An Announcement from orangeandblack5

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#202

Well

We think we can safely say we’ve hit a year in which people pushed the limits too hard.

Stanford and Vattenfall had their batteries catch on fire.

Twente, Aachen, Western Sydney, and Kogakuin all crashed on the race, and Vattenfall and JU Solar both spun out on the track before the race.

There may be more incidents I don’t know, as we’re only familiar with what’s been happening to our direct competition.

In short, we expect WSC 2021 will have safety standards that more closely reflect our team’s internal policies. This race will certainly not be allowed to continue to put this many lives at risk.

11 Likes
#203

holy shit, seriously hope everyone is ok

4 Likes
#204

So far, yes - but that’s as much luck as anything else.

#205

racing safety regulations are sadly written blood and it seems to be the case here as well
see the switch from pure stock in NASCAR to restrictior plate racing to cap speeds

#206

mainly as people were actually fucking dying from crashing into walls and other cars at such high speeds

#207

imagine trying to be safe and not die

1 Like
#208

RIP Dale

#209

there will never ever be another driver like dale Earnhardt

#210

The only fatal accident I know of involved University of Toronto’s Blue Sky Solar Racing team, but yeah.

#211

At this point, we’ve been gassing it all morning to try and get to Tokai, but given the crazy amount of fuckshit that’s been going on we’re choosing to play it safe and just match the speed of the team right behind us.

It’s not worth the risk. This race cycle has been a string of things outside of our control going wrong at the worst possible moment time and again, and we’re not letting that happen a second time on the actual race (we lost our primary escort vehicle to a transmission failure literally 90 minutes before the start).

6 Likes
#212

We just passed what remains of Nuna X - now reduced to a pile of smoldering ashes on the side of the road.

What a sad race this has been. We had hoped to beat them to the finish line - nobody wanted this.

7 Likes
#213

Why did so many people crash and or catch fire? Is that normal, was their a change, or just a crazy race

#214

conspiracy just unlucky i suppose

#215

Uhm, @orangeandblack5…

Did I… overdo it?

1 Like
#216

Who is the frontrunner now?

#217

Agoria Solar Team is.

3 Likes
#218

Any teams you lead now but have a decent chance of upstaging you still orange?

#219

This race has been batshit insane.

As we said earlier, our belief is that too many teams began to put race time before safety.

For example, our battery engineer’s theory on why Nuna X burned is that they made their battery pack insanely small, causing any thermal issues to be compounded a lot by a lack of air to cool, and then he believes they raced too hard, undervolted (emptied) their battery pack, and while recharging in the sun could not manage the excessive heat generated by their pack coming back from being undervolted.

Running your pack while undervolting is explicitly against the race regulations, but it’s possible they thought they could manage the risk and did so anyways. If not, that’s a shame, but if so, the safety regulations exist for a reason.

7 Likes
#220

this is so hype, it’s like a mini drama show with all the events going down rn lol

can’t wait to see who wins

3 Likes
#221

Not really.

1 Like