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It's just unforgettable. 2009, World Solar Challenge is
just incredible. What a race.
Tokai is so far ahead now, that we can't overtake them anymore.
It's a beautiful celebration for second place.
Sadly not first, but in the end we had a fantastic race.
This is a fantastic moment, because this means that in 2011
everyone will be geared up again and we'll get an even faster car probably.
We're building on the design of Nuna5.
We're going to go lighter. We're going to go more efficient.
And I think the car, as a whole, is going to be leaps beyond the previous.
How's the planning?
We have a week and a weekend to go
and then the car has to go back to Delft.
That's hard work for us, but we think we can make it.
I've worked in Lelystad for four month to build the car.
That might have been the hardest time of life.
We made days that started at half past 7 in the morning until 3 at night, for 1 and a half months, all the time.
The top edge is coming off, but after that it's getting a lot stiffer
so you can't see if it's loose or not.
Mark blew underneath the car and the laminate detached from the foam.
You can't really fix it, because- Yeah, you can't fix it, no.
We had that panel, but the top part of the laminate has detached.
The connection with the glue detached.
But how do you know for sure?
- Because it was bulging? - I think so.
We're not getting anywhere working on the edges so we're using water.
Yeah, stop.
We're trying to start with the least harmful technique.
And after that you start using slightly more aggressive techniques to get it out.
A good thing that that didn't fall down.
- I don't really see any damage. - That's what's up!
I'd keep it this way.
It worked great.
Yeah, really glad. Really glad.
He looks really neat.
Back For Gold! Bam!
Krul with the ball at his feet, with a huge kick to the front.
In the direction of, well, Uruguay's defense.
Hey, what's up?
Ah, good.
Like you can see, Nuna6 has finally arrived.
We worked really hard here at the office
but the people in Lelystad worked especially hard.
Without a good teamwork this would never have been possible.
And now I would like to open the first one, to Nuna.
This is actually really good.
We're in Valkenburg today at an airport.
And we're going to measure the forces on the suspension.
How much the wheel goes up and down.
I'm one of the drivers.
- Other drivers are Bruno- - This is really super cool.
- Javier- - Yeah, is kind of cool.
and possibly Rob Kamphues.
I thought this is a really weird little cart, but it handles like a pretty regular car.
You don't really notice it has three wheels.
It's an enormous honour to be one of the first to be sitting in a contraption like this.
Because they worked extremely *** this, everything is new and experimental
and to be able to have a say about all that is great, really amazing.
It's a bit overkill to me.
- Huge! - This drives over the floor?
The moment we've been waiting for for months is almost here.
The testing of the Nuna6 in the German-Dutch Windtunnel, near Marknesse.
Great moment, great facility.
Hopefully also great results from the Windtunnel.
First they will do the standard procedure, also called a shakedown.
They're going to see if the car doesn't roll away.
Then we're going to listen
With the microphone we can listen if the air sounds good or not.
You can hear rumbling now.
But sometimes, on some spots you can't hear anything.
And we want to know where those transitions are.
I think that out of all of us his hair's the best waving in the wind.
He's one of the boys from aerodynamics, so of course he's got to be involved.
Right now we're welcoming the press.
Including camera's we're going to go inside the tunnel and see how Nuna6 is doing.
What a nice breeze~!
This is a once-in-a-lifetime-experience. You only come here once.
- It's incredibly huge- - It's huge, it's really huge.
-and advanced.
To be allowed to be here with our car is really great.
We have the results.
I can't tell you about it, but you can see the smile on my face.
On of the most important guys from the TUDelft said that it was fantastic.
He has a lot of knowledge about aerodynamics and helped us on our project.
He said of all the Nuna's this one is the best.
When you're standing in the Olympic Stadium at the Press presentation
and you see your family and friends and everyone is enthusiastic and proud of your accomplishments.
My girlfriend's already here and my family is coming.
And my family from Australia's coming.
And then you see the car and you think, we built that.
With our own hands.
This is a beautiful day again.
You've been working on this thing for a year, but you don't realize it.
And now that it's standing here...
Today is actually the first day that I'm feeling proud.
It's super cool that she's standing here. She's really... done.
I'm so proud of him. So proud of him.
- Did you like it? - Yes, absolutely I liked it.
- I'm proud of you. - Thank you.
He's really my darling.
Yeah, wonderful, huh?
Beautiful car, and well, a pristine show of a year's work, of course.
- And beautiful son, right? - And beautiful son, yeah.
We're completely ready now. We're going to get that cup back. We must win the gold.
We're going to give it our all so we must be able to do it.
We want to tell everyone that we trust the car completely, everyone does.
Back For Gold, right, that's our goal.
I can't believe that in 2-3 days of flying we're standing there.
I really super excited about it.
- No discussion. - No discussion possible.
I'm really extremely excited about it. It's really close now.
The flight's ready, so we can check in any minute. And then the adventure begins.
Are you coming, guys?
My biggest worry, personally, is the solar panel.
The solar panel is new for us, we've never driven in Silicium.
I think making decisions, that it takes too long to discuss things.
I'm not really afraid of that.
My biggest worry is that there's a design flaw somewhere in the car.
No, I don't think so.
I've had the chance to drive it and it feels really good.
But more that something in the suspension shakes a bit more than it should.
What I think could go wrong?
Yeah, pretty clear. I think crashing.
If you see how many teams crashed two years ago during the race.
Nuna5 crashed too, but three weeks before the race.
For me the worst thing that could happen is that something happens on the road, whatever it is.
A car, a road train or a kangaroo.
We recently ran over a hare.
That was kind of like, this could actually happen.
It would be an enormous blow for me if that were to happen.
I've spent one and a half year of my life working more than full time on it.
Yeah, it'll be a mental, or emotional blow, I think.
Mama!
Have a safe trip!
- 'morning. - Good morning, guys.
I've had a good night sleep, yeah.
Taking our time to wake up. On our way to shed for some nice testing time today.
We're here at the Nightcliff Primary School.
That's a primary school who has been borrowing us their workplace since Nuna1
and also a classroom we can use as an office.
That's really special, because we've been involved with this school for over ten years.
It is great fun. We can work hard here. We get all the facilities we need.
Best track ever!
We're reasonably ready for it.
We recently had a simulation race.
That went absolutely flawless, which was kind of remarkable, everything went perfect.
Smoothly working team, we raced 1300 kilometers in under two days.
Good. Bring it on.
Okay, we're going to do the left front wheel.
Remember that scout has to be inside a car if you want to drive away, so we'll completely finish the action.
Support is leaving the road!
Yeah, I got it.
Three, two, one and up.
A little bit to the front. Keep it high up.
Stand ready.
We've been at this school for four weeks.
That's a great honor and it's also really great. We give them something in return.
We educate them in solar power and during the break we play some ball with them.
And we're finishing that off with a great match against the students and against the teachers.
Javier in offense. Willem middle back together with Mark.
Noud? Pier, Pier right back.
We're 3-2 behind.
We made a few mistakes- Luuk scored in the wrong goal.
That was really stupid.
So he's now on the sidelines. But after half-time we'll make it up.
It's unimaginable how we got that 1-0 point behind.
Those are mistakes that simply cannot be made on this level.
Stick to the diamond, guys! Stick to the diamond!
Even though we have such great positional play, and we've been training for ages.
But this is really-
Yeah, I can't find the words.
Today, we're on Hidden Valley. That's the race track here in Darwin.
Less information please, over.
Bruno is reading out information over the car, cause it's the first time the car's on the racetrack.
Then you need a little bit more power from motor so the engine and the battery will get a little hotter.
So we're keeping our eye on that.
Bruno, it's okay. You handled that really well. Please don't feel bad.
Is it okay if you don't film now, please?
It went a bit wrong, just now, but she stayed whole and nice on the track.
Is okay, I think. I now know what the limit is.
We're going to do a qualifier round and that's to determine the starting order of the race.
The teams start just after each other with a distance 30 second to a minute in-between.
Whoever has the fastest time leaves first, and whoever has the longest time will start last tomorrow.
It's not about the time you win, but it's about the order, because you don't want-
to start behind twenty slow teams-
because it all accumulates at the traffic lights and then-
then you could be stuck in the city for hours and that kind of sucks.
We have the pit next to Michigan, one of our great competitors, this year as well.
Michigan, we just found out, has built two cars.
They had one car which we though, wow, that looks good-
but now they built an even newer car and that one looks even beter!
We're standing next to Tokai's machine.
And I don't say machine by accident, it really is an amazing contraption once again.
All the information we have of their new car, they worked on, they haven't shared with anyone.
So we know absolutely nothing about them.
Until just a few days ago we didn't even know they were going to join the race or not.
Nuna's waiting in line now. I think he's just about to start. Bring it on.
Look, he's coming now!
Oh yeah, nice bend!
Look.
2:02. That's faster than his practice round. That's really good.
2:02. Two seconds.
Yeah, so we have to beat them now, huh?
Yeah, so they were just a little bit faster. Really well done. A good time.
Two-tenths of a second faster than us.
That's very good.
I'm not going to say I like it, but I can appreciate it.
Today we're at the start of the race.
The car is completely done.
We're making the final touches so that we're ready to drive the 3000 kilometers.
The team is pretty responsive to each other.
You can see how strong the team is, because suddenly a support team joins
and then everyone has to find their balance
and that went really well, really fast, in one day.
But there are a few serious teams
Tokai is serious. Michigan is very serious.
Because the rules have changed, concerning the solar panels, the cars will be closer to eachother.
Now it's really a question of not making any mistakes.
If we don't make any mistakes there will be a big chance that we'll arrive first.
Twelve minutes and then we're going to start.
I can't believe this moment has arrived already.
A year ago I couldn't have imagined how it would be, but it's really great.
I'm really excited about it.
First race through the city and then over the open plains of the Australian desert.
I'm really excited.
Okay, everyone who doesn't need to be around the car now, please leave.
I'm ready.
I'm going to get just a little rest in the car.
A bit of pure concentration and then it'll all work out.
Five times world's champion Nuna, rolls of the lot.
Noooo!
Overtake them at the first possibility, over.
It'll be kind of dangerous to gain on them now.
Michigan is swaying in every direction sometimes even over the middle line.
- Are you going to overtake them? - Yeah, we are going to overtake them.
We gained up on them. We're in second position behind Tokai.
And we still believe our own strategy is best. Over and out.
We're standing next to Tokai, they're behind me.
And so far it's been going really well.
Hopefully it'll stay that way, but the way it's now it's really exciting.
We're tying to collect the last bits of sun in our battery.
I'd say, we're number one, together with Tokai.
Shadow!
Shadow!
Alright!
The boys are already standing next to the road to static charge.
Tokai is right next to us. It's super exciting.
We're really in a moment that we're going to decide whether to overtake them or not.
Those decisions will be made on this row of Mission Control.
Yon, san, ni, ichi, douzo.
What a Control Stop means? Well, you can see it here.
A Control Stop when you stop at a certain place, at a city or gas station.
Why do we do that? The car needs to be checked, but most importantly the convoy needs to refuel.
We can't always drive on in gas powered cars but the solar car can always continue.
You can't tinker, but you do checks to see if everything is still holding together.
We wet the panel so it becomes a little bit colder and then you get just a little more energy.
The cells, the colder they are, the more energy they produce.
We only have 10 minutes remaining, everything is calculated until the very last second.
The panel gets to be in the sun for as long as possible, then we tape the car and go.
We got a little bit further behind on Tokai.
We definitely have hope that we can gain them, but it seems like the smallest mistake could do us in.
Add to that the fact that Michigan is right behind us, so it's pretty exciting.
Mission Control for the entire convoy.
We just had word that there is a forest fire up ahead, so the Stuart Highway has been closed down.
I repeat, the Stuart Highway has been closed down.
Wait for more information about me, and in the meanwhile radio silence please, over.
You heard the boss. There are forest fires, we can't continue.
We're going to do our absolute best to capture all the energy we can get.
The authorities have told us to not to allow solar car to proceed south of Tennant Creek.
There's a major bushfire down the Barrow Creek area. And for safety reasons no one is to leave here.
This is solar racing, guys. This is solar racing.
Right now, we're in third place, about 5 minutes behind Nuon and 12 minutes behind Tokai.
Nuna has been running a great race, the car has been running great and they're holding out a spot behind Tokai.
Yeah, we'll keep being first place for today as well.
We'll try.
Tokai is leaving first, then us and after that Michigan.
Hopefully we can gain on Tokai today and Michigan will be a little further behind.
Weather or not, fire or not.
We're going through!
I had to drive first, so we're driving, driving, driving.
Not a lot of problems and then all of a sudden a lot of smoke!
So I put on a mask in Nuna. So we're driving towards the smoke.
Slowly it became- I couldn't see the road anymore, It was a wall of smoke.
Scout drove through the smoke. I couldn't see Scout anymore, but I heard over the comm-
Convoy to the left, convoy to the left, keep left Road train, road train, convoy keep left.
I go left, road train whizzes past me. It was really...
very exciting.
We're here at a makeshift Control Stop, because we had originally planned another stop.
But that one was on fire, so they moved it 100 kilometers down the road.
Yeah, Tokai is uh-
Yeah, they just left.
So the gap is widening.
Michigan is a little more behind than this morning, we think.
We're not going to succumb to the Japanese.
And we'll see how far we can get on our own strength.
Nuon went straight through the fire.
See some thick smoke and then a policeman came up from behind them.
And they stopped us for a little bit.
We still have a long way to go today and hopefully we're done with all the fires and stuff.
So we'll see what happens.
After that I got to drive.
And during the race I could see a twister or a whirlwind, y'know.
You can see it from far, long into the air.
But we get closer and closer and suddenly it's next to the road.
And it's turning and turning and turning.
You can see twigs and dust go up in the air.
And at a given moment the air came from underneath Nuna
and the canopy opened by itself, halfway.
I think I enjoyed that more than that it scared me.
Really, I'll remember this for the rest of my life.
Yeah, me too.
I'll definitely tell this to me grandchildren.
Alright, great day, man.
Good morning, guys.
Yesterday we drove pretty slowly, Michigan stayed four mintues behind us.
They're really close, but today we're going to go fast, really fast.
And I wonder if they will follow us or they will lag behind.
Today we're going to kick *** and hope to stay far in front of Michigan and hopefully a little closer to Tokai.
We're so close that if they make one tiny mistake we can overtake them.
So it promises to become an exciting day.
Intense.
Iiiintense.
Sometimes the wind blew so hard I was pushed to the other side of the road.
Sometimes there were turns where the road went right
but I steered left because it was blowing so hard.
So you can imagine how close I had to keep an eye on things.
We arrived here pretty quick, drove really fast today!
We might have gained a few minutes on Tokai.
We don't know how fast they are driving, but we gained a few minutes on them.
Michigan was on our heels, They had some problems.
Their wheel cap seemed to give them problems and that's why they had to stop.
Points for reliability so we can drive on.
We're charging again and in a bout 10 to 15 minutes we're allowed to continue the race.
We stopped next to the road, next to the Stuart Highway.
It's one big plain, with absolutely nothing in sight. And we're going to set up camp here.
We're still about half an hour behind Tokai.
We don't know exactly how far they are, but it seems that we were gaining the last few kilometers.
That they were driving slower than us, so it might end up to be very exciting tomorrow.
Nuna has come up with us closer than before.
We actually saved some energy because tomorrow it seems rainy.
So we have to think of our energy management.
The last few days we drove quite slowly.
Today we drove fast, we started this morning with a full battery.
Which we almost completely emptied today, while keeping in mind to leave some energy for tomorrow.
Today we went faster than 90 km an hour and sometimes even more than 100, so it's going really well.
It's five o'clock in the evening so we're next to the road again.
We've got the ideal spot, because, like you can see, it's a completely empty plain here.
So I think everything will go fine.
Support!
The tents are blowing away!
It's seven o'clock, we've been here for two hours, so it's getting a bit dark.
And then it starts blowing like crazy.
We tried to set up a tent over there, but that didn't work.
It's going to be a rough night
but it'll probably be okay, because everyone's busy with tomorrow.
The Japanese have admitted that if it's going to be bad weather they might've misjudged their chances
giving us a new chance.
That message has sunk in and everyone's in the mood for it to be tomorrow.
So we're going to go for it completely, and-
Who knows, maybe we'll take back the gold, who knows.
- It's thursday today? Friday? - It's thursday today.
- Final day of the race! - Final day of the race, guys!
Today we're going to drive to Adelaide, to the finish.
Twenty kilometers behind Tokai, really close.
Out of 3000 kilometers that is as good as nothing.
I hope they're stressed out! I hope they're really stressed out, because-
We already sent cars ahead of us to remind them "The Nuon Solar Team is coming!"
"Beware."
Anything can happen.
As long as we're focussed on our own speed, as long as we make sure we don't make any mistakes, then
we still make a good chance, yeah.
- What's going to happen in Adelaide? Well... - What's going to happen in Adelaide? Well...
- Uhm... - Uhm...
Apparently, and that's really cool, people trade shirts with each other at the fountain.
I'm going to trade this shirt with a Japanese, because it's really smelly.
- How long have you been wearing that? - I'm wearing this for three days now.
- Ooh, two days for this one. - For two days now?
- Yeah. - You've got a dirty spot there.
- Yeah, that's toothpaste. - Oh, okay.
Today it's completely overcast.
We're taking in almost nothing.
So we can't charge our battery fully, so it's going to be crawling to Adelaide.
There are rumors floating about that Tokai has an empty battery.
But those are only rumors, we don't know if they are true.
We're going to keep to our own strategy again.
We want to get to Adelaide as fast as possible with a battery as empty as possible.
Comm check, Nuna.
Speed limit 25 kilometers per hour. Twenty-five.
We have to be careful, Nuna is getting closer to us.
Once we've got some problem, I'm pretty sure Nuna is coming past us soon.
You just saw Tokai drive away, it's getting more exciting by the minute.
They're really pushing the pedal down, so they're keeping their distance.
***.
If we end up second place, we can only conclude that Tokai had a really great car.
In a 3000 km race to be only minutes behind the number one means that the cars are almost equal to each other.
Yes, go, go.
What did you say do we have to cross?
The bridge, you can see it in front of you.
- Oh, guys, we need to cross the bridge. - Crap, we should've known this, guys.
- They're at the same point. - No way. You can't be serious.
Yeah! Yeah, we made it!
Yeah, you're a hero!!
Yeah, absolutely exciting. We hadn't predicted that last bridge.
And we completely spent our battery.
The whole screen went flashing red. I'm like Holy ***! Throttle down, throttle down!
We had to get up the mountain, so we said to Javier: "Stop! Stop accelerating! Stop accelerating!"
Javier stops just in time.
And the screen starts becoming less red.
And then suddenly the red returns!
Come on, Javier! Come on!
We past it just barely, but we still had to go 3 kms, but we were running on empty.
And I was like, nooooo!!
Really awesome! I saw my speed go down like this.
If we hadn't made that bridge we would've had to charge for 30 mins and Michigan would've overtaken us.
Yeah, something like that, yeah.
Celebrating comes first. And charging.
And charging. Definitely charging.
This car has given everything it had. We didn't have a drop left in the battery.
And it did it perfectly. Nothing malfunctioned, nothing broke.
This car gave it its all and I'm proud of that and we're happy with that.
We've got an empty battery, we still have to drive 600 meters.
I don't know if we're gonna make it.
We're having so much fun inside! So much fun!
Super cool! Everyone's standing here cheering us on!
It's really super cool, I mean-
Yesterday was a little bit of a disappointment, but after a reception like this that's completely gone.
I'm really happy.
I'm *** proud, yeah.
Really super proud.
Champagne all over it, doesn't really make a difference anymore.
It's all over.
That's what it looks like, doesn't it?
I'm faster.
Mom!
Back To Gold! That's your slogan.
Yeah, Back For Gold... That's what we're gonna do.
We were here to win that was the most important thing.
Back For Gold! BAM!
Back For Gold, right, that's our goal, but we're absolutely not sure we're gonna make that.
We want everyone to know that we're going to do everything to get there
and that we truly have confidence in the car, all of us have.
But it's still a race, and if we'd know beforehand if we'd win, it wouldn't be exciting.
That's really true.
Yeah, I also don't really feel any pressure to explain myself if we don't win.
In the end I decided yellow is a nice color.
So I put on a yellow shirt and joined the yellow team.
We came third. Hooray. Hooray for third place.
Good, good, good, good. Yes, yes, yes.
Wax off. Wax on.
Yes, yes, nice.
Wait.