Earlier quoted context omitted.
I for sure would have remembered some rinky dink motorcycle lining up for the start in Primm in 2005. His team didn't make it past the NQE in LA, IIRC.
The physical object is in the Smithsonian [1]. There's footage of it falling over in 2005 [2][3]. Is that enough? :-P 1) http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah... 2) http://www.gettyimages.com.au/detail/news-photo/the-blue-tea... 3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1bkhviWgSg
The 2005 Grand Challenge was divided into two parts: the national qualification event, where you went around an obstacle course on a closed raceway in an effort to qualify for a limited number of race slots, and the real race, which was a brutal 150 mile course through some pretty gnarly desert terrain.
Blue Team never made it past the NQE, which is why everyone's obsession with the motorbike makes no sense to those of us who actually made it to the real deal.
The Smithsonian's decision to memorialize Levandowski's engineering mediocrity is, to say the least, puzzling.