We've had an unspoken (blog wise) goal for the last two months -- the vehicle running on the Ivanpah lake bed during the last full week of March. It's not a random date we picked ... the NALSA (http://www.nalsa.org/) is holding their premier yearly 'Americas Cup' landsailing event on those dates and in that venue.
Ivanpah is the playa where almost exactly a year ago the sensational Greenbird (http://www.greenbird.co.uk/land-record) set a new world wind powered land speed record of over 126mph. NALSA is the ratifying organization for such records here in North America.
Starting last year, we have been in discussions with the NALSA BOD regarding the possible addition of a DDWFTTW landsailing class and record ratification procedures. In January they suggested that we bring our vehicle to the event in Ivanpah where a good number of the BOD members will be. This would give them an excellent opportunity to see the vehicle first hand for themselves and provide a more hands on knowledge base for further discussion.
We accepted the challenge even though it meant moving up our construction schedule by almost a full month. We've been charging hard to make this date and it's all looking good at the moment. One week from now we should be well into the first open surface shakedown runs of the vehicle.
In a step beyond the dyno testing, we hope to accumulate another level of understanding regarding the vehicles dynamics which will help us prepare for our record runs later in the spring. The weather has been a bit wet on the playa so we won't know how much actual running we will get until we arrive. Fingers crossed for good weather and a solid surface.
