Getting ready for the race: Scrutineering and Test-driving

The last week in Darwin has started and the team only have 3 days left until the race starts. In the beginning of this week we moved from our private garage that our kind landlords lent us for the first weeks in Darwin, to Hidden Valley. During Monday we also hade our first test drive which went well, unfortunately though we didn’t have to much time on the race track. After the first test drive we spent a lot of time in the new garage to optimize it for our needs so that we fully could prepare us for Tuesday’s static scrutineering. At the scrutineering, the car has to pass several tests where everything has to be checked to make sure that Viking fulfils the regulations set by BWSC. For example they checked the safety of the battery, electricity system and the driver environment.

After a long day at the Darwin Convention Centre, as expected, we got a small list of things to fix. Almost no team pass on their first try and the things we have to fix should not take to long. The main things that we have to fix until the next scrutineering, which takes place on Thursday the 10th, is:

• Make some updates on the canopy
• Increase visibility of the registration plate
• Increase clearance of front left wheel
• Add some stickers on the car

After yesterday’s scrutineering, 8th of October, today’s work has been to test drive the car on Gunn Point Road, a public road with similar circumstances as the roads during the race, with a special permission for solar vehicles. This gave us the opportunity to do important logging of our energy consumption and radio connection between the cars. For the rest of the day our focus will be to prepare the car for tomorrow’s scrutineering to make sure that the second time, we pass it.

Even though we have gotten a lot of work done this week their is still a lot to do until Sunday. Stay updated, follow us on our social media.

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