PJ Vogt

Anthony did not have the engineering experience or resources of a team like Carnegie Mellon's Red Team, so he tried something very different, a vehicle that had almost no chance of winning the race, but which was also perfectly designed to stand out, to get him a lot of attention, maybe a job.

The race's only self-driving motorcycle.

It was named Ghost Rider.

A stubby little thing, covered in stickers, with an antenna on the back and cameras on the front.

And you're monitoring that in real time and making small adjustments, and you stay balanced.

The race happens on a Saturday in March of 2004.

What happens the first time they try to do this competition?

The 2004 Grand Challenge is an utter hysterical disaster.

Disaster number one, Ghost Rider, the motorcycle.

Anthony Lewandowski forgot to flip on the switch for the stabilization system.

The bike immediately topples.

Ghost Rider down.

Like one vehicle drives up onto a berm, flips off.

One vehicle drives straight out, does an inexplicable U-turn, and just drives back to the starting line.

And the rules are that once your vehicle starts, you can't do anything.

Even Sandstorm got stuck on a berm.

Chris Ermson just standing there, unable to help his robot.

Poor thing was trying to get going, but its wheels were just spinning on the gravel and tried so hard that it actually melted the rubber of the tires.

And so there's this plumes of black smoke before they killed it.

For the roboticists, this was obviously very disappointing.