Sandstorm, Carnegie Mellon University's robotic off-road racer, ran a gantlet of obstacles yesterday at California Speedway, becoming the first robot to complete its qualification run for Saturday's Grand Challenge race.

The heavily modified Humvee, operating without human guidance, moved smoothly, if loudly, through the 1.36-mile course, navigating over dirt mounds and rumble strips, through a gate in a wood and metal fence, through a gravel pit, and around large rocks and parked cars at about 10 mph.

As it approached the finish line, the vehicle's sensors detected a moving obstacle ahead.

"Sandstorm stopped on its own," said Alex Gutierrez, a recent Carnegie Mellon graduate and member of its Red Team -- just like it was supposed to do.

"It's fantastic," he said, shortly after Sandstorm's 9-minute, 20-second run. "We're definitely in the race."

Though officials at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, the race sponsor, say no team is officially qualified yet, yesterday's run did seem to assure the Red Team that Sandstorm will be on the starting line Saturday morning for the race, which has a $1 million prize.

The robotic vehicles will try to navigate about 200 miles across the Mojave Desert, from a starting line in Barstow, Calif., to the finish in Primm, Nev., in less than 10 hours.

Twenty teams, with vehicles ranging from a motorcycle to a six-wheel heavy-duty truck, are participating in the qualification event this week in Fontana, Calif. Five other teams invited to the competition did not show up.

Until Sandstorm's run yesterday, only one team, Team Caltech, had gotten as far as halfway through the obstacle course.

Many teams had difficulty making it off the starting line.

But Anthony Tether, DARPA director, emphasized that the initial difficulties of many teams is not a major concern.

"We are confident that the other teams will make the necessary adjustments to their vehicles," Tether said.

Just as their vehicles are a varied group, so are the teams themselves. Some, such as the Red Team, Caltech and Virginia Tech, are based at universities, some include industrial participants and others are simply high-tech enthusiasts, many of them operating out of their garages and basements. One team is from Palos Verdes High School in California.

Each team will get at least two official attempts to complete the course through tomorrow. The Red Team is scheduled for a second run tomorrow morning.

"We do not have to do it," Gutierrez said, "but I think we will."

Yu Kato, a Carnegie Mellon graduate student, said the obstacle course was good practice for the sorts of environments Sandstorm will encounter on race day. The 10 mph pace, however, was decidedly conservative.

"We can run much faster," he added.

It was during a faster test run Thursday near Carson City, Nev., that Sandstorm lost control and flipped on its back, crushing some of its components. The team worked through the weekend to repair the machine. Though in working order, team leader William "Red" Whittaker cautioned that the repair work necessarily took time away from other preparations and that the reliability of such a complex machine remains a concern.

The machine navigates using laser range finders, radar and stereoscopic video, as well as global positioning satellite coordinates.