Animas High School graduates’ adventure underway in solar car

Dominique “Domi”Frideger raises a U.S. flag in victory after he and teammate Dylan Kroes successfully deliver their car, Solis, to the Solar Car Challenge at the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas, on Wednesday. The car must undergo two days of “scrutineering” to ensure it’s safe for the two 18-year-olds to race from Texas to Minnesota.

Courtesy of Team Energy Audacity

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Dominique “Domi”Frideger raises a U.S. flag in victory after he and teammate Dylan Kroes successfully deliver their car, Solis, to the Solar Car Challenge at the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas, on Wednesday. The car must undergo two days of “scrutineering” to ensure it’s safe for the two 18-year-olds to race from Texas to Minnesota.

Courtesy of Team Energy Audacity

Dominique “Domi” Frideger and teammate Dylan Kroes successfully deliver their car, Solis, to the Solar Car Challenge at the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas, on Wednesday. The duo, who both graduated from Animas High School in May, raised about $14,000 and garnered support from several Durango professionals to build their car.

Courtesy of Team Energy Audacity

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Dominique “Domi” Frideger and teammate Dylan Kroes successfully deliver their car, Solis, to the Solar Car Challenge at the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas, on Wednesday. The duo, who both graduated from Animas High School in May, raised about $14,000 and garnered support from several Durango professionals to build their car.

Courtesy of Team Energy Audacity

Dominique “Domi” Frideger, left, and teammate Dylan Kroes make a stop at the Cadillac Ranch while transporting their car, Solis, to the Solar Car Challenge at the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas. They arrived Wednesday, and are waiting for their car to be “scruitneered” to see if it has enough safety features to be allowed in the race.

Courtesy of Team Energy Audacity

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Dominique “Domi” Frideger, left, and teammate Dylan Kroes make a stop at the Cadillac Ranch while transporting their car, Solis, to the Solar Car Challenge at the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas. They arrived Wednesday, and are waiting for their car to be “scruitneered” to see if it has enough safety features to be allowed in the race.

Courtesy of Team Energy Audacity

The Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth is the headquarters of the Solar Car Challenge, where Dominique “Domi” Frideger and teammate Dylan Kroes are hoping their car, Solis, will be considered safe enough to race in the six-day race to Minnesota. The speedway seats 181,000 people.

Courtesy of Team Energy Audacity

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The Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth is the headquarters of the Solar Car Challenge, where Dominique “Domi” Frideger and teammate Dylan Kroes are hoping their car, Solis, will be considered safe enough to race in the six-day race to Minnesota. The speedway seats 181,000 people.

Courtesy of Team Energy Audacity

What started as a school project has turned into a great adventure for recent Animas High School graduates Dominique “Domi” Frideger and Dylan Kroes as they prepare to enter the Solar Car Challenge in Texas.

“Dylan and I have literally devoted every waking moment of the past five months to the completion of our solar car,” Frideger wrote in his blog late Wednesday, “and today would be the day when we finally got to taste some of the sweet nectar known as resolution. We had set our minds to do something that to many seemed impossible and had seemed out of reach to us for a long time, and finally, against all odds, we were here, in a Motel 6 parking lot within sight of the Texas Motor Speedway.”

The duo, along with their safety support team including both sets of parents – Tim and Susan Kroes and Susan Raleigh and Dan Frideger – Frideger’s sister, Grace, and a fellow AHS alumnus Will Brako, officially registered Thursday morning. Their car, named Solis, will undergo meticulous “scrutineering” through Friday to ensure it is safe to drive in the challenge’s six-day competition from Texas to Minnesota.

The two 18-year-olds designed and built their solar car with a lot of help from the Durango community, including workspace courtesy of La Plata Electric Association and StoneAge Waterblast Tools, expertise by solar experts and electrical engineers and about $14,000 in financial contributions for materials and trip expenses.

“We just completed media day at the Texas Motor Speedway!” Frideger wrote on the team’s Facebook Page on Wednesday. “It was a success, and Solis seemed to fit right in. We had the opportunity to go around the Speedway today, and everything went successfully. We got up to 33 mph and traveled just over 3 miles.”

Before they went to Texas, the two students said going 25 mph would be quite a success.

“In the scheme of things, our car does not look too out of place and is by no means the least well-built car in the race,” Frideger said, listing the areas that might be problematic. “We will, of course, keep a close eye on all of those areas and are working on a solution to half of them tonight and tomorrow. Today gave us serious hope, though, that we may actually have a chance of offering competition in this race.”

abutler@durangoherald.com