Texas

We made it to Cresson, Texas without much ado. Besides, of course, having all of our preconceived notions about Texas confirmed. (Swass!)

Anyhow, we pulled our caravan into the parking lot of the Texas Motorsports Ranch (after a detour through a trailer park / neighborhood which was pretty interesting). We were greeted by the imposing sight of Michigan's absurdedly huge semi-trailer and cadre of matching black hybrid Tahoes (which are as yet publicly unavailable, I hear). It reminded me of those guys from Twister, the ones with all the funding, who ended up getting a radio tower driven through their windshield and sucked into an F5.

But honestly, Michigan seems nice. We still plan on owning the heck out of them in the race, however.

We parked next to Principia, but haven't really seen anything from them yet (they've got a tarp with a generator, but no car to speak of). On the other side is Oregon State. Their car is interesting as heck; they have carpet and some rainbow padding in their driver compartment. We checked in right before Calgary, who were sporting matching white cowboy hats. And the German team has matching shorts... way too organized for solar car.

We busted out Centaurus and got right to work. One of our tasks before scrutineering is making sure we can safely store Jeff's massive ballast bag, as it probably weighs more than he does. Adem, however, got a slick 1 kilo. And the rest of us got cute little NASC pins, and name tags to wear - pardon my French, but the name tages were my official "this shit just got REAL" moment. You know, when you realize suddenly that you're on the other side of the country, about to embark on two weeks of hardcore, ready-for-anything, road warrior solar car that will sum up the work of our team over what, for some, has been more than two years.

Well, I could say more, but we have to be back to the track at 8am (it seems we're one of very few teams who are not actually camping at the track; we've seen lots of tents and even some sleeping cupboards in a trailer).

Quotes:
-About Jeff's ballast bag:
"I feel bad for the mother who would be birthing that child."
"Especially if she looked like Jeff."
-Morgan / Sam

"Let me figure out the probability... yeah, there's a 66% chance of shenanigans."
-Adem