Video: Solar Car Team Gears Up For Big Competition

HOUSTON, Miss. (WCBI)-The Houston Solar Car team will soon hit the road, hoping for another national championship.

The group leaves for Texas on Tuesday morning to compete in the 2016 Solar Challenge.

The Houston Solar Car team has a history of winning national championships, they currently have 14 under their belt.

“We’ve been busting it,” said Matthew Hood, team captain. “Basically, we’ve been doing training runs all around. We’ll go to Tupelo, we’ll go everywhere.”

The 2016 Solar Challenge will have new obstacles, no other team from Houston has faced before.

“In year’s past they raced from like Fort Worth to California, different places like that, this year we’ll be racing from Fort Worth all the way up to Minneapolis Minnesota,” said Hood.

Now, the high schoolers are expecting tougher competition.

“I don’t think they’ve ever traveled this one before, this is new for everybody, and I know a bunch of the teams that competed against us, they’ll be totally changed from two years ago when we saw them, so we don’t know what we’re going against,” said Hood.

The team posted the best times and most solar powered miles when they competed in a race in Australia last year.

However, some minor changes need to be made before the group starts its competition.

“On the side there, the crush zones is the main thing,” said Hood. “We didn’t have those bars there which created a lot less weight and made is a lot more aerodynamic but for the safety issues over here we’ll be traveling a lot of busy highways and driving a lot more miles, so it’s just safer to have them on there.  We also had to change out our batter box. We had to peel the box around it, had to build boxes out of foam, then we also had to take straps and strap both doors down.”

Now that the Sundancer is ready to roll, the team is confident about its big challenge driving through the Midwest.

“It isn’t about the car, and it’s not the car that’s wining, that’s what Mrs. Teresa always tells us, and it’s the team that was, and if we’re not unified, if we’re not working together, then we’re not going to win,” said Summer Carner, who’s apart of the Houston Solar Car Team.

The race will be a two week event, starting July 14th until the 23rd.