Hi ya’ll. We are on the track and raycing!
Still sleep deprived and determined to roll out onto the track we discussed many options and concluded that we needed to rayce. Despite our battery protection’s refusal to work we decided that we could quickly build a safe system using lead acid batteries.
Our chassis was not designed to hold car batteries so we drove into Fort Worth and bought lead acid batteries that were half the weight. We made some modifications to our chassis to support the weight of the newly purchased batteries which are still about twice the weight of our current lithium ion batteries, and only one half the capacity. We also had to re-wire all of our high voltage lines and re-program our driver-motor interface boards overnight. With a lot of work and serious lack of sleep, our electrical team pulled through and made the car work. I’d like to thank the generous teams and individuals that all helped our team pull through!
Today we passed both electrical and dynamic scrutineering! Our lead acid batteries were safe and our car performed beautifully in the dynamic tests. As CalSol entered the track for the first time, all the teams in the pit stopped what they were doing to watch and cheer us on. We totaled 24 laps in about two hours and impressed a lot of teams. Our fastest time on the very curvy, 1.7 mile track was 3:00 minutes flat!
We took a lot of pictures and displayed our sponsors’ logos proudly! We’re patching up some wear and tear on our car and plan to see you on the track tomorrow!