UKZN Solar Car: Race Day 4

After a rough and windy night the team crawled out of bed and got to work. At this stage of the race the many late nights and early mornings are catching up and people are exhausted, but everyone knows their role and once personal business is attended to we all hop to it.

Getting the car into position - protecting those wheels from the fierce thorns we camped with last night!

We're on the road again!

The first control stop of the day was at Kulgera 1756 km into the race, which is 30 km away from the state border between South Australia and the Northern Territory (1786 km into the race).

Midway between the Kulgera and Coober Pedy control stops the car pulled over to change drivers. Unfortunately as the car pulled onto the unpaved shoulder of the road a tyre popped. A quick tyre change later and the car was back on the road! About 40 km from the control stop at Coober Pedy Kirsty, the solar car driver at the time, started experiencing trouble with the steering. She managed to get safely to the control stop at Coober Pedy but once the team lifted the top shell they discovered that the damage was quite serious – sections of the steering and suspension would need to be replaced. As a result of this the team could not continue driving until 5 pm (only 30-minutes worth of driving after the 30-minute control stop) and so we found ourselves a campsite (with showers – hooray!) for the night. At the end of day 4 of the race the team had travelled 2178 km by solar, and that is pretty fantastic!