During the past school holiday 4 members of Zeallous Racing (previous F1 in Schools participants from High School Stellenbosch) took part in the first ever South African Solar Challenge. Their main role was to be observers. This meant that they sat in the support vehicle behind the solar car and made note of everything that happened.

On Friday morning the 26th of September at 06:30 Hugo Minnaar (ZR Manager), Rossouw Minnaar, Coenraad Grünschloss and Jandre Oncke boarded Kulula.com for their flight to Johannesburg. In Johannesburg Johan Viljoen, one of the organisers picked them up and took them to Winstone Jordaan’s house, the other organiser of the challenge. Jandre was chosen to help spray paint and built Sanyo / Iritron’s car and Coenraad was chosen as PA of Winstone for the day. Hugo and Rossouw stayed at the house to cut out stickers for the solar cars.

On Saturday Rossouw and Jandré went to help with the Sanyo / Iritron car from Pretoria. Hugo and Coenraad helped at Menlyn Park to set up everything for the arriving teams. Team Sunna from Johannesburg was the first team to arrive. The second team to arrive was Tokai University from Japan with an impressive out-of-this-world looking car. Rossouw and Jandre worked on the car through the night.

The solar cars was suppose to start at 08:00 on Sunday morning but only pulled out of Menlyn park at 11:00 due to bad weather. Rossouw observed Team Sunna for the day and Jandré drove with Johan to prepare everything at Kimberley. Hugo and Coenraad stayed at Menlyn Park until 15:00 with the Sanyo / Iritron team who was still waiting for parts. They stopped at Potchefstroom to try and fix the blown MOSFETS. A professor from Potchefstroom supplied them with new MOSFETS and helped to fix the car. At 21:00 the wheels wasn’t turning yet and at 22:00 they decided to leave for Kimberley which was still 3 hours drive away. They arrived in Kimberley the following morning at 02:00 and set up camp on the Shell garage’s grass.

Jandré observed Team Sunna on Monday – Stage 2 and Hugo went ahead with Johan. Rossouw and Coenraad stayed with Team Sanyo / Iritron. That night everybody arrived early at the Karoo National Park. The Japanese team was pulled over in Beaufort-West but the issue was quickly resolved.

Hugo was chosen to observe the Japanese team and Coenraad observed Team Sunna. The Falcon (name of Japanese solar car) drove all the way from Beaufort-West to Worcester at an average speed of 60km/h. At Worcester their battery went flat and they loaded the car onto their trailer.

That evening the cars were set out in Canal Walk and everybody camped at Hardekraaltjie. The following day visitors could see the cars and speak to the teams in Canal Walk. Hugo and Rossouw went home from here but Coenraad and Jandré continued on the journey to Durban and then back to Pretoria. They are expected to finish on Wednesday.

Zeallous Racing would like to thank everybody who made this event possible especially Winstone Jordaan and Johan Viljoen. Zeallous Racing is grateful to have had the opportunity to be part of such an event. They will definitely return in 2010 and maybe even with their own solar car.

For more information visit www.solarchallenge.co.za. For photos please visit the Zeallous Racing Gallery or click here.

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