The last day

As he did every day, Stef, our tactical guy, took me apart on Tuesday evening for the weather briefing for the next day. I told him clouds were going to form between Port-Augusta and Adelaide. I didn't know exactly how far this cloud zone would reach, but around Port-Augusta the cloud zone should be less important than around Adelaide.
That way, the batteries of the Punch One could charge a lot (still 26 minutes of control stop to do), while the other teams would probably be under the couds.
I also told him that the clouds would gradually disappear in the morning.

When we woke up on Wednesday morning, this was the satellite image that I first saw.

 

We didn't know exactly where the other teams stayed during the night, but most probably, most of them were under the clouds. So maybe, there would still be a change of catching up on a team.

The Eagle was send out to find the next team and to follow it and give information to the Brains about their speed. After no more than 20 km, we found Team Tokai. They had their camp just at the edge of the cloud zone and they were able to receive solar enegry. Oh no!

We followed them and we noticed that they were getting closer to Team Michigan. Team Michigan, having spent the night and morning under the clouds. A little bit further, the Tokai solar car overtook the Michigan car, which was doing only 80 km/h. Could Punch One maybe still catch up with the Americans?

Meanwhile the sun broke trough the clouds(as predicted) and everybody was receiving solar energy.

Michigan was still driving rather slowly, but the distance to the finish had become to small to be able to catch up with them. And that is how the Punch One remained on the 5th position.

Congratulations team, for this great effort and thanks for letting me be part of this adventure!