BOULDER, Colo. – The Houston Solar race teams brought home two overall first place trophies from the Hunt-Winston Solar Car Challenge after spending a week on the road traveling from Fort Worth, Texas, to Boulder, Colo.

The Houston Solar Race team competed in the Open division with Sundancer and blew away their only competitor, Walnut High School of Walnut, Calif. The team, which had all male students, outraced all other cars in every division except the Choctaw High School Solar Car project team and won every day of racing, culminating in an overall first place trophy in their division. CCHS races in the Advanced division and is not in competition with Houston.

Sundancer completed 829.1 of 854 available miles of racing in 35:28 hours with an average speed of 30.72 miles per hour.

The win brought the Sundancer car its 10th consecutive first-place trophy in solar racing.

During the race, team member Thomas Brown reported having no major incidents with the car and only minor navigating errors that were quickly overcome.

“We’ve had some minor problems,” Brown said early on. “At our first mandatory stop, our steering bracket broke and we had to fix that, but we got right back on the road. Then, we took a wrong turn and had to get back on track, but everything is going good. As long as we keep navigating well, we’ll be OK.”

The team cruised to a win to record a decade of first-place finishes in national competition. Team captain Will Turman was presented the Order of the Solar Cell award for competitors who believe in solar racing and make it happen.

Sundancer II was manned this year by an all-female team from start to finish. The Houston Lady Racers rebuilt their car and entered it into the race, getting off to a shaky start at first. They experienced a blowout on the first day of racing and blew a water pump in their lead vehicle, causing them to lose some ground against their toughest competitor, Solar Knights of South Plantation High School in Florida. The Lady Racers made up some much-needed ground on July 24, taking a 14-mile lead and holding it through the final race day on July 25 to secure their overall win in the Classic division.

“It was a hard-fought race,” said adviser Donna Turman.

Turman said rainy conditions Saturday presented a challenge for the team, but adviser Keith Reese came to assist them in their hour of need.

“There was so much rain,” Turman said. “Keith came back and helped us out a lot.”

Reese had been traveling with the boy’s team, but helped the girls out in a floating position.

“He’d go ahead and find us a hill or a flat place and the girls would unload the car and run it,” Turman said. “He’d be waiting at the place we should load back up and trailer again and then he’d go back out looking. I bet the girls loaded and unloaded that car 10 times.”

The assistance paid off as the Lady Racers took the lead by end of day Saturday and completed all their miles Sunday for the win. Sundancer II completed 749.6 miles in 35:42 hours with an average speed of 23.76 miles per hour.

Turman said the race was a true learning experience for all the women.

“We figured our car out,” Turman said. “It is definitely a long-distance car. It’s light, light, light and it can charge almost all the time it’s on the road.”

Team captain Whitney George was also presented an Order of the Cell award.