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Clock ticking for Calgary
July 21, 2008
Regina, Saskatchewan — The race to reach Calgary in the 2008 North American Solar Challenge (NASC) is heating up after rain hampered the start of Stage 4 from Winnipeg on Sunday and forced many teams to carefully plot their plans of attack for making it to the finish line on Tuesday.
“I am really pleased with our progress. Our strategy worked like
clockwork and we are really well placed for the drive into Medicine
Hat,” said Darshni Pillay, the U of C Solar Team’s operations manager.
“We’ve had to take some penalties but I think they will pay off because
it has put us in a good position going into the last two days and we
haven’t had to trailer our car as much as much as some of our
competitors.”
Across the prairies: Schulich 1 passes the colourful canola fields lining the Trans-Canada Highway trailer their cars out of the city since
the early morning skies were filled with rain clouds and charging up
depleted batteries wasn’t an option. The U of C team trailered Schulich
1 to the first checkpoint 200 kilometres west in Brandon, where the car
was unloaded and spent one hour charging thanks to clearer skies. From
there, driver Tiffany Veltman maintained a pace of about 80 km/h that
enabled the car to make it to the next checkpoint in Regina just 15
minutes before the end of the racing day. Schulich 1 was the only
vehicle other than the first-place car from University of Michigan to
reach the Regina checkpoint on Sunday.“This puts us in a good position to start Monday because the skies are clear and we will roll out from the checkpoint and won’t have to stop again until Medicine Hat, except to change drivers,” Pillay said.
This evening’s arrival in Medicine Hat will be a homecoming for Schulich 1 driver Jeff Wickenheiser, who was raised in the Gas City and plans to take the car across the finish line for Stage 4, followed by a team dinner hosted by his grandparents.
“It has been great to see how many people are behind us and excited about the race since we returned to Canada, and it is exciting to think that some of my family will be at the finish line today,” Wickenheiser said.