06-18-10

Anthelion, Iowa State's 10th solar-powered car, takes a qualifying run at the Motorsport Ranch in Cresson, Texas. Team PrISUm photo.

Iowa State solar car team qualifies for 1,100-mile American Solar Challenge

AMES, Iowa - Team PrISUm will be raycing from Tulsa to Chicago next week.

The Iowa State University students who designed and built the university's 10th solar-powered car officially qualified for the American Solar Challenge on Thursday. The June 20-26 rayce - as the solar racers like to call it - will take solar cars from at least 10 universities on public roads across parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri and Illinois.

Iowa State's car, named Anthelion after the rare halo that sometimes appears opposite the sun, qualified by completing at least 150 laps of the Formula Sun Grand Prix at the Motorsport Ranch in Cresson, Texas, on Wednesday and Thursday.

It's great to qualify, said Trevor Dobbs, a junior from Woodbury, Minn., who's studying materials engineering and is the assistant project director for Team PrISUm. It hasn't been easy, though.

Dobbs said the team has been slowed by recurring electrical problems that have required nightly fixes.

But now that the team has qualified for the race, Dobbs said it can use today - the last day of the qualifying race - to test and fix the car.

"We'll work on getting the car as reliable as possible," Dobbs said. "We'll get as many laps as possible while doing all the maintenance that's required."

And then it's off to rayce across the Midwest.

News Service will provide daily updates of the American Solar Challenge. Team PrISUm is also updating a race blog here. You can follow the team on Twitter here. You can also find team pictures here.

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