Boys attend 7th World Solar Challenge in Adelaide

Article as published in the Local Newspaper - November, 2003
The photo is of myself and Luke with Mark OIsthoom the Dutch crew member of “Nuna II”, the race winner, who drove the car into Adelaide.

My family and I followed the 7^th World Solar Challenge from the time it started on Sunday 19^th October 2003 where Darwin residents saw 22 solar cars and 6 environmentally friendly cars leave for Adelaide.

Luke and I were able to be involved right from the start as Dad’s brother Dean Herriman (who lives in Darwin) had taken photos of the cars as they left (at our request), “Uncle Dean” sent the photos by email for us all to see. We went online daily to find out where the cars were, with the plan to be in Adelaide for the first cars arrival. 

The Dutch, Nuon Solar Team’s car “Nuna II” arrived late Wednesday afternoon, having travelled 3010 km in an official time of 30 hours and 54 minutes, breaking their previous world solar record by one hour and forty minutes.  We travelled down daily to see all the cars come in.

On Sunday, us boys were very busy watching not only the World Solar Car Challenge but also the  Australian International Model Solar Car Challenge (with cars and boats) and the arrival of the World Solar Cycle Challenge entrants (who went through Eudunda on Saturday) and the Environment  friendly cars, Bennie the Bio Bus (STA), Truck and 4 wheel drive vehicles.

The final day of the event, last Tuesday had great excitement, as the last solar car to arrive was a man nicknamed “The Suitcase Man” from Germany, Detlef Schmitz. 

The excitement was because Detlef has been in all seven world solar challenges, and this is the first time he has made it past Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory. Detlef runs on a ‘shoestring budget’ and to make things worse has had some very bad luck  in previous attempts, with one trip ruined by his batteries being stolen and another ruined by a whirly wind flipping his vehicle and smashing his solar panels. Even this year he did it the hard way with high winds, rain and cloudy days all causing him to run slow and ‘only just’ making the deadline time of close at each control point. He was treated to a hero’s welcome by all those who competed, the media and spectators. We were even lucky enough to have photos taken of us with his team at the finish line.

During the week Luke and I talked to many people from different countries, took  hundreds of photos, received souvenirs from some of the crews and sat in the Taiwanese solar car “Formosun II” (the only non crew to do so after the event) and we were even given the privilege of waving the “SA Great – Sensational Adelaide” flag to welcome in some of the solar cars as they arrived in Adelaide (Mum was lucky enough to do so too).

You can find more information about the World Solar Challenge at http://www.wsc.org.au