After a rough day of trying to get results on the score board without success, the team worked, once again, almost all night on the vehicle. Tired but ready for anything, we were on the starting line at 9:45 AM to do our first run of the day. Unfortunately, the run was aborted after only half a lap because of an air bubble stuck in the gas line. We fixed the problem in minutes and got the car back on the track for what turned out to be our first successful run of the day. It turned out to be a 2133 miles per gallon run and bumped us to the top of the scoreboard. Early afternoon, while getting the car ready for the last opportunity to run on the Eco-marathon track, we discovered an electronic problem that had been causing many of our issues lately. The problem was quickly fixed; the engine controller was fine-tuned and made ready to get an even better score in. Strong winds forced us to abandon our 4th attempt on the track because the hood of the car flew off. We fixed it to the car and got in line to do our last run of the week-end. Finally, all of our efforts were rewarded with a result of 2488 miles per gallon. We then attended the awards ceremony and we are glad that our efforts and commitment have been rewarded.

This third day was awaited by all the team. In fact, it is the first day of official runs and therefore we woke up early to be ready as fast as possible.

In the morning, the vehicle was working perfectly. Our first run was really promising but during the seventh lap (out of ten), the car was brought back to the pit because of a flat tire. Once it was fixed, we were back in line to go for another run. Somehow, electronic problems kept us from running again today. Therefore, the coming night will also be used to fix those problems and hopefully we will be able to successfully run tomorrow.

On Shell Eco-marathon’s second official day we continued the car preparation. The day started early with an inspection of the track. We were pleasantly surprised to notice that the track corners seemed easier to negotiate than we expected. Since the technical inspections were successfully passed, we are looking forward to tomorrow. In fact, tomorrow is the first day to do official runs; therefore, we must be ready to maximise our time and do as much runs as possible.

Until then, we have all night long to get our car ready. We hope that all the efforts we put will finally pay off tomorrow.

We finally arrived this morning at 9:00 AM at the competition site in downtown Houston.

In the morning, we shopped for the missing parts we needed that we could not ship from Quebec. Then, at around 12:30 PM, the George R. Brown convention center opened officially and we were allowed to start working on the vehicle. There is a lot of pressure on our shoulders because we are the defending champions. A lot of work and short nights of sleep await us for the next few days as we intend to do everything we can to preserve our title. We are now focussing on the practice runs that the organizers have planned for tomorrow.