July 20, 2008

Solar rayceing, much like any other type of racing, has bad days and good days... Saturday was a bad day for most of the cars as we left Fargo North Dakota under gloomy cloud cover which meant slow going (except of course, the mighty Michigan).

We expected to be at the border around 1:30 but instead cleared it around 3pm. The carnet bond was an adventure as I thought it might. For those of you not familiar with these instruments it is a process whereby you can move equipment back and forth across the border by exporting it from Canada,Back in Canada: Schulich 1 back on Canadian soil. importing it to the US and then when you come home, you reverse it by exporting it from the US and importing it to Canada. Sounds confusing, but it is just paperwork. Attached to the bond is a list of the 205 items we brought with us, right down to the number of hex bolts, where we bought them, how much they weigh and what they cost. Just creating the inventory took the team an entire weekend of counting way back in May when the bond was created. I missed the US customs turn off at Pembina-Emerson and when I entered the dedicated Solar Car lane, the officer was quite understanding and told me to just go back through the US customs and then to come back to Canada. The US officer was equally nice and understanding – I’m not the first one to miss the turn- and I was ushered inside. Then the fun began, I inadvertently rubbed sunscreen into my eye getting out of the car and consequently approached the counter weeping profusely out of my left eye only. The officer was amused and quipped, that when he was done with me, I’d be weeping out of both eyes! One of my stellar moments…..He was actually an immigration officer and had never done a carnet bond either so we had to figure it out together. Eventually we did and I was back in the Solar Car lane and ushered into Canadian Customs. Stamp, stamp, sign, sign and it was done.

The process at the customs was excellent for all of the cars as Canada dedicated one lane to the solar cars and they were prepared for all situations. If a car cleared with no problems (as ours did, as I had executed the bond about one hour ahead of them) then the rayce time continued. If a car was asked to go to secondary inspection, primarily due to immigration issues as in the case of the Germans, then the rayce clock stopped and the car was put into shade so that no charging of the batteries could occur. Quite a few cars were sent to secondary inspection and as Grady, CTV and I had a ring side seat to it all, we learned that quite a few teams did not have carnet bonds. It will be interesting to see what happens when they return to the states as they run the risk of duties on their cars. With some of these cars valued at >$500,000, I hate to think of what they might have to pay. We suggested to several teams that they might want to talk to their university customs broker! When our car come through, we were out in full force, me with the flags (sorry to embarrass you guys, it was on the CTV national news…..), the paparazzi with their cameras and a few interested folk. It was pretty funny to watch the car pop open, a hand come out with a passport and then a discussion between Jeff and the officer. Apparently, he asked if had any tobacco, alcohol or firearms in the car!

Shortly after Morris, Manitoba, we ran out of juice and had to go into the trailer. (The mighty Michigan apparently arrived in Morris just as their stampede parade began and became an instant parade entry. They were right behind the musical ride and had to navigate horse poop! Must have been quite a laugh….) This was disappointing as we were about one hour away from the stage stop at Red River College, and as soon as we trailer, we incur a time penalty. The bright side of trailering for us was that we were the last team to trailer (most trailered through customs) and as such our penalty is the least.

Red River College hosted a steak barbecue for us and for some of the teams, this was the first real meal since Plano and there were happy faces all around. Sadly, Red River’s team had to trailer across the stage finish line to the disappointment of the small crowd of well wishers who were anxiouslyTrans-Canada Highway: Colourful fields have greeted us for the push west to Calgary from Winnipeg waiting for them. This resulted in an interesting strategy discussion last night with our team as the race engineers calculated what we had to do today and tomorrow in order to make Medicine Hat (the end of the next stage) with the minimum penalty. After much debate, we decided to trailer the first section to Brandon (we will incur a 4 hour penalty equal to the interval time plus 1 ½ minutes for each mile the car is in the trailer) and then charge the car for the run to Regina. With Brandon only being 2 ½ hours at 110kph, we could set up the array for the 2 hours before our designated restart time (at each checkpoint, we must stop for 30 minutes, so our array charging time would be 1 ½ plus the ½ hour). The strategy worked as it was raining in Winnipeg when we left and sunny in Brandon. Consequently when we drove into the checkpoint in Regina, only Michigan had arrived (and departed). NONE of the other teams had made it to Regina. What this does to our standing we do not know. We do know that if you trailer in section one of a stage you are assessed the penalty for that section only; if you trailer in section two of a stage you are assessed the penalty for both sections and if you trailer in section three, Chuckwagon dinner: Preparing dinner on the tailgate of the S-10 in the Toyota dealship parking lot in Regina.you are hit with penalties for all three sections, regardless of whether you trailered in any of the other sections – follow? I imagine the highway east of Regina is littered with makeshift campsites as all the other teams have to start from where they stopped last night. We are in the Super 8 motel after a yummy chuckwagon salmon barbecue and had a decent night’s sleep.

Today we are off to Medicine Hat and Jeff Wickenheiser – a hometown Medicine Hat boy- will drive into the stage finish.

So good days and bad days in raycing……regardless, this is a beautiful country with some jaw-dropping colours and scenery.

- Lynne Cowe Falls, faculty advisor