Participation in other solar mobile races

First of all, I had to clear my head. To do this, I registered as a participant for a solar car race in Germany: It was in Bavaria and led from Erlangen to Regensburg. My wife at the time, Tina, and I drove to Regensburg with a car, trailer and Cheetah to the agreed meeting point and were surprised that no one was there. Looking again at the race announcement, I realised that I had mixed up the start and finish. The race started in Erlangen. There was not much time left. So without further ado we parked the car and the trailer, packed all the luggage into the Cheetah and Tina and I drove to Erlangen together. The range of Cheetah was 150 km. To be on the safe side, I drove in the slipstream of a truck at 80 km/h to use less energy. Slipstream meant: driving with a distance of less than 3 m directly behind the truck. It requires the utmost concentration. You can't see anything except the advertising on the tailgate and if the truck's brake lights come on, it's actually already too late to brake your own vehicle. The tension is great, but: the vehicle needs extremely little energy.

When I arrived at the start, I asked the organiser if I could load something before the race started. Since I had driven up directly from Regensburg, I still had to charge up a bit. One hour was enough to get my batteries full again. The organiser was so amazed by Cheetah's performance that I was immediately accepted as an honorary member of the Bundesverband Solarmobil. The performance of any commercially available electric vehicle today was still extraordinary in 1993.
As I looked around the paddock, one group of participants in particular caught my eye: One driver refused to drive his vehicle. He was pleaded with by his group that he should drive, since he had designed the vehicle. That is why he knows about the condition and nothing in the world would make him get into this vehicle now. Besides, he still had to repair all the defects. That would not be possible if he sat in the vehicle... A strange guy. Shortly after the start, this very vehicle was parked at the side of the road and the replacement driver who had got out was busily recovering the solar cells from the road that he had lost. The refusing constructor probably knew about the shortcomings of his vehicle. He introduced himself with the name Stefan Rittler. He was still in the middle of his studies. We had good talks and agreed to develop a joint vehicle project later.
I was very successful at the race itself. That built up my self-esteem a bit.

I learnt in the process:
- Driving in the slipstream of a truck is no fun and dangerous - but it saves energy.
- After reaping some failures, a race success was extremely uplifting.