Out of Winnipeg
With zero minutes of penalties in this previous stage we won stage three of the race and were awarded yellow hats!
We are currently on TC1 heading west to Brandon. This is the shortest leg of the race and we are facing clouds and rain. Then onward to Regina, Medicine Hat, and then Calgary.
Posted by Jeff Ferman at 10:43 AM | Permalink |
16 comments
16 Comments:
Way to go, guys. Make sure your drivers stay awake for this stretch. All the cities are set off from the highway, and there isn't a hill until Calgary, so it gets a little boring.
Too bad you don't have Brian in the caravan anymore to induce "massive head" winds to trouble the other teams.
Hmm. Brian Ignaut = B. Ignaut ~ Big Nut. I seem to recall a story about a helmet not fitting on Brian's extra brainy cranium. (I think Michael is jealous.)
Calgary is about a half mile higher than Winnipeg. Is the increase in altitude all at the end, or is it a gentle slope all across the prairie?
Brad, you're slipping on the weather control. Rain and clouds? C'mon, we want sun and tailwinds.
Good job, team, on winning more yellow hats! And especially good job on zero penalties.
Any news on official timings coming into Winnipeg? And especially on if everyone made it yesterday?
Too bad one has to swap drivers at this point. Though I still don't think anyone would be capable of beating Mike "straight shot" Adams' amazing 21+ hour drive to TX :)
Does anyone know if we have any bus drivers on race crew?
Re the weather, hope it doesn't turn into another "Cloud Crawl '99". At least we're in the lead, and i swear that the yellow hats make us go faster.
Great job on the no penalties. I'm looking forward to another massive lead gain until the World's Largest Tipi.
Okay, if they won't update the standings on the NASC site, I'll take a stab at it. I don't know the penalties, nor trailering times, so I can only try to estimate the overall times for the first five.
1) Michigan - 34:18
2) Principia - 35:35
3) FH Bochum - 40:56
4) Waterloo - 42:09
5) Minnesota - 42:50
Missouri had a 1:18 lead on Calgary starting stage 3. But Calgary passed S&T. The question is, did Calgary make all of that up, or not? They both lost hours on Minnesota. They are probably in the 45+ hour range now.
Gaps have widened some. Michigan has > 1 hour lead. And look at that gap between 2nd and 3rd! Principia has over 5 hours on Bochum. Then Bochum has an hour lead on Waterloo. The closest is the 41 minute gap between Waterloo and Minnesota. That could get interesting. Minnesota may have time to erase Waterloo's lead. It would be hard to catch the Germans, though, almost 2 hours ahead.
Rain and clouds this morning in Winnipeg. Most teams will not have a full charge in their batteries. In fact, I would be surprised if anybody other than Michigan and Principia did. Until they break through to the sunshine, this could be a very slow leg.
Since you can't wear more than one hat at once, I think they should have invested in yellow t-shirts, jackets, shorts, etc. It works in with the Maize & Blue colow scheme!
TC, you read my mind, I was about to suggest that you take a guess at the times, since you are probably the most well informed fan out there. Hopefully your estimates are right!
Go Blue, smooth sailing to Medicine Hat!
Queens has a GPS tracker, showing its location online. For inexplicable (to me) reasons, Queens has no elapsed time showing in the standings. With 0 time this should put them way ahead of Continuum, et al!
I just realized (okay I am slow on the uptake) that the name of the Michigan solar car is Continu-UM.
Here is Queen's GPS location:
http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?&glId=0qftO4yFMVX4IBSQXfYU9XCsnpcaiNNiR
Thanks, Maggie.
Good news: Queen's University's SPOT tracker shows they're about halfway to Brandon. (We gotta get one of these for next race. Tuck it in the chase car somewhere. Anybody know how big they are, or how much they cost?)
As always, cheering on the Maize & Blue from A2! I'm grateful for your good fortune and so proud of how you're all representing us in character and accomplishment.
"May the road rise up to meet you, and may the wind always be at your back [so long as it helps Continuum perform optimally]."
Rainey
just another of the 400K+ alums
Unfortunately official standings were not released by NASC this morning.
Below is a better, shorter, URL for Queen's tracker. They appear to be at least half way to Brandon.
http://tinyurl.com/5kvtd8
GO BLUE
FYI TC, Michigan does have a GPS tracker - manufactured by my company:
http://caflor.net/gps.html
However, they understandably don't want to publicize the information, so I'm not going to link to it here.
-Robert
TC:
The gps tracker price is $169.99. The size is about 4.5" by 3". See URL below.
No, I am not getting any money for telling this. I am not smart enough to make money off something as cool as that.
http://tinyurl.com/5cyxn3
GO BLUE
We fans may have to get our own, and maybe Maggie or her parents can stick it on the chase car when no one's looking.
Re: to Peter - I sat out for about 4 hours on that drive, unfortunately. I drove from Ann Arbor to Arkansas, then slept until we hit daylight in Dallas, then finished the drive from Dallas to Austin. I really only drove about 17 hours of that drive. Though I did do the full distance from Ann Arbor to Topeka for FSGP.
And, if any members of the "Infinium" team are reading this, and you're planning on being a driver, I highly recommend becoming a bus driver. It really lowers your expectations of proper performance of a vehicle. Slow acceleration and wide turning radius - both things that help the efficiency of the solar car. It's also fun and pays pretty well, too.
This is what I get for being out of town for 4 days and not keeping up with the frequent commentary. I couldn't help the massive headwinds, it was a combination of Ignaut genetics and the annoying drivers who would pace Momentum and snap pictures.
I'm so proud of the whole Continuum team, you're truly capitalizing on all the capabilities of that amazing car as well as your well-trained group of students. This is what the 2007-2008 program was meant to do. You're continuing what has made solar car great for the last 18 years.
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