I received this news a couple of days a go: During the Canadian Solar Tour one of the 6 participating cars had a head on collision with a mini van and the driver of the solar car, Andrew Frow, died as a result.
The news is specially disturbing because this could have happened to myself and any of my friends that drove our solar car team for University of Western Ontario. I keep thinking about a time in Sunrayce 96 when as we were driving over Mississippi bridge part of the steering mechanism of our solar car broke. From the chase vehicle behind the solar car we could see some red thing sticking out of the wheel fairing. We debated for a few second as what it was and when we realized that it was part of the steering mechanics we were all horrified. The bridge was very long and narrow and there was no place to stop. We just hoped that nothing would have happened. It never occurred to us that our driver, Greg, could have been easily killed as a result of such a small mechanical failure.
We gingerly got to the other side of the bridge and we pulled off immediately and started working on the car to fix the problem. It took us about 4 hours to find a machine shop in a small town near by where we machined a new piece out of aluminum and brought it back and jammed it in place and continued driving. That day we won an award for being most resourceful team at Sunrayce.
I remember another time when I was driving the car in 2 way highways around London, Ontario. The car wighed only about 700lb and it would get sucked in toward the median and in the opposite lane every time a huge semi would pass us in the opposite lane.
Being part of the solar car team was an incredible experience. I am so thankful that nothing tragic ever happened to any of us or any other solar car teams. And I hope this accicent would not kill the solar car projects at any of the universities.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1092367217850_16/
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/LondonFreePress/News/2004/08/13/580142.html