Today we went on a scenic drive through Ann Arbor to practice proper caravan/radio procedure in normal cars, in preparation for getting a rolling solar car on the road soon.  After a meeting last night to go over radio protocol, we headed out this morning with Jeff Rogers’ 80′s era Oldsmobile as lead, John Federspiel’s Chevy Malibu as chase, and, of course, our “solar car”, Alex Dowling’s Ford Windstar.

With an experienced lead driver (Gerald Chang), me in the “solar car” being coached by Alex, and Dylan Reitzell driving chase with John riding shotgun, we managed to make it through the sample route alive and unticketed, despite a few apearances by Ann Arbor’s Finest along the route.  All in all, we were able to handle even a few tough situations with relative poise, and I for one can’t wait to get back out on the road this Saturday for our next practice session.

In the interest of having a little fun while practicing procedure, our route stopped at a local botanical garden about halfway through to debrief and make some corrections, as well as tour the gardens.  As you can see in the pictures below, we had an great time taking in some plants that we’ll only be able to see again in Australia!

Debriefing: The team debriefs in the botanical garden parking lot. That’s the “solar car” on the right.

In the garden: Left to right: Sudeep Rohatgi, Dylan Reitzell, Jeff Rogers, Kevin Zhang, John Federspiel, Alex Dowling, Chris Hilger, Ethan Stark, Santosh Kumar, Eric Relson

The Culprit: The cactus-plant-thing that Alex Dowling almost impaled himself on.