Saturday, May 14

Auburn, AL: We readied our gear this morning to leave for Topeka, Kansas. Bookmark this page and check regularly as team members send daily updates from the Qualifier!

Submitted By: Mustafa Ali

Saturday, May 14

After stopping for lunch in Huntsville, we continued towards St. Louis for our overnight stop. We hit two heavy rain storms and immediately realized that our solar car trailer had a huge hole in its roof. The solar car we are towing did get wet but was not affected (we have yet to complete its weatherproofing).

In St. Louis we shared a hotel with Mustang fans attending the World Ford Challenge. We ate downtown at the Old Spaghetti Factory and saw the Gateway Arch. Topeka, KS is about 310 miles ahead of us.

Submitted By: Chris Trueblood

Sunday, May 15

We finished the trip to Topeka this morning. We picked up Kenny from the airport and then got checked into our hotel. The ASC officials were open for early registration this afternoon, and since we were one of the first we will be given an early scrutineering time slot. The rest of the day was spent doing the final touch up work on the car. Tomorrow all of our efforts will pay off!

Submitted By: Michael Kulbacki

Sunday, May 15

Upon arriving in Topeka, we had trouble finding our motel. After a close inspection of nearby buildings (the Juvenile Detention Center and Mule Redistribution Center), and after looking over the barbed wire fence and past two cop cars, we saw our "motel." Our intended accommodations, although adjacent to Heartland Park, were at best uninviting. Despite the hourly police visits and permanent motel residents, we felt slightly unsafe, yet we had to stay at least one night. We quickly reserved rooms at the motel we stayed at in 2003:

Best Western Candlelight Inn 2831 SW Fairlawn Rd. Topeka, KS (785) 272-9550 (800) 223-8892

Submitted By: Chris Trueblood and Kenny Lambert

Monday, May 16

We lined up at the entrance to Heartland Park at 7am. After a few minutes of waiting, we entered the park, found our tent spot, and unloaded the car and equipment. All teams and event staff met around 8am to discuss all of the rules and regulations.

Our first stations were electrical and solar array. We spent a few hours at these stations and learned that our cells are working but our batteries were too heavy. We fixed this problem quickly by removing a row of cells and we passed these two stations.

The next stations for us were body and driver checks. Everything was great except for the turn signal brightness and horn loudness. The front amber lights are a bit too weak, but that is an easy fix. Also, we are going to buy a more powerful air horn tomorrow at walmart. On the lighter side, all of our drivers did a great job of adding weight to their bodies by guzzling water and wearing heavy boots and clothes. They each lost around 5 pounds in the porta-john right after the check point.

After returning to the electrical checkpoint for a quick checkoff of our battery lightening, we ran over to the mechanical checkpoint. There were concerns on the securement of the motor-driven wheel, the braking configuration, and steering stops. Despite our concerns, they let us pass with only a few minor points.

In the dynamic checkpoint, Mike K. drove the turning radius and the figure 8. Despite the inspectors recommendations, mike proceeded to jump into the figure 8 course without hesitation or restraint. Needless to say, we passed these requirements with ease.

On to braking..... Knowing that we had a seemingly infinite number of turns to pass the test, we did not tweak everything at first. We did several runs and could not stop within .3 seconds of the required time. On the 5th run, Chris popped the right front tire. We decided to take advantage of the tire change and used this as an opportunity to give Chris a "pep talk." This did the trick and the next brake test was one second faster than the last.

WE HAD SUCCESSFULLY PASSED SCRUTINEERING!!!!

Then we did the unrequired slalom and drove 5 laps around the track for experience. At 6:00, we packed up and headed to our new hotel. We ate dinner at the On the Border Mexican restaurant and celebrated Toodles' birthday.

Submitted By: Chris Trueblood and Kenny Lambert

Wednesday, May 18

Twenty minutes ago, the Sol of Auburn qualified for the NASC by travelling 120 miles in 1 day at a speed averaging over 25 mph! We're still racing right now, a lap behind Iowa State for 1st place in stock racing. We'll bring you more information and pictures later tonight, so stay tuned to the website!

http://www.eng.auburn.edu/organizations/SOA/May2005.html

Submitted By: Chris Trueblood and Mustafa Ali

Wednesday, May 18

3.55PM: The race is underway and we are currently in first place!

Submitted By: Chris Trueblood and Mustafa Ali

Wednesday, May 18

Today was the first race day of the Formula Sun Grand Prix 2005. We charged the batteries from the wall last night to make sure we had a full charge, and avoid at least one very early wake up call this week. We arrived at the track just before 8:00 and began all the final touch up work before starting the event.

We got a nice surprise right from the start. Because the quarter-mile event had been cancelled, they changed the starting grid to the order of the figure-8, which we had known Tuesday night. What we didn't realize, however, was that the two cars that beat us in the figure-8 didn't plan to run the race this week, so we got to start the race from the pole.

Matt Chapman started as the driver. The first lap went great, but we had a small breakdown beginning the second. For any of those not familiar, we use the motor for braking as much as possible, so we recharge the batteries while we're slowing down. The first lap we had to avoid using regen, because it would overcharge the batteries. We tried to use regen on the second lap, but we still had not yet discharged the batteries enough, and we tripped the battery protection circuit, shutting the car down.

Because of our struggle on that second lap, we wound up chasing Iowa State University, also in the stock class, for most of the morning. They had a significant lead on us for most of the morning until they had to make a pit stop, and we took advantage, taking the lead for the stock class.

After three and half hours, Matt was getting exhausted so it was time for a driver switch. He came in, and within mere minutes, 2 tires were changed and Michael Kulbacki got in the car.

After several laps of going faster than we wanted, Mike found the restraint needed to run the average speed that we needed to, and began cruising right along. Iowa State had managed to pass us during our pit, so they qualified about 2 laps before us. We took the checkered flag, signifying that we had qualified, with our entire team leaning over the wall waving the checkered flags.

Throughout the rest of the day, Michael took advantage of less than adequate driving and more than average pit stops by the other teams to build up a 8 lap lead in the stock class. Towards the end of the five hours that Michael was in the car, we knew that we could get an extra lap if he drove the last 2 laps a bit faster. So he took the white flag with 3 minutes and 22 seconds left in the day (our average lap time previous had been about 4 minutes and 20 seconds.) Michael flew through the course, and pulled into the pits with about 20 seconds to spare.

We quickly put the car on the charging stand, but charging was cut short by a late afternoon thunderstorm. Tomorrow, we plan to have one early group set up the charging stand, and a later group come in and take over.

The top three as of Wednesday night:

U. Minnesota (open class): 121 laps, 121 qualifying Auburn U. (stock class) 117 laps, 116 qualifying Iowa State (stock class) 113 laps, 108 qualifying

WAR EAGLE!!!

Michael Kulbacki

Submitted By: Michael Kulbacki

Thursday, May 19

Today was the second day of the Formula Sun Grand Prix.

After we got back last night, we changed the tires and got the car ready for today. Lucky we did, as the front left tire had a tack in it. It had to be shear luck that it did not come out during our two fast laps at the end of racing Wednesday, or we may have picked it up on the way back to the pits.

This morning, we spit into two crews so that the array could get set up for charging at sun up, and some people who weren't essential to the set up could get some sleep. The early group arrived at the track at 6:15 this morning and set up the array. For any of you who have witnessed the morning charging at this event, our new array with the additional charging cells is a sight to be seen. It is HUGE! It by far dwarfs all of our previous arrays.

Since we were in second place overall as of this morning, we started from the second position. Unfortunately, we were spot checked rolling out to the line for light operation. A minor glitch led to one of our turn signals being inoperative, so we were forced to roll back into the pits after the race start. 15 minutes later, the problem was fixed, and half of our advantage over Iowa state from Wednesday was gone.

A fairly short period of time into the session, Mark, who was driving, radioed that we had a slow leaking flat tire. Mark continued around the track at a slower speed and the pit crew got to work. The tire was quickly changed and Mark got back on track. The hole seemed to be from another tack-sized object. Pretty sad when a racetrack has tacks on it.

Mark continued through the morning, averaging laps on the order of 33 mph, 5 mph faster than yesterday due to better sunlight today. Late in the morning, it was decided that it would be in our better interests for Chris not to drive this afternoon as planned, and instead work on battery equalization circuitry. Matt did not feel up to driving another long shift so soon, so it was determined that Mike would take the afternoon shift again.

Early in the noon hour, Mark was feeling the effects of fatigue and requested a driver change. We completed a 3 minute driver change and Mike got the car back out on the track. Iowa state soon followed with an 8 minute driver change. Mike started making significant headway into the Iowa lead for the day by driving 35 mph average. Around 1:00 pm or so, we had the left rear tire blow out. We had to wait for the safety truck, but the tire changing crew very quickly changed the tire upon their arrival to the car and we were back underway.

Our energy consumption data for the afternoon showed that Mike was using very little, if any power doing his laps. The decision was made to bump lap speed up to approximately 37 mph. At this speed, we were flying past all of the stock class teams, keeping pace and occasionally running faster than the open class cars.

We made a pit stop mid-afternoon to check tire wear, and wound up changing 2 tires. All was going well until there was about an hour left. Two battery modules very quickly started discharging quicker than the rest. Because of how our battery protection circuitry works, we were in significant danger of the car shutting down due to undervoltage. Initial attempts to run at 30 - 33 mph using little power were unsuccessful, and we were forced to reduce to minimum speed to keep the car rolling.

At around 5:00, Mike's right hand started getting numb from holding the throttle down and steering using only a few fingers. This, combined with the fatigue of driving for 4 hours today, led Mike to believe that the best option was to get out of the car and let someone else finish the day. The next lap, Chris got in the car and finished the day at slow speed.

Our team prevailed throughout the day and worked to minimize the damage to our lead as bad luck came our way. In the end, Iowa has taken a 5 lap lead over us in the race. We believe, however, that we will have a higher state of charge in the morning than they do, and that as long as we can avoid lady luck we will be able to be more efficient in our pit strategy than Iowa tomorrow. In addition, it seems that Iowa mary be having some mechanical difficulties.

Tomorrow we have a 4:45 wake up call to go get the car set up to charge.

Thanks for the well wishes everyone and WAR EAGLE!

Submitted By: Michael Kulbacki

Friday, May 20

After a great run on Thursday, we fell short to Iowa State by about 5 laps, setting us up for a second place finish on Friday. With clear skies we were able to recharge our batteries Thursday evening and Friday morning to almost full capacity.

Friday's race went very well until about lunchtime, when we had two failures that forced Auburn to end the race early. As I was driving around the track, I heard a loud knocking noise from the rear right wheel. When I pulled into the strip alongside the pit, Kenny looked closely at the wheel and saw daylight through it. The wheel had been severed almost completely off the car and was only hanging on by about a 2 inch section of aluminum. We quickly stopped and replaced the wheel. All went well after this incident except when we changed drivers about a half-hour later. When Michael Kulbacki tried to pull out of the pit after our driver change, he instantly discovered that the car would not steer. We pulled the car aside and found that the front steering assembly had a screw come loose, completely disabling the handle bar from turning the wheels. We pitted the car and began fixing the steering issue while some others investigated the reason why the rear wheel broke. With the help of an ASC official we detected a small stress crack in the right rear knuckle, leading us to believe that the rear wheel had been bending around the sharp turns on the track. Our race day was then ended, as it was unsafe to continue driving the car.

Fortunately, we did not lose our position. We officially finished second place in the stock class and third place overall. The final results can be found here:

http://www.formulasun.org/fsgp/event/fsgp2005/history/index.html

And the overall top five are summarized below:

University of Minnesota: 410 laps (861 miles) Iowa State University: 374 laps (785 miles) Auburn University: 279 laps (586 miles) CalSol (Berkeley): 175 laps (368 miles) Northwestern University: 129 laps (271 miles)

32 teams intend to race in this year's American Solar Challenge. 18 teams intended to race in last week's May Qualifier. 10 teams actually passed all inspections are were allowed to race last week. Auburn placed 2nd in our class, 3rd overall, and was awarded the "safety award."

We'll post more pictures over the next few days from Thursday and Friday at the track.

War Eagle

Submitted By: Chris Trueblood