The NASC makes each team carry a substantial amount of safety equipment from fire extinguishers to orange vests, and it is for a very good reason. Very early this morning, right after all the big storms blew through, a small number of Lithium-Ion batteries being charged indoors burst into flames. Our Miners jumped into action, evacuating the area and subduing the fire with CO2 and dry-chem extinguishers, and bags of good ol' sand that the NASC insists teams keep near their cells. The crew was pretty shook up, but settled into alternate sleeping areas for what amounted to about three hours of shut-eye.
That pretty somber bunch crawled out of their sleeping bags at 5:30 a.m. to get SMIV ready for the run to Sioux Falls, only to discover the rain and lightning was still in the area and that charging was essentially a waste of time. Their planned goal of reaching the next stage stop tonight seemed pretty bleak, as the distant patches of blue sky remained just that; distant. S&T kept a modest speed to preserve battery power but kept the speedometer display creeping ever-so-slightly higher, helped by a pretty stiff tailwind. In Omaha SMIV had another non-AMC gremlin leave them stranded for much longer than their allotted check-point 30 minutes, allowing Calgary, Iowa State, and powerful Minnesota to drop the Miners lower in the standings. They had a few quick "glitch stops" farther up the road but by now were able to get the car back on the road awfully fast, 'though that's not the kind of practice you necessarily want.
The clouds began to do some serious clearing so S&T gradually built speed and consistency, and quickly found themselves crawling up the Golden Gophers' figurative tailpipe just north of Sioux City, IA. After a quick Gopher pause S&T and Calgary were running so close together that their support vehicles were often intertwined.
The support crews kept comparing the target speed to the remaining miles, and figured it was a lost cause. But just when NASC officials moved to take down the stage-stop equipment, someone yelled "There's a solar car coming in!". We looked at each other and figured "Nah, it can't be!", but suddenly Solar Miner care barreling through the day's finish line just 2 1/2 minutes before the official close! The Miners piled out of the support fleet high-fiving and hugging, a complete reversal of the morning's morale, and that carried through heading off for some real fun a few hours ago. Tomorrow they'll get a good day's rest (while working on the car, of course), do laundry, and maybe even get a real restaurant meal!