QUICK LINKS Today's News News releases ISU homepage NEWS RELEASE 07-03-03 Contacts: Sarah Shay, Team PrISUm, (515) 294-0899 Bridget Bailey, News Service, (515) 294-6881 Annette Hacker, News Service (515) 294-3720 IOWA STATE STUDENTS PREPARE FOR SOLAR CAR RACE AMES, Iowa -- Team PrISUm, the Iowa State University solar car team, is finishing work on the Spectrum solar car and then will pack up and head to Wisconsin for pre-race activities of the American Solar Challenge. The ASC is a Chicago-to-Los Angeles solar car race, July 13-23. It will go through Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. This will be the second ASC--the successor to the Sunrayce solar car races, in which Iowa State teams have participated since 1990. The Iowa State team will leave Ames in two groups. The first group departs July 6 with the car and heads to Wisconsin for qualifiers. The team will attempt to re-qualify its car with a new set of batteries. The second group will leave Ames on July 12 and meet the first group in Chicago. The entire team will return to Ames July 28. Spectrum is the seventh solar car designed and built by Iowa State students. It is a sleek modified airfoil design that is painted gold in color-phased paint. The car is similar in design to the previous ISU solar car, PrISUm Odyssey, which raced in the 2001 American Solar Challenge. But Spectrum includes several important advances, including increased aerodynamics of the car's body and use of higher efficiency solar cells. PRISUM SPECTRUM VEHICLE SPECIFICATIONS AMERICAN SOLAR CHALLENGE FACT SHEET -30- Ames, Iowa 50011, (515) 294-4111 Published by: University Relations, online@iastate.edu Copyright © 1995-2003, Iowa State University of Science and Technology. All rights reserved.