Posted on 09/21/2005 10:29:32 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher
THE first car from Iran to enter the World Solar Challenge has failed to arrive in Australia and is at risk of missing Sunday's start in the Darwin-to-Adelaide race.
The Persian Gazelle, built by a team from the University of Tehran, is thought to be stuck somewhere en route to Australia, possibly Dubai.
Race director Chris Selwood said Australian authorities and race organisers would do everything possible to get the car to the starting line if it arrived in time.
But he admitted things were looking grim.
"We can work with customs to expedite the thing when it arrives," he said.
"But if it's stuck out there in the wide world, in the air freight system, there's very little we can do except keep our thoughts in their direction."
Mr Selwood said the members of the Iranian team were yet to arrive and it could be that they had decided not to make the trip, with little chance of getting the car to Darwin on time.
"We'd love to see them turn up and we'll make a special fuss of them if they do," he said.
The loss of the Persian Gazelle would be a blow to the race which will feature 22 cars from 10 countries.
Favourite to take victory for a third successive year is the Dutch Nuon team, with its Nuna 3 car.
In 2003, the Nuna 2 set a race record of 30 hours and 54 minutes for the almost 3000km race.
Its major challenger will be the Aurora 101 vehicle from Melbourne, which finished second in 2001 and 2003.
Other contenders include teams from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Michigan and Japan's Ashiya University.
The Iranian entrant was expected to finish about mid-way through the field.
"The technical specifications they gave for the car were absolutely fantastic," Mr Selwood said.
"So from the technical description of the car, it certainly would have been in the middle rankings at the very least."
The French entrant, Sunspeed, has also encountered freight problems, with the car being sent to Sydney by mistake.
It was now expected to arrive either late today or early tomorrow and would be checked by race officials before the start after missing today's official scrutineering.
Wonder how much fuel was wasted in misdelivering these solar-powered vehicles.
If a bomb goes off in Dubai within the next few days, we will know where they went.
bump~~~!!!
who cares about bunch of primitive arabs?
Should have shipped it DHL
Iranians are persian, not arab.
I know that!
I was talkin about Dubai!
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