Cheers to Us!

So Sunday dawned and the end was in sight. All of the travelling was done, now it’s just the all day display in Adelaide’s Victoria Square and the Awards to look forward to tonight. Still didn’t really get a sleep in, daylight saving started this morning, so we lost an hour of sleep…just can’t win!

All of the Greenfleet cars spent the night in Victoria Square with security guards in attendance. Team Ethanol was in attendance for the public display from 9am to 3pm with the Bios Fuel team and the Annesley College girls. That was it…none of the other teams bothered to turn up. Well, actually one other team obviously went to “Rent-a-bimbo” and hired a couple of tight t-shirt, spray on jeans, vacuous heads to stand in for their team’s actual presence…pity they didn’t know a damn thing about the car!

By early afternoon Adelaide’s weather was visibly disintegrating, blowing a gale with intermittent showers. But the crowds braved the elements and we had a pretty good rollup with lots of interest in the Saab, distributing the rest of our promotional material.

After the display we still had a few things to do so it was a bit of a rush to get to the town hall for the awards which were due to start at 6pm. And you guessed it, the organisers(?) had decided to start half an hour later, but didn’t get around to telling the teams. So we had hundreds of people clustered around the locked town hall doors freezing to death...brilliant!

Anyway, they finally got their act together and it was a bit like DJ’s Boxing Day sale, security flung open the doors and dived out of the way, while several hundred iceblocks with legs stampeded into the warmth!

The awards themselves were greeted with unbridled enthusiasm and the highlights were:
The Dutch Nuon solar team won line honours for the fourth time on the trot and have announced their intention to try for five.
The Australian Aurora solar teamwas the bridesmaid, also for the fourth time, but won the Team Participation Award.
The German Bochum solar team won the design award, for their stunning upright-seat solar car, with the most beautiful flowing lines…sort of reminiscent of a Cornish pastie on wheels.

There were three awards possible for the Greenfleet teams and we certainly didn’t expect to win an award, back to backing in this environment is virtually impossible. The one we took out last time (The Environment Award), was won by the Welsh Gwawr team and they thoroughly deserved it. It was basically a family project and they had to beg, borrow or steel the components to build a solar car from the ground up. The effort to energy ratio was incredibly low so it was environmentally perfect.

The Greenfleet Award was won by the Biobike, for having the lowest carbon emissions per kilometre. Almost impossible to beat with anything other than another bike. The fact that it belched huge clouds of smoke and didn’t finish the event under it’s own power, didn’t seem to matter.

The Production Class Award is the one that I really have a problem with. It should have been won by the Swiss Twike Team and instead was won by the Smart ForTwo Car. According to the WSC convenor it won because, and I quote, “every time it makes an appearance it makes a statement”. Good grief, is that the most technical judging criterion you’ve ever heard, or what! This was also the only Greenfleet car to be non-compliant with the compulsory WSC signage and rarely even bothered to turn up at the compulsory community events. You've probably seen these cars around, tiny and very upright with a flat back. And by the way in my opinion, the statement it makes is, “God I’m ugly and my bum fell off”.

Anyway it’s all done and dusted and we can’t wait to get home. The saddest part of the whole event was the tearful farewell to newfound friends from around Australia and the world.

Keep checking the website as we will be publishing our fuel economy, performance and emission testing results in the near future.

A massive thank you as well to those who followed us daily including our family, friends and new followers.

Long Desert Drive South

DAY 6: COOBER PEDY - PORT AUGUSTA (550 km / 342 mi)
Team Ethanol greeted the dawn of yet another gleaming desert day in Coober Pedy. We’ve been incredibly lucky with the weather this trip. Sure it’s been quite hot in some parts, but no storms and just a few spots of rain. Despite this the Telstra Next G phone has been very handy for weather updates. You can find current weather and four day forecasts for any town in Australia, just by keying in the name or postcode. So we always knew what sort of weather we were driving into…a must for this type of trip.

Had to wash the filthy Saab first thing, because there was a public display and community breakfast organised for this morning. The breakfast of course featured the inevitable sausage sizzle…after this none of us will be able to look a sausage in the eye for at least 12 months! This was by far the best public attendance we’ve had on the whole trip, in numbers, enthusiasm and intelligent questions. We handed out lots of promotional material about the car, ethanol and the Mackay region. And aside from doing my daily cross for ABC Radio, I also did interviews for both the Coober Pedy newspapers…I didn’t know this tiny town even had one newspaper, let alone two!

When the display finished some of the team went on an underground mine tour and were fascinated by the diversity of opals mined and the equipment used. It was pointed out that less than 20% of miners scratch out a living from the opals they find and less than 2% actually strike it rich. Most of it is back and heart breaking toil for nothing.

When we arrived at the official refuel point, we had a chat to the event officials. I had to chuckle when they told us that some of the other teams had been served written warnings about driving too slowly and creating a traffic hazard on the highway. One more breach and they’re disqualified. It’s just a pity that they got away with it for so long.

Today’s trip was just a medium 300 mile drive to Port Augusta, so we stopped for lunch at Glendambo, the midway point. We came across a busload of German tourists at a stop before Glendambo, did a sales job on them for the Saab, ethanol and Mackay and unloaded some more promotional material.

After lunch we took the Saab into Woomera for some photos at Rocket Park, which has a permanent display of jet aircraft and rockets from Korean War vintage onwards.

Now that we’re into the final couple of days we needed to organise Dyno and emission testing for ULP in Adelaide. It could only be done Saturday morning so we had to get special permission to refuel early tomorrow morning before the official time. We really need emission tests fhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifor both fuel mixes (ULP & E85) to give us a good standing in the final results.

Craig at CSR Ethanol has really come through with the goods as far as giving us incredibly detailed carbon footprint data for both fuels and now we need to correlate that with the car emissions. No praise is too high for CSR Ethanol, because apart from this the company is also a major financial sponsor of the team and they also supplied the E85 fuel. This is just the sort of corporate support that enthusiastic community groups like us desperately need, but so rarely find…thanks heaps guys!

Early night tonight for an early start tomorrow, again! Last leg into Adelaide for the ceremonial finish tomorrow afternoon.