Model A Club

One of the fun things about being on a solar car team were the opportunities for outreach. Mostly this means taking the car to a school and explaining solar power, the benefits of an engineering education, or some such. But on occasion, you had groups of adults. In this case, the Central Iowa Model A Club drive their vintage Model A's to Ames one sunny day and pulled right into the parking lot next to our garage in Old Sweeney Hall. They got the nickel tour of the facilities and whatever car we were working on at the time (PrISUm Cynergy, our Sunrayce 95 car, most likely). And then I got a free t-shirt!

National Road Solar Car Rally

Sometime in 1998 (I think?) I participated in a small race called the "National Road Solar Car Rally." This event was mostly arranged by Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, a venerable solar car team. They were joined by Ohio State, with observers from Purdue University's team tagging along. I got asked to come as something of an official, even though it was mostly the teams who kept the timing, etc.

U.S. 40 apparently has a long history as a road, hence the designation as the "National Road." This race went from Terre Haute, Indiana (Rose-Hulman's home), through Ohio, and ended in Wheeling, West Virginia. Or maybe it was the reverse...anyway, it was a good time, with a scenic route. At the end, we arranged an impromptu pit stop competition, to see how long it would take the teams to change tires, change drivers, and maybe a few other things. Good times.

PrISUm Phoenix '99 team shirt

As an alum of this school and this team, it was so gratifying to see them finish a solid 5th place in Sunrayce 99 (best finish ever for Iowa State). The car was fantastic, the team was polished, and their "Phoenix" logo looked great. I was lucky enough to snag a team shirt. It was tough trying not to be biased on this race!!

Mizzou '99 shirt

The University of Missouri - Columbia ("Mizzou") was a good competitor in many races. They had a built in rival with cross-state University of Missouri - Rolla also competing in many of the same events, and in the case of Sunrayce 99, winning the whole shebang.

I remember some, if not most, of the "Sun Tiger" cars had a little stuffed tiger tail trailing from the back of their car, which was a nice touch.

Solar Bike Rayce 98

Solar Bike Rayce was an off-shoot of Sunrayce, the solar car competition for college students. In Solar Bike Rayce, high school students competed on a closed track with a modified bicycle, making it both safer and cheaper to compete. The competitors would be good cyclists, but could tap into the solar panel and battery pack for bursts of speed or at least maintenance of speed while they rested their legs.

Some of the sample people that organized Sunrayce would help put on Solar Bike Rayce events on the off years, or whenever. I got to see it just once, but was impressed with the teams. It looked like a lot of fun.

University of Michigan generic shirt

just your basic shirt.

University of Illinois team shirt

This shirt was one of my favorite designs. The car name was "Photon Torpedo" which is just awesome, and the Star Trek reference rocks.

Messiah College Team Shirt

I don't recall much about Messiah's entry into the race. They were number 77. Their car looked pretty good for a rookie entry. They seemed nice, like most other teams. I'll see if I can remember something else and add to this.

Sunrayce 97 "poster" t-shirt

This is the Sunrayce 97 shirt that is just a copy of the poster used to promote the event.

I remember being in a review meeting with the designers when they unveiled the poster draft. I was not particularly happy with the font, but my opinion counted for squat at that point. Looking back on it, the font's not so bad. The "car" image is from a model of computational fluid dynamics that event sponsor EDS would run for all of the teams.

Map of the route on the back side of the shirt.

Principia College Sunrayce 99 team shirt

Principia College Sunrayce 99 shirt. Such a small college, with no engineering program, but they did sooo good! Great people, too, friendly and great senses of humor.

Sunrayce 95 Finish Line T-Shirt

They gave these out at the National Renewable Energy Lab (Golden, Colorado) finish line. Very nice!

More to come...

I just dragged out two full rubbermaid tubs of my solar crap, and took about 180 photographs of the t-shirts and hats. Myriad of posts coming soon.

General Motors Electric Vehicle program polo shirt

This one will be a struggle to remember where I got this from.

In college, I was an ardent follower of GM's Impact electric vehicle (later renamed EV1), and was on the mailing list. Little did I know that of the public relations-type materials that I received came not from GM, but from a tiny PR firm named TRIO, located (at the time) in Clarkston, Michigan, halfway between Detroit and Flint.

After college, I applied for a job with the solar car race. Turns out, again it was not with GM, but with TRIO, who had been hired by GM's head of R&D to run the race marketing and operations. So I ended up in GM electric vehicle central, but not the technical part, just the marketing part.

So for Sunrayce 93, the GM Impact served as the pace car, which was awesome - it burned rubber every morning, leading the cars out of the start. I snagged a ride in it, and a ride in a Geo Storm that was serving as a mule for an advanced electric drivetrain. There were a few TRIO people who came along and handed out PR materials for the Impact.

So somewhere between 1993 and 1997 (I think) I snagged this polo shirt. Despite the stain, I kept it. Not too common anymore, considering the EV1 is dead, and this dates from the Impact days.

So there you go.

Sunrayce 99 backpack

Handed out to all participants in Sunrayce 99, featuring logo from sponsor EDS, and Sunrayce website, which I used to write for (but not code - - Mike White and the awesome crew at EDS took care of that).

I don't recall if this one was stuffed with goodies or not. I recall the 1995 backpacks being chock full of good stuff (or was that '93?). I suspect this '99 one had a few things.

Western Michigan Sunseeker T-shirt

This is one of the team t-shirts from the venerable group from Western Michigan Univeriity. For some reason, they had awesome t-shirts, and in a ton of different colors.

I hired Steve Hunt, their one time team captain, to be part of Sunrayce HQ staff one year and did not regret it.

Doraemon / Soraemon solar powered car model

Doraemon is a Japanese cartoon character who is a robotic cat. As a promotional stunt, an actual solar-powered car that looked like Doraemon was built, and dubbed "Soraemon" and then entered into a smaller solar car race in Japan (The Grand Solar Challenge, on the beach in Noto).

I bought this Tamiya model of Soraemon when I was in Japan. It has an actual solar panel on it and an electric motor that will move it in sunlight. I did a crappy job of painting it, but had fun doing it so I guess that's something. This isn't really a great photo...I'll post better photos later.

Principia team polo from Sunrayce 99

Principia College is a small school in southern Illinois, with a Christian bent to it. They lack an engineering school, but entered Sunrayce nonetheless, and have continually improved with every passing event.

My alma mater (Iowa State) developed a close relationship with them. During Sunrayce 95, they blew out their only motor, effectively ending the race. We had a spare motor, and loaned it to them (at some risk to our own project). They were very grateful, and gave us a fruit basket at the finish line. The next year, when our team had a catastrophic pre-race accident, Principia helped us out.

Their polo shirts are pretty awesome.

Sunrayce 95 squeeze bottle

This was a squeeze bottle given out during Sunrayce 95 by event sponsor EDS (?). Of course, GM had already bought part of Hughes holdings (which had led to the creation of the GM Sunraycer, which started the whole danged US solar car racing thing off) - - so maybe this bottle was from GM? At either rate there it is.

The text says "Sunrayce 95. Digital from Day One - Hughes Network System"

Now that I'm looking at this, it may have something to do with our chase vans that year. Sunrayce 95 was the last year that the race sponsors provided one chase van for each participating team. It was a Chevy Beauville. It was equipped, that year, with some radical technology - - an early version of GPS navigation. The radios could tell you how far away (and in what direction) you were from certain waypoints. Additionally, they were rigged to broadcast their location to a central point. The positions were then posted to a website so people could track where the chase vans were (and, by extension, where the solar cars were). Pretty cool, overall.

Hot Wheel variant ensemble

Here are all of the solar eagle III variants together. Hard to tell the difference between red and orange, but it's there.

Solar Eagle III Hot Wheels: Black Version

So this was the one unique variant of the original Solar Eagle III hot wheels. They painted it black and changed the text on it.

The front says "Brad Lee Racing" "WRF: World of Racing Federation" "03" and "Cal State L.A. Solar Eagle III"

The side basically says the same thing and has long red and white stripes.

The other major difference is the solar cells went from blue (their actual color) to silver (not realistic but cool looking).

Solar Eagle Hot Wheels: Orange

So after Mattel released the original Solar Eagle III single and set, I would obsessively look for them anytime I was in a store that sold hot wheels, or even just toys. I looked at Toys R Us; grocery stores; drug stores; Army base PXs; etc.

And finally, I was rewarded with finding alternate versions. Mattel must've decided to amortize their investment in the original vehicle by releasing three more versions. Two of them are just repainted versions of the original: one orange (in this post) and one red. A third one is black with some alternate graphics on it (future post).

NASC 2008 Vehicle Sticker

The 2008 solar car race was deemed the "North" American Solar Challenge, since it ended up in Calgary. One of the organizers sent this to me, and its been languishing in my desk at work ever since. Too nice to throw out, but where should I put it?

More VHS? Yes

I'll be honest. I have no idea what is on this tape. When I figure it out, maybe I'll post some more...

Cal State LA Hot Wheels Deluxe Set

I had heard, after the release of the original solar eagle hot wheels, that they were releasing a set. Rumor was it would include the semi and trailer used to haul it around.

The result was actually more awesome when you look at it. It's got the original car, a chase vehicle (mini-van) with the solar eagle logo on it, and three action figures all of whom are based on real people. The guy hoisting the trophy is based on team captain Roman Vasquez (actually became team leader at the last minute, but all in all a nice guy); the guy with the clipboard was team adviser Dick Roberto (who later became a Sunrayce scrutineer and still does it); and the purple shirt guy was president of Cal State LA.

Front photograph of the car is from Western Regional Qualifiers at the GM Desert Proving Ground.

Back text says "Racing with the Sun! That's what the Cal State LA Solar Eagle III did...and won! Gathering energy through solar panels, the flame yellow battery powered vehicle covered 1,230 miles at an average speed of 43.29 mph in winning Sunrayce 97, a cross-country solar car competition! Incredibly, the Solar Eagle never broke down once during the 10-day intercollegiate race - not even a flat tire! Congratulations to the Cal State LA team of students and staff!"

Cal State LA Hot Wheels (the original)

Cal State LA is, as you might guess, a state university in Los Angeles. Not known as an engineering powerhouse. So when they won Sunrayce 97, it was a huge deal for that school. They sold shoes with the car logo on it in the school bookstore.

Cal State LA has some alums fairly high up at Mattel, so naturally, this was the first solar car to be honored in this very public way.

The car must have cost Mattel more than the average car to make, since the slim size required a whole separate piece of clear plastic to hold it in place in the container.

When I worked for Sunrayce, we ordered a ton of these direct from Mattel to give out to people to promote things.

We were all secretly hoping that Mattel would start to make other famous solar cars. We fantasized about getting GM Suraycers, Swatch/Biel cars, hell, even a Michigan car would be cool. But no such luck. Cal State LA did get their car remixed quite a bit (see future posts).

The back of the box text says "North American Champion of Sunrayce 97 - the SOLAR EAGLE III is the result of the remarkable talents of Cal State LA Engineering & Technology students."

There was quite a bitter rivalry between Cal State LA and Cal Poly Pomona (who were always a bridesmaid, never having won a major race but coming very very close).

Envelopes? Envelopes!

Stationery is an integral part of any organization that wants to be legit. Sunrayce was no exception. We had stationery, big envelopes, small envelopes, business cards and a few other things that all matched.

Why was "Sunrayce Headquarters" in the little town of Clarkston, Michigan? That's about 4 big blog posts worth of text...