Japanese win World Solar Challenge

A TEAM of university students who survived this year’s Japanese earthquake has overcome bushfires in Australia to take out the 3000km Veolia World Solar Challenge car race from Darwin to Adelaide in a tight finish.

The drama-filled event, which started on Sunday, was not only marred by wildfires that swept through central Australia but also two entrants that caught fire, apparently due to exploding batteries.

Japan’s Tokai University team reached the finish line yesterday afternoon to claim back-to-back victories in the bi-annual event, having also won the 2009 race.

Team Tokai crossed the finish line in Adelaide little more than an hour ahead of Nuon Solar from the Netherlands – four-time winners of the event – with the University of Michigan team arriving less than two hours later to snare third place.

Organisers said it was one of the closest finishes in the 11-race history of the event since 1987 – when GM’s ‘Sunraycer’ from the US beat Ford Australia’s ‘Sunchaser’ – with less than 30km separating first and second place.

The Japanese crew said they had dedicated their race to the reconstruction of their tsunami-stricken nation and its energy future following the related nuclear power plant crisis.

Left: The Nuon Solar team from the Netherlands at the finish line. Below: The Audi A1 turbo diesel which is running in conjunction with the solar challenge.

This afternoon, the Belgian team’s car caught fire about 10 kilometres north of Port Pirie on Highway One, without injury but forcing the entry’s retirement from sixth place.

Earlier in the race, the car of Team Solar Philippines also caught fire at Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory after its battery exploded.

Entrants are allowed to store a small amount of energy in the cars, but the majority of their power had to come from the sun and the vehicle’s kinetic forces.

The top-placed Australian entry at the time of publication – having moved up to sixth after the Belgian team fire – is the Aurora team from Melbourne, which has contested every event, winning in 1999 and finishing second four times.

An Audi-entered A1 1.6-litre turbo-diesel that has been running in conjunction with the event, is about eighth on the road after leaving Port Augusta but will not be officially classified.

Audi gained approval from event organisers to run the A1 to demonstrate its fuel efficiency and has recorded a best one-day average of 3.2 litres per 100 kilometres on the 684km run from Alice Springs to Coober Pedy.

Wildfires that swept through central Australia early in the week brought the race to a halt and competitors were also troubled by a number of large road trains.

But that was nothing for the winning team from a private Tokyo university that suffered one of the world’s most devastating earthquakes in March.

The elated Japanese team chanted their university’s name at the ceremonial finish in Victoria Square with a bottle of sake replacing the typical champagne.