What will the fastest average speed be in the 2009 Dell-Winston School Solar Car Challenge? (Open)

Cool question notablenotices - my home university participates in the World Solar Challenge, which goes across the Australian outback from Darwin to Adelaide ... apparently it's very uncomfortable being crammed into the little car for so long, but the maximum speed is like 120 km/hr
http://www.flexanswer.com/home/sunswift/sunswift_faq.asp
http://www.wsc.org.au/

That sounds like a fun challenge too & a great experience for the students (with the possible exception of the driver!)

Good selection for the picture, it's perfect. All the pictures I looked at could have been mistaken for something like a stealth fighter jet with wheels - LOL

In the previous year's results, where are you finding the average speed? I can't seem to find it in any of the links.

If you click on http://www.winstonsolar.org/challenge/results2007.shtml and then scroll down to where it starts listing "Day 1", etc, there is a table with the results for each day. Column 6 gives the average speed in miles per hour.

I think we may need to void this question - it looks like the open division is only doing a single day of racing - 8 hours straight and the expectation was to have four days of average results to determine the fastest average time run on the course.

We could alternatively select the fastest lap (which was 42.9MPH) as the deciding factor...probably better to void...

According to the web site the open division raced 8 hour sessions each of the first 3 days and a 6 hour session on the last day. "The question is what will the OPEN DIVISION's highest daily average speed be" My interpretition of the question would be to take best 1 day performance by a team in the open class and use their average speed for that day. Houston Solar Race Team - 128 laps on day 4 X 1.5 miles (length of track) = 192 miles / 6 hours = 32 MPH. I know that they went farther the other days but that was over 8 hours and their best average daily speed on those days was 28.125 MPH. Less than 35 MPH.

&charlesf - good point - I didn't realize that there would be multiple sessions on a daily basis until we got more results - while thoroughly bad for me, I have to agree with your analysis...

I do believe; however, that the expected results were based on the 2007 race - road racing - since the 2008 race did not provide any times for comparison...however, there is always the phrase "caveat rescribori" that applies here...

Some years they are on the road and other years they are on a race track. My latin is limited. OK non existent. Is it let the translator beware?

It is alternating years. This year they were on the road, last year on the race track, and so forth.

My apologies to everyone who predicted on this question. This event has been alternating years in the past with the road race on odd numbered years and the closed track event on the even numbered years, but this year they chose to do another Closed Track Event at the Texas Motor Speedway.

This means that the event no longer matches the background for the question, which unfortunately must be voided. I should have rechecked the event earlier but it didn't cross my mind. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Does this question really need to be voided? They did drive around a closed course instead of going to Colorado but I am sure that they still drove the cars as fast as they could and tried to win. Also everyone could have followed the links you gave us to learn about the course change before making our predictions.

Hey, dont worry about it. I am happy. Most of the time, I just lose my money..:)

@charlesf:

Yeah, I was disappointed too. I did look at that possibility, and they recorded the number of laps completed each day, but they didn't report times or speeds which made it impossible to arrive at a winning result for the predictions made on this question.

They did report the times. 8 hours on days 1, 2 and 3 and 6 hours on day 4. If you multiply the number of laps times 1.5 miles per lap you get the distance in miles. They drove around the track for 8 hours each of the first 3 days and for 6 hours on the last day. From this you can calculate the speed in MPH (as the question requires) by dividing the # of miles driven by the number of hours driven. Houston Solar Race Team - 128 laps on day 4 X 1.5 miles (length of track) = 192 miles / 6 hours = 32 MPH.

If you wish to void this question because they drove around on a closed track instead of on the open road that is up to you but please don't do it because "they didn't report times or speeds which made it impossible to arrive at a winning result for the predictions made on this question" because I have shown last week and again today that using the information from the website and some simple arithmetic one can easily calculate the speed.

@charlesf: the latin means "[written] answerer beware" (to be fair, I cribbed "caveat emptor," or buyer beware and hunted down answerer using online resources and found a number of results - rescribori suggests a written answerer, so...)

@bigken1: right there with you, buddy!