back to article Dutch oven overcooked in World Solar Challenge

After a stellar start to the World Solar Challenge, the fancied Nuon team from Delft has had to cop a ten minute penalty for breaking speed limits, while Japan's Tokai University entrant has been given a more serious 30 minute penalty. The penalties will probably put Solar Team Twente (also from The Netherlands) in the lead at …

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  1. et tu, brute?

    How bizarre!

    How utterly bizarre that in a race, you get fined fro breaking the speed limit! Isn't the idea of a race to get to the end point as fast as possible?

    1. frank ly

      Re: How bizarre!

      I assume that 'racing' on public roads requires that rule since they haven't been formally closed and isolated from public traffic. Does anyone know if that is the case? I wonder why they didn't have a speed limiter as part of the control system.

      1. Martin Budden Silver badge

        Re: How bizarre!

        I assume that 'racing' on public roads requires that rule since they haven't been formally closed and isolated from public traffic.

        I assume so too, and of course the authorities would never agree to closing the *only* road down the middle. The next nearest detours pass ~1000km on either side!

    2. ScottK

      Re: How bizarre!

      The Stuart Highway is a public road, so they have to obey the road rules. It used to have no limit in the NT, but a 130km/h limit was introduced a few years back. Once they cross the border into South Australia, the limit is 110km/h.

    3. GrumpyOldBloke

      Re: How bizarre!

      Breaking the speed limit is a very easy thing to do in Oz. If the guy walking in front of your vehicle waving a red flag and ringing a bell decides to start jogging then you are done for. As advances in solar technology have already exceeded the petty tolerances of the various state and territory governments in Oz then how long can the solar challenge continue to be held there. They may as well perform the challenge on a race track in Malaysia.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: How bizarre!

      That's why they have the speed tests round the track before the main event.

      The also want to eke out the publicity, imaging the race being won by a car in a day while the rest are still on the road miles behind.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: How bizarre!

        From the article the "race" sounds more like a "rally", where your timed over certain sections and lose time of you arrive late, but are much more heavily penalised if you arrive early to a time control/checkpoint,

        Also, in the UK even during road rally events (held on open public roads, but usually overnight) the Road Traffic Act still applies, so you must stop at every give way and stop line and stick to the speed limits.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: How bizarre!

          Sorry to be a pedant, but you do not have to stop at a give way. You may proceed through a give way without stopping if it is safe to do so (Otherwise why would we have the differentiation between Stop & Give Way).

          1. Danny 14

            Re: How bizarre!

            Racing between fuel stations can rapidly become a game of hypermiling to avoid death in the outback though.

          2. Wzrd1 Silver badge

            Re: How bizarre!

            Want a laugh?

            In the US, a give way is a mystery in many, many states.

            Indeed, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, no such thing exists. It is right of way. Meanwhile, the right of way exists *only* for the purpose of yielding it.

            Making it a give way.

            Now, I'll not go into how many road accidents result from "I have the right of way" or the many, many accidents with pedestrians who are lawfully granted *full* right of way in favor of all motor vehicles, including emergency vehicles.

          3. Chris 239

            Re: How bizarre!

            Sopping at give ways is one of the rules of road rallying, possibly for PR purposes or to assuage the elf n safety brigade.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: How bizarre!

              "Sopping at give ways is one of the rules of road rallying, possibly for PR purposes or to assuage the elf n safety brigade."

              I would think it's more to keep average speeds down and to give more of a challenge.

  2. Captain DaFt

    "Japan's Hachinohe Institute of Technology was unable to pass pre-start scrutineering"

    Darned shame... That thing looked like it wandered straight out of a seventies Japanese science fiction movie!

    Look at it! http://regmedia.co.uk/2013/10/05/wsc-hochinoe.jpg

    It looks like it could convert from car, to boat, to aircraft if you played the right background music!

    (And just try to convince me those yellow rectangles in the front aren't frikkin' Lasers!)

    1. wowfood

      Re: "Japan's Hachinohe Institute of Technology was unable to pass pre-start scrutineering"

      I'd recognize the core design anywhere. That bubble in the middle is a clear ripoff of geoff. from top gear.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "Japan's Hachinohe Institute of Technology was unable to pass pre-start scrutineering"

      That's one of the older types that have been there before. Banned because of the petrol engine in the back and bike pedals for foot rests.

  3. Richard Wharram

    Dutch oven?

    I can't work out how you justify putting it in the title but well done for at least making the effort to keep working the Profanisaurus into mainstream media.

    You need to keep an eye out for a story involving a water-borne, vapor-driven vessel of low-countries origin whose forward-motion is impaired so moves in a stern-first fashion.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Dutch oven?

      "I can't work out how you justify putting it in the title "

      Well, on the count of the cockpit being rather warm, and the vehicle being Dutch, that'd count?

      And of course, the cockpit being enclosed to reduce drag, then most of the vehicles will be Dutch ovens after more than a few minutes of human occupancy.

    2. harmjschoonhoven

      @Richard Wharram RE: "vapor-driven vessel of low-countries origin"

      Something like

      http://www.liedjesland.com/Liedjes/Sinterklaas/ZieGindsKomtDeStoomboot/ZieGindsKomtDeStoomboot.htm

      ?

      1. Richard Wharram

        Re: @Richard Wharram RE: "vapor-driven vessel of low-countries origin"

        I'm at work, so just to be on the safe side I'm not clicking that.

        1. aschaep

          Re: @Richard Wharram RE: "vapor-driven vessel of low-countries origin"

          You can safely click that link, also on work :) even the most conservative mums can come watch if they hear that song :) if you don't want a mum-party behind your desk, keep the volume down :)

          1. gazthejourno (Written by Reg staff)

            Re: Re: @Richard Wharram RE: "vapor-driven vessel of low-countries origin"

            link is SFW - it's a set of Dutch Christmas carol lyrics.

            1. Gavin King

              Re: @Richard Wharram RE: "vapor-driven vessel of low-countries origin"

              SFW perhaps, but interestingly the "Internet Traffic Management System" here did block me and say "no go: this is pornography."

              How on earth it decided this I have no idea: it is one of the least offensive sites I've ever seen.

  4. James 47

    broken speed limit

    i assumed these cars wouldn't be going faster than a bicycle

    1. Ian McNee
      Alert

      Re: broken speed limit

      Not a good idea - the max. speed limit is only 130kmh after all, check out them damned Dutch from Delft again!

  5. bag o' spanners

    130kph in a solar powered science fiction machine is reasonable business. Are they allowed to charge up a storage battery on day one, so they can accelerate up to optimum cruising speed on day 2 using the stored solar energy?

    1. Fluffy Bunny
      Happy

      Yes, the high performance solar cells they use on these beasts can get a full charge overnight. They also prop them up to catch the first rays of the sun before the official start of racing.

  6. Sporkinum

    Wikipedia sez...

    A Dutch oven is a slang term for lying in bed with another person and pulling the covers over the person's head while flatulating, thereby creating an unpleasant situation in an enclosed space. This is done as a prank or by accident to one's sleeping partner.

  7. Alan Brown Silver badge

    Why can't there be

    An entry from scandanavia piloted by an inuit named Sven? It would of course have to be called the Volts Wagn.

  8. Wzrd1 Silver badge

    Let's let the title be more accurate for the article

    Pedestrian fined for jaywalking.

    Motorist fined for speeding.

    Any objectors, I'll happily have a ground level mach one competition outside of your child's school while in session.

    Speed limits exist for a reason. I know, as one who peeled a child's head from the pavement, only to see his brain fall out onto the pavement. With five other dead children in the car, courtesy of a drunk, speeding driver t-boning their car.

    And dozens of other horrors.

    Speed limits exist for the very same reason I can't take my gun outside and target shoot. If things don't go according to my plan, which would ignore millions of factors of safety for the entire community, someone ends up dead.

    The only difference is one of grams. Grams of bullet or kilograms of motor vehicle killing someone.

    One challenges a law based upon reason, not mere random objection.

  9. Bilby

    The penalty wasn't for the competing vehicle doing something wrong

    ...according to the article, it was for one of their support cars breaking the speed limit.

    Presumably the support crews have packing up to do after their car has set off, and then want to get to the next checkpoint and set up well before their sunshine-mobile arrives. This means going faster then their entry in the race - so breaking the 130kph limit might seem like a good plan, up until the point where you get caught and your team is penalized.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Upvote

      Kudos to the man who actually read TFA.

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