Wylie East High School's solar car team threw out its proven championship car, built a new one from scratch and won a third straight national title in July.

The Raiders captured their third consecutive Solar Car Challenge National Championship in the Advanced Classic Division with East Beast 2.0, a vehicle designed and assembled entirely by students during the 2025-26 school year. The only component carried over from the previous championship car was the wheels.

"The only thing we kept from our old car is the wheels," senior team captain Jayden Guild said in the Wylie ISD announcement on July 28. "We started planning right after last year's race. We began building it during the school year and finished it just two days before the race."

That timeline tells the story.

Planning began 18 months before the July 19 start of the 30th Annual Solar Car Challenge. Construction kicked off at the beginning of the school year. Team members worked two to three days a week through the summer, adding extra sessions in the final month, according to Wylie News. They finished the car two days before the race began.

Updated 2026 competition safety requirements forced the redesign, but the scope of the rebuild went far beyond compliance. Students handled welding, fabrication, aerodynamics and electronics. Co-captain Dylan Nord fabricated a custom wooden steering wheel using the school's CNC metal cutter, making it cooler to the touch and lighter than the plastic or metal wheels other teams used.

The gamble paid off across 619.8 miles of Texas highway. Wylie East finished first in its division on Days 1 through 4, logging 157 miles on Day 1 and 142 on Day 2, and averaging speeds in the mid-40 mph range on Day 3. The team's official total of 654.7 miles topped second-place Plano Green by more than 169 miles, according to results posted by the Solar Car Challenge.

The race ran from Fort Worth through Palestine, Round Rock, Fredericksburg and San Angelo before finishing in Fort Stockton. It returned to its original cross-state format after several years of laps at Texas Motor Speedway. Twenty-four high school teams competed, including 10 from Texas.

Matthew Karlsen, Wylie East's welding instructor and solar car sponsor, credited the students' discipline in the July 28 district release. "The kids were incredibly consistent … During the race, they did their jobs. They got right to work calculating and making adjustments at every pit stop," he said.

The team also faced a three-day pre-race technical inspection, spending two days making repairs after an incident on the second day of scrutineering before being cleared to compete.

Despite winning first-place trophies all five days, the Raiders gave three away to competing teams that kept racing through major mechanical or electrical failures.

Karlsen and 2026 graduate Matt Davis received the Order of Solar Cell Award for contributions to high school solar car racing. Retired welding teacher Tony Roseberry, who founded the program in the 2012-13 school year, received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Solar Car Racing at the closing ceremony.

Roseberry traced the program's arc in the July 28 district release: "In 2013, we were 10th place out of 10 teams. Then we were eighth, then fourth, then we had five second places. Now we have three national championships!"