Hundreds of people celebrated the start of the North American Solar Challenge in Plano, Texas Sunday morning. Plano is a suburb of Dallas/Fort Worth.
Fifteen solar cars, including the University of Calgary entry, crossed the starting line.
They are now on their way through the American Midwest to the finish line in Calgary.
The grueling test will take ten days to complete and will put the student-built cars to the ultimate test.
Earlier in the day, the students made last minute improvements to their vehicles.
From tape to plastic bags, teams are using creative tools and thinking to get their cars road-ready, but despite the last minute touches, these hand-built solar cars have been three years and several hundred thousand dollars in the making.
For the Calgary team, race day came with some serious pressure. The electrical crew was putting finishing touches on the battery system just minutes before the start.
The U of C's driver Tiffany Veltman couldn't wait to get underway. "We put a lot of time in this and we have had a lot of set backs, and the electrical team has just performed miracles so I'm going to be really excited to just cross the start line and get going."
Soon it was race time.
Hundreds of residents from the Dallas/Fort Worth area lined the roads to help to kick off the solar race.
Many are wondering whether sunshine could one day fuel their own cars. Glen Smith of Plano thinks it might be the time for such innovation. "With what's going on in the economy with the price of oil, so much has to go into research and technology because this is what we are going to be driving in the future in some form."
As the cars got onto the open road, the leaders of the pack zipped past the competition at speeds of 100 kilometers an hour.
Even dark clouds and rain didn't slow them as they crossed into Oklahoma.
By mid afternoon, teams arrived at the first check stop, but officials say with thousands of kilometres to go, the real race won't be decided until the cars cross into Canada.
Race Offical Paul Hirtz says that is where the race gets interesting. "At these stops it's not about who gets in first, the real takeovers happen when we cross the border and that last leg on the Trans-Canada Highway to Calgary."
CTV's Sneha Kulkarni is following the racers all the way back to Calgary. In the coming week, CTV News will put you into the driver's seat to get a close up view of the physical and mental challenges the drivers face.
