DARPA Grand Challenge (2005)

The second driverless car competition of the DARPA Grand Challenge was a 212 km (132 mi) off-road course that began at 6:40 am on October 8, 2005, near the California/Nevada state line.

The huge truck spent the night idling on the course and was particularly nimble in carefully picking its way down the narrow roads of Beer Bottle Pass.

Of the original 195 applicants, initially 40 teams were selected to participate in the National Qualification Event (NQE).

DARPA's final ranking of the vehicles, for purposes of pole position in the Grand Challenge Event (GCE), may have been partly subjective.

The ranking of who was accepted into the Grand Challenge desert race seems to be driven by number of gates passed.

Beyond that, it is not known what criteria DARPA used to qualify the participants as acceptance was seemingly driven by decision of the Chief Judge.

On October 7 the teams had a day to fix any portions of the robots broken in the course of transportation prior to the actual race.

The 2005 competitors were much more successful than those of 2004; only one failed to pass the 11.84 km (7.36 mi) mark set by the best-performing 2004 entry, Sandstorm.

The winner of the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge was Stanley, with a course time of 6 hours 53 minutes and 8 seconds (6:53:08) with average speed of 30.7 km/h (19.1 mph).

The Official Website (requires Flash player plugin) contained a map and positions of the competitors, while TG Daily posted a running summary of the day's events.