Day 4 - Wednessday 19 October

Don't Stop Us Now!

Teams have been barrelling down the highway today, at least until near Glendambo for the 3 top teams. There is a strong tail wind which has been keeping speeds up, even though the cloud rolled in later in the day.

By the end of Day 4 Tokia had slowed considerably, and Nuon was catching up fast. Michigan would also have caught up more if it were not for some bodywork coming off their car in the wind, which cost them almost 40 minutes, but of course they still got the charge. Tokia is now just south of Pimba, the turnoff to Woomera, Nuon is just on the other side, 17km from Tokai. There is some speculation that Nuon may have stopped a few minutes after 5pm to make them look closer. We'll see if the gap increases after they start tomorrow. Michigan is at Glendambo ready to start at 8am sharp (arrived 4:30 - SA has daylight saving, but the race runs on NT time, no daylight saving, still 3.5 hours behind NZ). Tokai have 520km to go, and should manage that tomorrow even at a slower speed.

Aurora, Ashiya Sky Ace, and Twente continue to battle it out with the lead changing several times today. But there is still about 250km between them and the front pack.

Umicore and Twente have made gains today, while Aurora and Sunswift have slipped back and slowed down. Sunswift had some motor trouble today, Aurora are probably just saving energy. Istanbul Socrat and Stanford have picked up the pace today, while Apollo and Okinawa have slipped back.

From Umicore's blog "Umicore Solar Team today have only one goal: attack", and they did, flying past Sunswift, catching Aurora, and are now within 15km of Ashiya Sky Ace. They covered almost as much ground as Tokia today, only Nuna has been more agressive today. Umicore reckon their batteries are well charged from a conservative strategy to date.

The weather forcast for tomorrow is not good. Cloud and even a few showers right up to Coober Pedy later in the day. Also the wind may turn south west closer to Adelaide, which is more a side wind with a bit of head wind - sailing potential - at least south of Glendambo. The bad weather continues on Friday, with more southerlies, cloud and rain from North of Coober Pedy down. Forecast is for partly clearing weather on Saturday, but still some rain and probably plenty of cloud.

Tomorrow we find out who has good battery reserves!

Even based on the speeds up to now, it looks doubtful that any cars past Sunswift will make it all the way to Adelaide by the end of Friday, and with 2 more days of bad weather even they look doubtful.

A few more cars look capable of reaching Port Augusta by mid day Saturday. The officials may (should!) extend the closing time due to the delay at Tennant creek. Lets hope so! If they do I would hope Socrat, Stanford, Okinawa, and Apollo will make it.

As for the other teams - make the most of the good weather north of Coober pedy! It will only get worse! Once the batteries go down it will be on the trailer all the way to Adelaide.

For daily solar insolation check out http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/solar/index.jsp

For 4 day weather maps: http://www.bom.gov.au/australia/charts/4day_col.shtml

For actual forecasts in SA: http://www.bom.gov.au/sa/forecasts/map.shtml