The team are heading down to the AARC oval in Victoria, about 1000kms from Sydney, tomorrow. Dyno testing and last-minute battery checks completed, the students are hoping to average something like 70mph over their 300 mile record attempt - i.e. highway speeds at highway distances with zero emissions.
A little about the record - it's an FIA Category A Group VIII Class 1 record - for electric vehicles under 500kg (though no car over 500kg would be able to take a shot at this record, currently...!), 500km from a standing start. The present record is 45mph over a distance of 500km. It's one of the most curious categories in the FIA list, as the present records do not name a car, or driver, or anything really. We're 99% sure the records were set by the GM Sunraycer, which was GM's entry into the first World Solar Challenge back in the mid/late 1980's. Use of the solar power is not allowed, however we're totally unconvinced that the Sunraycer had no solar, as the speeds are identical to Sunraycer's "solar-powered" records. FIA doesn't let you mix and match, for instance solar+electric is considered a hybrid! So some inconsistencies there. The best way to deal with controversy and inconsistencies, as Richard Noble knew well, was to just smash both the real and imagined records, so that's what Sunswift intend to do.
Weather is shaping up nicely, cold (who knows how we'll deal with condensation...) but not wet, not too windy. The tyres (Michelin's special solar car tyres) are a question mark for uni-directional oval racing, and the battery probably hasn't been fully drained in anger, plus some more aero mods to make from the "road going" configuration (this is, after all, a passenger-carrying sports car for the road rather than a dedicated LSR car)... so some work to do.
Keep up to date with the team's facebook and twitter in the next few days! They've promised to burn as much diesel as possible to get to Melbourne just to keep our rev-head fans happy.
