My second solar car race-Brian Hampton The machine we took to Japan is very simple (although the work involved in putting it together seems extra-ordinary for such a simple device). Although the thing had been conceived for the 2000 mile run from Darwin to Adelaide we got invited to take part in the "Grand Solar Challenge"in Noto in Japan 2 months before hand.

The idea for the vehicle came from the Alarus entry in the 1990 Australian event.There a highly faired push-bike had been used to tow a trailer of cells-the vehicle had run well but the report on that event suggested that performance had been restricted by cross-wind effects of such an arrangement.

An obvious way round this problem was to use a stable 3-wheeler as the tow vehicle.So after getting over the trauma of the 1993 Solar Challenge I phoned Mike Burrows to ask about getting a "Speedy" bodyshell or somesuch.A fairly inevitable progression ensued-"When are you coming to look at the moulds?","When are you coming to collect the body?"It took a year of fairly gentle activity and mostly recycled and left over bits from previous projects to turn the bodyshell into a little one-seat car.In August 1995 this all turned into frantic activity for the first outing of the little tow car as a pure electric at Mallory Park.

All that was needed was a trailer,The solar cells were stripped off the original panels and remounted on smaller panels.(Experience of the original solar car was that 9x9 cell panels,1 metre each way, were flimsy and awkward to work on in the middle.) As with everything involving solar cells this took weeks and weeks and weeks.The central truss was made out of 60 degree Aluminium angle with strips of spruce as cross-members.The spruce and balsa panels are attached to aluminium ribs with clevis pins and spring clips.Two pedal tricycle wheels supported the whole assembly.

The Baldor motor,originally in Julian's Corbin-Gentry motorbike was replaced with a new Lynch motor.Brian's homemade controller had to be replaced with a Curtis one after a spectacular acceleration demonstration on the lawn-there was surprisingly little difference between the price of the new controller and what I had spent on semiconductors already.We were able to test drive the tow car on its own and assemble the trailer before shipping but time and logistics defeated testing the whole assembly.Shipping began in the usual style when the van to pick up our box was 6 hours late.(But while waiting I discovered the mudguards we had forgotten)

The team for Japan was Anne Slack as team manager,Bruce Hudson, Stuart Hampton(my nephew) and myself.The flight over Sibera in continuous cloud was as all transcontinental flights are;strangely in a Belgian airliner all labelling was in English with odd photocopied notices in Japanese stuck on for the sake of most of the passengers.

We managed to buy tickets from Narita to Kanazawa on my credit card at the airport-amazing when you consider what a tangle of different railways and companies Japan is,we did have to run to get from the bullet train on to the narrow gauge.The taxi driver at Kanazawa had a bit of difficulty figuring out where our hotel was but I knew we had arrived when I saw Phil Farrand.There was also the team from Drexcel University in America who had been there several days.The major question was where were our cars?It transpired they weren't going to appear for another day so there was nothing to do the following day except see the sights of Kanazawa....


For unpacking and scrutineering each team had an area marked out on the floor of an exhibition hall and a slalom test was laid out in the car park. The lid of our shipping box had been damaged in transit but fortunately none of the contents were affected.We managed to assemble the vehicle in the 2 days available(at one point we were lying underneath the trailer clipping the panels on when I became aware that my ear was getting warm and turned to see the lights of a television crew-Stuart saw us on television in a bar that night.)


Various rubberneckers and people from other teams came over to look and marvel at our obviously terribly fragile solar array.The scrutineers had us tape over switch terminals to stop electrocuting the driver-a damn nuisance later when I was trying to check panel voltage.I drove the slalom course with some panache,in fact I suspect I had a wheel in the air at one point,and stopped quite well and drove back to be told we had passed.


The beach where the event proper was taking place is an hour's drive from Kanazawa so the organisers had laid on a fleet of trucks to take the entrants there and a ramp had been built to load them on the trucks.As my vehicle was at the 6 metre limit for length it took a bit of scratching around before they found one long enough,I am however pleased to report that unlike anyone else I saw I drove onto the back of the truck.(A good scheme as it minimised the possibility of helpers pushing on the array and causing damage.)


That done I was able to look on at other teams preparations,most interestingly our neighbour Detlef Schmitz,"The suitcase man" who had bought his vehicle with him from Germany as baggage-it seemed to consist of a bundle of exhaust pipes and bicycle wheels wrapped up in corrigated cardboard but Detlef did get it together and running(for the very first time) and managed a reasonable performance.

When all the vehicles had been inspected and loaded onto trucks the hall was cleared and laid out for a party;slightly daunting as we had to be on the road to the beach at 4 o'clock the following morning.


The track was a long oval parallel to the shore line 7 km. per lap.The turns at each end and the start/finish line were tarmac but the rest of the circuit consisted of mesh netting laid over sand.Each team had a small marquee as a pits and there was a small village of temporary buildings for the organisers,television etc.There were 2 events-the 2 hour student event first and then the 2 1/2 hr. senior event,being no. 29 in the senior event our car was unloaded towards the end,there was a small delay when a truck got stuck in the sand.The proceding were started with a brass band,dancing girls and fireworks.


Detlef suggested that we ought to put in one lap to justify coming.I set off quite smoothly but quickly realised that the circuit was incredibly rough and I set the speed limiter to 20 mph as I lost control at any higher speed.I did the one lap and decided to visit the pits to look for damage-fortunate as the clamps holding the trailer axle on had loosened and the mudguards were trailing on the ground.


Nothing else seemed adrift and I set off again.The sand was a considerable absorber of power and when I drove over the tarmacked start line the ammeter shifted onto charge.I called in after another lap to check and all was o.k.I pitted once more to check for head damage-I had scraped some square inches of paint off my crash helmet against the inside of the canopy and a bit of plaster on my forehead made the next pothole less painful.Anyway I completed 7 laps in a running time of 140 minutes;the first lap was the fastest-after that I knew where the rough bits were and slowed down for them.


The winning team from George Washington did 16 laps and Detlef did 4.In the hazy late afternoon sun the array was putting 16 amps into the batteries.As the car had to be packed for shipping on to Australia the following day I wanted the lead acid batteries well charged and delayed driving it back to the lorry park for an hour.When I finally left it in the back of its truck I was met by Bruce who was dancing.


We had won the "Craftsmanship" prize but I had missed out on the prize-giving and it was Anne who got presented with all the prizes on television.The fragile solar array looked just the same after the 49 km. scramble.Next month we have another drive-across Australia!

The next "World Solar Challenge" is in 1999;-

Australia 1996;-

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