Sunrider, UF’s solar race car, is hoping to mark its final lap around the track with a second Formula Sun Grand Prix (FSGP) national championship title.
The car, built by engineering design team Solar Gators, basked in the spotlight Wednesday evening at a send-off event before it heads to the FSGP and American Solar Challenge this week.
This year’s FSGP runs from July 16 through July 18. Entered cars start with a
completely charged battery pack and rely on solar power for the remainder of the race.
Sunrider, which looks like a futuristic go-kart with a sleek, orange body covered in 267 solar panels, was built from scratch by the student-run organization and made its racing debut in 2022. It has now made two appearances at the FSGP, a three-day endurance event on a three-mile closed, road-style track.
Teams compete for the most miles over three days with the hopes of qualifying for the American Solar Challenge (ASC), a seven-day, 1,533-mile cross-country endurance tour held every two years. Teams must drive 205 miles in one day or 308 miles in two days during the FSGP to qualify.
Solar Gators Vice President Isabella Lucarelli, a 20-year-old electrical engineering junior, said the races are about the effective use of solar technology more than anything else.
“Everything kind of just boils down to our solar array and the efficiencies of every other aspect of our car getting us through these intense competitions,” Lucarelli said. “The thing that we build towards every year is to be able to run a car just directly off of solar power.”
Sunrider was FSGP National Champion last year, driving 707 miles over the three days, a far cry from the 188 miles it completed in 2022. The team is hoping to defend its title and perform well for its first time at the ASC before Sunrider retires.
Lucarelli said about 60 students total have worked on Sunrider, guided by help from professors.
“It really takes a village and a half to get everything rolling,” she said. “It can be a long process, but we have great members that put in the work.”
The organization operates on a two-year design cycle, spending a year designing the car and another manufacturing it, according to Lucarelli. The team is broken into aerobody, electrical and mechanical groups that work to produce a new car every two years.
Beyond racing, Lucarelli said the team constantly works to upgrade the car and maximize its efficiency.
“We do everything from maintenance to small updates to big revamps,” Lucarelli said. “It just comes down to the people who were working on the project at the time and any notes we received from the competition in prior years.”
Sunrider is a major improvement from its predecessors, Cielo and Torch. Torch completed only three miles in 2017 and Cielo had more mass from hot glue than solar cells.
Before racing in the FSGP, Sunrider will go through three days of scrutineering, a rigorous evaluation performed by professionals who check systems in the car to ensure safe driving and quality manufacturing, according to Lucarelli.
This year’s FSGP will be held in Bowling Green, Kentucky, at the National Corvette Museum Motorsports Park. Once qualified in the FSGP, the team will head to Nashville, Tennessee, to begin the ASC July 20, traveling through five states before reaching the finish line in Casper, Wyoming, July 27.
Solar Gators will bring four drivers who will complete four-hour shifts during the eight-hour race days on the track and nine-hour race days on the road.
Andres Duque, a 21-year-old aerospace engineering junior, is a driver and the battery pack co-lead. He and the other drivers have trained extensively over the summer, practicing figure-eights and slaloms to pass the dynamic part of scrutineering, he said.
Duque said he’s wanted to be a driver ever since he laid eyes on the car.
“It is exhilarating to be in there,” he said. “You can really see and understand all the hard work we’ve put in.”
Sunrider maxes out at about 55 miles per hour. Its fastest lap at the FSGP last year was about 50 miles per hour.
“When you’re in there, the speed is magnified by three times,” Duque said. “It just feels like you’re flying. It’s awesome.”
Duque said more competitive teams are racing this year, but he’s confident the Solar Gators will be in the top five.
“We’re gonna have quite the competition, but I will say I feel pretty good about it,” he said.
Duque and his team will be competing against 32 teams from the U.S. and Canada, 21 of which are planning to qualify for the ASC. He said winning the ASC would be “the moment of a lifetime.”
“We’re an amazing team,” he said. “Every single one of us here has put in a ton of work, lots of dedication.”
Bragg Farmer, a 21-year-old mechanical engineering junior, works on Sunrider’s metal frame and will be changing tires and helping ensure the car operates at maximum capacity during the races.
He said he’s most excited to see the other cars and their engineering designs.
“The big thing is really going and seeing other teams and communicating with them,” Farmer said. “Winning is a nice bonus, but being able to really discuss the engineering stuff, that’s the cool part of this.”
That doesn’t mean winning isn’t a goal, he added.
“It’d be so cool, you get a trophy and you get to talk about it,” he said. “We got it in the bag.”
The ASC and FSGP are run by the Innovators Educational Foundation, a non-profit organization that celebrates engineering creativity with hands-on learning experiences. The competitions’ roots can be traced back to 1990 when General Motors held the first GM Sunrayce USA, a collegiate 1,650-mile transcontinental race.
ASC Webmaster and Media Team Member Jonathan Mullen said the competition is a unique experience with real-world applications.
“It's an opportunity for students to work with this technology and get hands-on experience designing for efficiency and sustainability that they maybe don't get other places in their education,” Mullen said. “They can bring that with them to the workforce.”
Mullen said this year’s competitions will be some of the biggest solar car races in recent history. With a majority of the teams in a good spot, he expects it to be a tough battle.
Sunrider and crew will be following seven different national historic trails for different portions of the race for the ASC’s “See America by Historic Trail” event theme, according to Mullen.
They will make three stage stops at national monuments, national historic parks or interpretive centers in Illinois, Missouri and Nebraska before finishing in Wyoming.
Sunrider’s racing days may be numbered, but the Solar Gators will be back with Flare, a brand new set of wheels the team hopes to start racing at the FSGP next summer. The ASC will return in summer 2026. Dates and locations for both competitions have not been finalized.
Contact Grace McClung at gmcclung@alligator.org. Follow her on X @gracenmclung
Grace McClung is a third-year journalism major and the graduate & professional school reporter for The Alligator. In her free time, Grace can be found running, going to the beach and writing poetry.
