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Originally Posted by Rich Kressly
Currently TerraMax is on the move with 106 miles complete.
Four teams completed the 132mi course yesterday (times may still change):
Stanford - 9h 55m
Red Team - 9h 59m
Red Team Too - 10h 4m
Gray Team - 10h 17m.
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Note that the times shown on the web site status board are the elapsed track times since the robots started on the course, and not reflective of the actual time to complete the course. The clocks keep running after the robot passes through the finish chutes.
I was in Primm, NV, for the start of the race yesterday, and got to see the first few vehicles start out onto the track. CMU's Sandstorm had the fastest run time during the NQE, but they let H1ghlander go first, then Stanford's Stanley, then Sandstorm. Stanley passed H1ghlander around mile 109, which meant that it had at least made up the 5-minute difference in the starting times, and was running faster at that point. But, since Sandstorm started after Stanley and they both came in with about the same separation in finish times, it was not clear which one actually ran to course fastest. We are still waiting for a posting of the official completion times from DARPA.
It is worth noting that there were sections of the course where the vehicles had to contend with 2-way traffic. The vehicles were entering the course at staggered starting times. There were locations on the course where the "out and back loops" utilized the same sections of road. So there were many occasions where the early starters had to contend with oncoming traffic as they met their later starting competitiors on the course.
-dave