Folks, sorry about this post not going up earlier. I am having some difficulties with uploading pictures right now, but in the meantime here is the post from the afternoon (with images to follow).

Finally we are out under the sun! After a grueling morning filled with hail storms and 70 mph winds, we are back charging in the sunshine. We started this day in Neosho as an official stage start at 9am (although we left 25 seconds late). Following this we took off at a fast pact and headed north. About 60 miles later, Alex’s phone rang. It was Brad, our meteorologist telling us to get off the road and head south immediately. Storms were closing in on Nevada, MO and two cells in particular were about to hit. These cells were made up of golf-ball sized hail, 70 mph winds, and tornado warnings. We decided in the best interest of the car and the team to store the car and head south avoiding the two storm cells. About 2 hours later the storms had passed and we received the all clear sign from our strategy division. We put the car back on the road and we were off. At first we were traveling through the remnants of the storms and under full cloud cover, but after pushing through this final batch of clouds we hit clear skies and those have remained until now and hopefully for the final hour of racing.

Backing up a little bit to last night; I want to congratulate all of the Solar Bike Teams who competed yesterday at Neosho for the Solar Bike Rayce. Our team enjoyed speaking with the many different teams and participants. Thank you to the organizers for providing us with the best dinner we have had on mock race thus far. The catered meal will set a high standard for our Operations team to follow. Perhaps our Ops crew should be cooking multiple part meals with dessert. I would also like to thank everyone at Crowder College for welcoming us and giving us a place to stay and camp. We look forward to returning in just about six weeks.

Labels: Mock Race 2008, NASC 2008 Season