The sport was originally created by Danish adventurer, Hans Thostrup. He is known for being the first person  to go around Australia  in an open boat. Soon after he did this, he became interested in various ways to travel without using gasoline. Thostrup then created Quiet Achiever, the world's first solar racecar, which traveled 2,512 miles across Australia. This was the beginning of the World Solar Challenge.

    The event has since then become a large gathering of various types of solar power vehicles, all with one goal, to win the World Solar Challenge. Many colleges have teams that enter and they occasionally do well, but no other team has had the success in recent years that the Dutch Nuon Team has achieved. They have won the past 4 World Solar Challenge events with their car, Nuna 1, 2, 3, and 4. Each of these cars, built by students from Delft University of Technology, can achieve 60+ mph. Each of the cars is an aerodynamic work of art, for they have 0.07 air resistance. In comparison, most modern cars have that of 0.25 to 0.35.

    When measuring air resistance, air is blown or sucked through a duct where the object that is being measured is. Various ways are used to measure the resistance in the chamber, but the lower the result, the more aerodynamic the object is.

Picture obtained from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Solar_Challenge