I would hope that they were aware of the risks. It was/is a very real risk to operate a vehicle like that in public, but no one thinks of the worst case senario will ever happen to them. As a former member of a solar car team, I think it is a horrible tradegy, but wouldn't have expected it any more than anyone else did.
Cars like this are allowed on the highway, you just have to get a special permit. Typically it's for an "experimental" car, there are limitations on what roads you can go on, and usually requires a lead and or chase car.
It's pretty difficult, but if you don't pay attention in the US it can happen, and has. A good friend of mine worked at a bank that had ATM's which could dispense 10's and 20's. One day they loaded 20's into the 10 hopper.
I doubt the person responsible is working there anymore.
Disc brakes can also be better for riders like myself (heavier) that tend to bend wheels frequently. I nearly tacoed a wheel in a race and was able to finish respectably because I didn't have to disconnect my front brakes.
Disc brakes are not without their own issues, I had to drop out of several races because it took Cannondale a year to find a pad composition that didn't get destroyed by Georgia mud/clay. I lost a brand new set of pads in 10 minutes once it started raining.
Thankfully that issue has been resolved.
I did computer simulation for a car on SunRayce. The single most important variable in the design of the mechanics of the car is weight. You could have made the car look like a brick and it wouldn't have mattered, if it was light weight.
Our car was tested in a wind tunnel and had a CD of 0.05 or something crazy like that. For reference, most modern automobiles are in the.25-.32 range. Unfortunately for our car it was heavy.
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I would hope that they were aware of the risks. It was/is a very real risk to operate a vehicle like that in public, but no one thinks of the worst case senario will ever happen to them. As a former member of a solar car team, I think it is a horrible tradegy, but wouldn't have expected it any more than anyone else did.
http://www.blueskysolar.utoronto.ca/MediaGfx/Print Scan/PDF/uoftmagazine_winter04.pdf
Cars like this are allowed on the highway, you just have to get a special permit. Typically it's for an "experimental" car, there are limitations on what roads you can go on, and usually requires a lead and or chase car.
I doubt the person responsible is working there anymore.
Disc brakes can also be better for riders like myself (heavier) that tend to bend wheels frequently. I nearly tacoed a wheel in a race and was able to finish respectably because I didn't have to disconnect my front brakes. Disc brakes are not without their own issues, I had to drop out of several races because it took Cannondale a year to find a pad composition that didn't get destroyed by Georgia mud/clay. I lost a brand new set of pads in 10 minutes once it started raining. Thankfully that issue has been resolved.
I did computer simulation for a car on SunRayce. The single most important variable in the design of the mechanics of the car is weight. You could have made the car look like a brick and it wouldn't have mattered, if it was light weight.
.25-.32 range. Unfortunately for our car it was heavy.
Our car was tested in a wind tunnel and had a CD of 0.05 or something crazy like that. For reference, most modern automobiles are in the