July 9th, 1990.
Like most days in Central Florida in July, it was hot.
Over in the parking lot of EPCOT Center sat 32 cars, about to take off on a cross-country race,
They were racing to prove to themselves that the work they had spent the last year on would
pay off, and they were racing for one of three spots to go to Australia to take on racers
from around the world.
The event contained all the excitement and anticipation of a car race, but once thing
was absent: the roar of the engines.
Because you see these 32 cars, about to speed off on a sixteen-hundred mile adventure, were
powered by that hot July sun.
In 1982 Danish-born and Australian adventurer Hans Tholstrup had an idea.
He wanted to build a solar powered car and drive it across Australia.
Now at the time it was a bit of a wild concept, but then again that’s what Tholstrup excelled in.
He had circumnavigated Australia in a speedboat, rafted across the Bass Strait to Tasmania,
ridden a motorcycle around the globe, and just generally did the kind of stuff that
earned one the title of adventurer.
He liked the idea of not only overcoming yet another adventurous challenge, but using that
challenge to try and help popularize the idea of solar power and renewable energy.
The car he’d end up building was called the Quiet Achiever and it averaged 15mph,
or 24km/h.
Together with his partner in the endeavor, race driver Larry Perkins, the two drove the
The Quiet Achiever from Perth to Sydney.
It was a journey that spanned 2,553 miles, or a little over 4100 kilometers, and lasted
twenty days.
Like his other adventures, the two completed their challenge, and with the press coverage
that the journey brought them, Tholstrup and Perkins began to talk about the idea of organizing
solar-powered car rallies in the future to continue the development and promotion of
renewable energy.
With that the World Solar Challenge was born.
After four years of turning the idea into a reality, Australia was ready for its first
ever World Solar Challenge race.
In November of 1987, 25 solar-powered cars from seven nations set off on a race from
Darwin to Adelaide. In the end it was General Motors’ car, The Sunraycer, who would win
the gold medal with an impressive two and a half day lead over the second place car,
which was Ford’s Model S.
Commercial Announcer: We raced 1,900 miles across Australia, powered only by the sun.
GM beat Ford and 23 other entries.
The GM Sunraycer.
Solar technology from GM’s Hughes Aircraft subsidiary.
Drive motor from the GM research laboratories.
Magnequench magnets from Delco Remy.
Chassis from GM’s engineering staff.
A triumph of GM teamwork and technology.
The vision is paying off.
The race was considered a success as it got a few major auto manufacturers to develop
and work on solar-powered vehicles, and the overall novelty of the race put the idea of
solar power in the spotlight for the public.
The Sunraycer itself cost GM over eight million dollars to develop.
Realistically, nobody expected solar-powered cars to hit the market anytime soon, if at
all, but it was still considered important to get the public thinking about renewable energy.
So it was quickly decided to make the World Solar Challenge a regular triennial event.
General Motors, having just won the inaugural race, decided to take a different approach
to the 1990 World Solar Challenge.
They had just seen the amount of press and attention that Australia’s event garnered,
and decided that rather than build another solar-powered car themselves, they’d sponsor
not just one vehicle from the US, but three.
To find those lucky three cars, they’d hold their own race back in the United States.
In honor of their car that won the first WSC, they named the event the GM Sunrayce USA.
The race was announced in March of 1989 and set to take place that following July.
The course would span 1,641 miles, from EPCOT Center in Orlando, Florida to General Motors
in Warren, Michigan.
The race was broken up into ten legs over ten days, since ya know, they needed to stick
to the daytime to drive.
The times and standings for each leg would carry over into the next leg, and by the end
of the journey the team with the shortest total race time would be crowned the winner.
The top two teams, along with a third team that GM would select on the basis of technological
innovation, would all get to go onto the 1990 World Solar Challenge that December.
The starting location of the race made perfect sense.
While the summer heat would be more of a problem for the drivers, it also would emulate the
conditions that the winners would have to face over in Australia.
Beyond that though, EPCOT Center worked because General Motors was the corporate sponsor of
World of Motion over at the Transportation pavilion in the park.
It was perfect synergy.
They sponsored a ride about the history and potential future of transportation, and here
they were putting on a race that pointed a spotlight at a potential future of transportation.
And Disney, of course, wasn’t about to say no to showing up in the press for this novel
and thematically perfect event.
GM reached out to 2,000 colleges across the country, and of the 60 schools who returned
a proposal for a solar-powered vehicle, 32 were selected to partake in the race.
Each team received $5,000 from GM, as well as an additional $2,000 from the event’s
co-sponsor, the US Department of Energy.
However, that'd be a drop in the bucket compared to what most of the cars would end up costing.
With a price tag of anywhere from one-hundred and fifty to three-hundred thousand dollars,
most of the participating schools sought additional funding and sponsorship from local and national
corporations.
Still, money was not the only limit.
The rules of the race dictated that solar panels could only cover up to eight square
meters of the vehicles, and that racers had to stick to posted speed limits on the road,
which was generally 55mph.
Drivers had to weigh at least 180 pounds, and in the event they weighed less than that,
extra weight would be added to the vehicle to reach that 180 target.
The rules added a level of standardization that kept the emphasis of the race on the
efficiency and design of the car rather than just slapping as many solar panels as you could.
A year before the race took place, GM brought their Sunraycer to EPCOT Center, not only
a photo op, but so they could send Indy 500 champion, Rick Mears, on the road to map out
the test the route of the race.
After that was completed, the Sunraycer was retired and donated to the Smithsonian.
A few days prior to the race, all of the participants traveled to the Daytona Beach International
Speedway to take part in time trials that would determine the car positions for the
start of the race, as well as safety and design tests that ensured the cars were fit to hit
the open road.
Tester: We’re gonna countdown from five and then you can pop out and you have fifteen seconds.
5. 4. 3. 2. 1. Go!
[Applause]
When July 9th finally arrived, the race began and all 32 participants sped off towards Michigan.
OK, so maybe sped off is a little exaggerated.
These were experimental designs that utilized solar-powered technology, so cars typically
averaged speeds of around 20-25 miles per hour.
The race itself went rather smoothly.
Aside from a rainy 4th day that resulted in most cars opting to take a time penalty in
order to get towed to the end of that leg, the weather cooperated.
The standings shifted from day to day as various cars ran into issues that the driver and their
team would have to troubleshoot on the fly.
Residents of various towns and cities along the route turned up every day to watch the
futuristic vehicles silently glide past.
Car culture was a big part of the US’s national identity, and so it was no surprise that crowds
were fascinated with the possible future of the automobile, even if it did look like a
future that wouldn’t arrive anytime soon.
On the tenth day, it would be the University of Michigan’s car, The Sunrunner, who would
come in first with a total time of 72 hours, 50 minutes, and 47 seconds.
Western Washington University would come in second at 74 hours, 10 minutes, and 06 seconds.
The University of Maryland would be the third vehicle sent to the event by GM.
However three additional teams from the race, Crowder College, Cal State LA, and Cal Poly
Pomona, would all end up finding the funding to partake in the 1990 World Solar Challenge as well.
The three teams sent to the WSC by GM, University of Michigan, Western Washington University,
and University of Maryland, would come in 3rd, 5th, and 7th place respectively.
Similar to the World Solar Challenge, the Sunrayce would become a regular event, occurring
biennially.
The race routes would change multiple times, as would the event’s name.
In 1999 the race would once again return to Epcot, but this time as the finish line.
It would began up north in Washington DC.
In 2001 the event was renamed to the American Solar Challenge.
Then in 2005 it was renamed to the North American Solar Challenge, and then in 2010 they made
up their mind and renamed it back to the American Solar Challenge, which it remains today.
In 1999 The World Solar Challenge switched from a triennial event to a biennial event.
Today both the World Solar Challenge and the American Solar Challenge attracts schools
and teams from around the world to put their engineering to the test and to harness the
power of the sun for a fun tradition.
It pushes people to learn, to embrace technology, and think about the footprint we leave on
this Earth all in the name of trying to create a better tomorrow.
In its nearly thirty year run the Sunrayce only visited Epcot twice, so it’s understandably
not a major part of the park’s history.
Yet at the same time it so perfectly captured the spirit of EPCOT Center.