Solar Freaks

Few more years and the track will be like the old W.A. one!

unussapiens wrote:That reminded me of a video I made a couple of years ago. We raced two cars, both with a camera in their cockpits. The result can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhWg7bpZbM0.

Nice. I don't know if they were quite doing 15 and a half seconds though.

I did have a second camera and should have stuck it on another car alongside it too. I reckon that we should get a whole army of these:

http://www.chucklohr.com/

and then stick them on cars during next year's event. I'm not sure on the exact model that I got but the quality was surprisingly good and they only weigh like 15 or 20g each. They're going on ebay for no more than 20 bucks (without the micro sd card).

jhg wrote:Few more years and the track will be like the old W.A. one!

Haha. It will be if you guys in WA keep wanting to drag it over there to use for your event.

Firstly I have to say that I have recently quit the AIMSC so anything I say cannot be misconstrued as being 'official' policy and is strictly my personal opinion.

No matter what anyone says, two lap finals are unfair. Nothing I have seen in 16 years of solar car racing has convinced me otherwise. Either run all races as two laps or all as one lap. I think from memory that the results in Fremantle would have been different had the finals been only one lap?

The only justification that I have seen so far for holding two lap finals seems to be that they are more spectacular and increase the chances of a crash! Big deal. Why would anyone in their right mind spend the time and money to build a car then cross the country with the sole purpose of hoping to see it crash spectacularly?

Not everyone has access to test tracks and unlimited resources so the construction (and destruction) of extra test cars is out of the question for most teams. A bit like intentionally dropping your car nose first from a height to see if it can survive that other great idea, the crash stopping block. Doesn't everyone build 3 or 4 cars so they can smash a couple? Where do these ideas come from? Not the people paying the bills, obviously.

You can simulate all you like but it seems that at least 3 different simulators exist and they cannot agree on most details. Unless you have masses of data for each actual car on that particular track the results are a guess at best. F1 teams spend millions simulating one car with data for that car for each individual track, yet still rely on actual track test data. And they still get it wrong. A mish mash of car data is meaningless and can be interpreted however you chose.

john jeffery wrote:No matter what anyone says, two lap finals are unfair.

john jeffery wrote:I think from memory that the results in Fremantle would have been different had the finals been only one lap?

I have to disagree. As can be seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doA4T37OWl8

The difference between Blur and Mike Couanis was fairly marginal (not even a car length) over one lap and seeing as Mike Couanis was not ever geared for one lap racing it's unfair to conclude that the results 'would have been different'

I also don't believe that two lap races last year were at all unfair. It's true that that cars with bigger panels have an advantage over two laps but seeing as 12W panels were well within the rules it can't be deemed 'unfair'.

Saying big panels is unfair is like saying that an F1 driver using wet tyres in the rain is unfair. The wet tyres are an advantage but they're not unfair because everyone has access to them. It's the same with using a 12W panel.