The day’s race began from the suburbs of Elliot at 8:00 a.m. The Tokai Challenger, driven by student driver Tatsuki Ito, ran steadily despite the sandstorm and arrived at a 30-minute controlled stop checkpoint at 10:05 a.m.
From this checkpoint, Mr. Shinozuka took over as driver, arriving at the next checkpoint, Barrow Creek, at 12:55 p.m., where he made a 10-minute stop. On the first day, some of the Tokai University Challenge Center Team members stationed at controlled stops had been flustered, but today everyone managed to handle their tasks efficiently during the timed stops. Those tasks included guiding the car into the checkpoints, changing drivers, wiping sand dust off the solar panels, and tilting the panels toward the sunlight.
Driver Kota Tokuda put the Tokai Challenger back into the race at 1:05 p.m. and arrived at Alice Springs, the halfway point of the race, at 4:04 p.m. The sandstorm from that morning had stopped completely, and the weather was fine during this interval of the race. The Tokai Challenger continued to run the course at a good pace. At the 30-minute stop in Alice Springs, local people and the local media gathered at the checkpoint area to have a look at the first car to arrive. The Tokai Challenger left Alice Springs at 4:34 p.m. and arrived at the day’s final destination, 40 kilometers away, at 5:00 p.m. as planned.
On the second day, the Tokai Challenger covered 725 kilometers to give the Tokai University Challenge Center Team an approximately 100-kilometer lead over the second-place team from the University of Michigan. In spite of the bad weather brought on by a sandstorm, the Tokai team is running the race at a very good pace.
After the day's drive had been completed, Professor Hideki Kimura from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, who serves as team leader, said, “Due to the bad weather in the morning, the photovoltaic power output was diminished, and the car had to run at a lower speed. However, after the weather improved in the afternoon, we could maintain an average speed of 100 km/h. As we will follow a continuing downhill course from here, it will be easy to boost our speed. But the wind is likely to pick up, so we should take great care in running the race.”
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In Alice Springs
You of student who inclines panel aiming at sunlight
The Tokai Challenger that runs in gorge
Order: 1st
Total mileage: 1,531km
Power generated by Sharp compound solar cells
Power generated in the morning: 1.297 kWh
Power generated in the afternoon: 10.947 kWh
Power generated in the evening: 0.991 kWh
Peak output power in a day: 1.69 kW |
| Note: These values reflect measurements taken under conditions where the intensity of sunlight, the incident angle of sunlight, and hours of sunlight were not known. | |