After a succcessful day of racing, the team is now in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Our Mock Race started at 2:22 PM (as opposed to the typical 8:00 AM start), so all who stayed up the previous night installing array modules could get some rest. We left the workspace for Fort Wayne, our first control stop, traveling at the speed limit for almost all of the day. Rather than ending the day at 5:00 PM, we set a finish time at 6:00 PM due to the afternoon start.

During the 138 mile drive across Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana highways, we pulled over only once--but only because our lead car needed to be filled with gas! We arrived in Fort Wayne at 5:42, for an average speed of 41.4 miles per hour.

Charging at the end of the race day in Fort Wayne, Indiana

Semi trailer parked at camp in the Fort Wayne Coliseum

Picture by Eliyahu Gurfinkel, The Ann Arbor News

Senior John Federspiel, left, and sophomore Ethan Lardner, members of the University of Michigan Solar Car Team, wheel the 2009 model into its place for a promotional photo session on North Campus on Thursday morning.

University of Michigan students ready latest solar car for its day in the sun
by Dave Gershman, The Ann Arbor News
Saturday June 06, 2009, 12:01 AM

It's sleek, it's fast, and, yes, it's powered by the sun.

University of Michigan students have high hopes for the latest solar car.

"To win the World Solar Challenge in October," said John Federspiel, who will be a senior in mechanical engineering in the fall and is the crew chief on the solar car project.

The annual race across Australia, which draws college teams from across the globe, will be the first test of the car, dubbed Infinium.

U-M has placed third three times, though it has won a similar race, the North American Solar Challenge, five times.

Read the rest of the article at the Ann Arbor News