Northwestern Solar Car Team Places Third in Race

June 8, 2009

The Northwestern Solar Car Team took third place in the Formula Sun Grand Prix 2009, held June 1 through 5 at the Texas Motorsports Ranch in Cresson, TX.

Nine teams from across the country competed in the race, where teams strived to drive as many laps as possible in the three-day time period.

The Northwestern team, driving its car sc5, drove 124 laps the first day, 102 laps the second day, and 145 laps the third day, for a total of 371. Their fastest lap time was 2:58.



The team previously drove sc5 in the 2008 American Solar Challenge, a 2,400-mile race from Plano, Texas, to Calgary, Alberta. The team placed 13th in that race.

For this race, the team optimized some electrical systems and updated the mechanical systems so they were more reliable. They also had to prepare the car to race on a looping track instead of the open road.

“This is a track event with twists and turns, and the pavement is more smooth,” says Phillip Dziedzic, team project manager. “The car needed to be in tip-top mechanical shape, since this sort of course is much more intensive on the car. Racing strategy is also different. During the entire racing time, we had members watching the entire track and communicating with the driver to tell him of events up ahead in order to drive most efficiently.” Drivers also tried to keep the car at the same speed most of the time — about 26 miles per hour — in order to maximize energy.

The first two days of the race involved inspections, and the team passed them all on the first day — and ended up being the only team to complete all stations with the highest "green" ranking on the first try.

For the following three days, teams raced from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., stopping only to change tires and fix any problems. And the team did have their share of problems — they blew a tire, had some trouble replacing it, and had trouble with battery connections (which, when faulty, cause the car to shut down).

Over the three days, three drivers drove the car around 371 laps, the equivalent of 630 miles. On the final day, during the last 30 minutes of the competition, the University of Waterloo team (ahead of Northwestern by only seven laps) had car troubles, and pulled into their pit. Northwestern gained five laps on them when they pulled back out. At that time they were going 25 miles per hour, so the Northwestern team sped up. Then, Waterloo ran out of energy and had to stop. Northwestern pulled into third place and ended up beating Waterloo by five laps.

“They say watching a solar car race is like watching paint dry, but the last half hour of this race was really close and pretty exciting,” says Michael Awadalla, outgoing project manager. In fact, the Northwestern team timed their speed perfectly — on the last lap, their battery pack was empty.

“It was fun because our car was so reliable that we were able to focus more on optimizing everything, like pit stops,” Awadalla says.

Third place is the highest the team has ever placed in a race.

“Our success came from continued hard work from all of our team members and support from our sponsors,” Dziedzic says. “There is nothing more satisfying that seeing all of our hard work pay off.”

The team may modify the car to compete in the 2010 North American Solar Challenge.

“This finish solidifies our place as a competitive team in future races, and we are quickly making a name for ourselves as a force to be reckoned with,” Dziedzic says. “We’ve gotten a taste of success, and we are not looking back.”

- Emily Ayshford