RIDGWAY – “Sunshine Mountain Traveler” is off to Texas for the start of this year’s Hunt-Winston School Solar Car Challenge.

Four students from Ridgway and Ouray high schools met in Ridgway Tuesday to make final preparations before trailering their custom-welded, open-cockpit, solar-powered car to Fort Worth.

Those preparations included accepting sponsorship checks from San Miguel Power Association ($10,000 from SMPA’s Touchstone Energy Cooperatives community fund) plus a $2,500 contribution from SunEdison, an international solar energy company that is partnering with SMPA on a 2 megawatt generating project. (Possible sites for the photovoltaic solar farm have been identified near Norwood, Paradox and Ridgway.)

When asked who gets to drive the car, nicknamed Apollo², team captain Cole McKenzie answered: “Last year it was whoever had a license. This year we have more drivers licenses. So, I guess it’ll be whoever feels like it.”

5 Hanshaw, a senior at OHS and a second-year team member, explained: “It’ll be really hot. But at 20 mph, there will be a nice breeze in the car. It’ll do 25 to 30 mph. We’re hoping to average 27. The people in the support vehicles are going to be the hot ones.”

The race itself will last a week, beginning July 18 and ending, in Boulder, Colo., on July 25. Each team will drive as many hours and as many miles as it can each day along the prescribed 866-mile route, with mandatory stops along the way, including overnights, meal stops and media/public demonstration sessions. The winner will be the team that logs the most miles in the quickest time.

The Ridgway-Ouray bunch, the only participating team from Colorado, hope to travel between 400 and 500 miles on Apollo²’s own power. Tactics are extremely important, said Sammi Masker of RHS. For example, climbing a hill can rapidly deplete the car’s 11 batteries. Recharging by any means other than sun power is grounds for disqualification. So, the team has to husband its power reserves.

A long hill or an especially steep hill might be cause to stop and trailer the car. Cloudy weather is another one. The how-many-miles-can-we-afford-to-go-today calculus is a tricky and crucial one. Topography, weather, the recharging efficiency of the roof panels, and the team’s decision-making all play a part.

One of the team’s two support vehicles will carry an event judge, whose job is to watch every move and record the car’s official mileage and time on the road. “Judges can be pretty cool, or sticklers,” said Hanshaw. “We can always make them happy with an air conditioner.”

The competition was started in 1993 by a small, college-prep school in Dallas, The Winston School, to encourage math and science learning. The program has since been shared with 900 schools in 20 countries. Every other year the race is held at Texas Motor Speedway outside Fort Worth; the cars just go round and round. Alternating years, like 2010, they stage a cross-country event.

None of the current Sunshine Mountain Traveler team has done the road race before. (The local team has been around and competing for a decade. “We were completely blown away,” said SunEdison’s Bryan Hammond, who drove out from Denver to deliver the check. “A high school team, and they’ve been at it for 10 years. Quite a sustained effort!”) Aaron Daughtry, a three-year team veteran from OHS, enumerated some of the pitfalls they’ll be looking out for: alignment damage caused by rough patches in the road; melting solar panels – possible if the weather gets really really hot; spills.

Spills? “Battery acid,” Daughtry said.

“That’s what the baking soda is for,” chimed in McKenzie. “We have to carry a fire extinguisher and baking soda. It’s the only thing that’ll put out a battery fire; it’s basic.”

Nothing that bad has ever happened to this team. They’ve scored well in the past and expect to again this year. “We’ll do well,” said captain McKenzie, “’cause we have a car that’ll hold up; that’s half the battle.”

You can follow the race on Facebook (Ouray County Solar Car Team) or at www.winstonsolar.org/challenge.