Challenge (SCC) - Awards Ceremony in Palmdale, CA
Tonight was the awards ceremony for the 2018 cross country race from Fort Worth, TX to Palmdale, CA. Our team is extremely proud of the 3rd place finish in our division that originally started out with 14 registered teams, 12 of which had been able to complete scrutineering and compete in the race. The two teams that placed ahead of us, The Solar Cats and the Wylie East team, both had recently rebuilt their cars with a significantly lighter weight than their prior year desig
2018 Solar Car Challenge (SCC) - Competition Day 7 - Twentynine Palm, CA to Palmdale, CA
Today was a bittersweet day of solar car racing. On the one hand, we were very excited to have reached the final leg of this 7 day cross country event. However, on the other hand, nostalga was also setting in that this would be the final day of what had been a long 6 month journey of preparing our car and team for this event and that it would soon be over with. Today's road course was somewhat shorter than the day before and had numerous required trailering sections due to
2018 Solar Car Challenge (SCC) - Competition Day 6 - Tempe, AZ to Twentynine Palm, CA
Today's road course was custom made for solar car racing, covering some of the most scenic areas of Arizona and California and providing plenty of opportunities for enjoying favorable elevation change (i.e. a drop in elevation)! We were able to leverage some new energy management strategies that we had picked up in discussion the day before with the Houston, Mississippi team, to gain another 7 to 8 miles over what we otherwise would have been able to do. All of this was fol
2018 Solar Car Challenge (SCC) - Competition Day 5 - El Paso, TX to Phoenix, AZ
Today, was a fun day with a mix of early morning road driving over a scenic 46.4 mile stretch on Hwy 70 from Lordsburg, NM to Safford, AZ, coupled with a visit to the University of Arizona Tech Center and to Arizona State University. For all the teams that completed the 46.4 mile driving portion, placement within the division was based on the elapsed time required to complete the driving. Today or team was operating like a well oiled machine and we completed the driving port
2018 Solar Car Challenge (SCC) - Day of Rest in El Paso, TX
Today was a much needed day of personal rest, car repair, and educational sharing at UT El Paso, TX. We took shifts of displaying our car at UT El Paso, giving interviews with the media, and getting a brake repair and trailer tire repair completed. This allowed us to get well positioned for the remainder of the race.
2018 Solar Car Challenge (SCC) - Competition Day 3 - Carlsbad, NM to El Paso, TX
Today, was another smooth running day mechanically; however, it was very overcast most of the day and even sprinkled on us at one point. As a result, we were only able to complete ~75 miles, placing 4th for the day, but still ranked 3rd overall in our division!
2018 Solar Car Challenge (SCC) - Competition Day 2 - Snyder, TX to Carlsbad, NM
Today, was a smooth running day with excellent sunshine and awesome scenery. We completed ~90 miles and placed 3rd in our division!
2018 Solar Car Challenge (SCC) - Competition Day 1 - Fort Worth, TX to Snyder, TX
Today, we finally got to start off on the cross country road course! We had an excellent send off from our CCA Headmaster (Keith Castello) and Rhetoric School Head (Justice Kerr), with a prayer of blessing on the team for unity and safety. While we had some mechanical issues that set us back by approximately 2 hours, we still completed ~68 miles and placed 5th in our division of 12 cars that had completed scrutineering (there were originally 14 registered cars in our Classic
2018 Solar Car Challenge (SCC) Scrutineering - Day 3
Today, completed all of the remaining scrutineering deficiencies and were cleared to participated in the 2018 Solar Car Challenge, which begins on July 17th at 8:30 a.m. at Northwest High School in Justin, TX. Come join us in the send off.
2018 Solar Car Challenge (SCC) Scrutineering - Day 2
Today, we were able to complete all of the remaining scrutineering stations and narrowed our remaining deficiencies down to just a handful to be completed on Monday. Additionally, we attended the opening banquet for the 2018 Solar Car Challenge, where Texas Instruments, Lockheed Martin, and Pi-Top were corporate sponsors this year and sent representatives to speak.
