Has anyone thought of maybe the teams organising their own event down under? Maybe take back control of the whole thing?

Personally I love the Romeo proving ground deal before. Aside from the really long(and uphill returning) push the car to the dynamic area, the place is big and can really make interesting courses, as well as a prestine running surface. The problem I guess was spectator access since they aren't allowed in the pad. But the proving ground rental has to be pretty darn expensive considering now I am working in the area and the cost of bringing a test vehicle there to use cost quite a bit of money. Occupying for half a week must have been costly. I think back in the day when the OEMs sees it as an investment for their future engineer it was probably easier to justify, and seeing how all 3 have testing facility for the event I thought it would've made sense to rotate between their facilities. But these days that seems increasingly less likely due to all the penny pinching going on. The racing track venues have the draw of the location, but most facilities are not really suited for this kind of event.

That's roughly $5400 USD entry fee. Good lord.

Bake sale?

Just this past week at Michigan our team was talking about this as well as the VIR event cancellation. A few of the older team members mentioned how nice it was back at the Silverdome in Detroit for that comp. with 24hr paddock and close hotels. I don't know much about FSAE Australia but at least in the US the Silverdome is just sitting there and the parking lot is unused. It would almost be cheaper for SAE to buy the lot and put up a few building for design and tech and just run from there every year.

Some thoughts I've had while reading this thread:
- Cut insurance costs by asking CAMS to subsidise everything.
- Allowing second-year cars without points penalty. This allows car development to occur within teams (valuable engineering skills) and cost cutting for teams and universities with a two-year high/low expenditure cycle.
- Like others have been saying, run the event in a vacant parking lot. Put up marquees for everything.

Another possible avenue to explore if the FSAE-A event becomes prohibitively expensive, is for the SAE-A to subsidise the freight and travel costs for teams to overseas competitions. It'll cost the same to them, and the Aussie industries still get their graduates.

There has been some progres made on this issue over the past month.

Several of the Victorian based team have met and discussed the situation and provided a range of alternatives and potential solutions to the SAE-A.

I will post up more info when it is confirmed.

I would like to thank the Monash team for coordinating the discussions with SAE.

quote:

Originally posted by Hudson:
There has been some progres made on this issue over the past month.

Several of the Victorian based team have met and discussed the situation and provided a range of alternatives and potential solutions to the SAE-A.

I will post up more info when it is confirmed.

I would like to thank the Monash team for coordinating the discussions with SAE.

I think most teams have now seen the newsletter from Marissa.

What are the thoughts on this all?

I personally think there needs to be a higher level of team communication from all Australian teams.

As most of the australian teams know, we have struggled with budget and results in the past. A 2 year build is ideal but if the price change is introduced during the final stages of purchasing, where does the money come from to cover the increase?
The event price increase would equate to the majority of our teams budget. A budget that was dispersed according to the old competition costs. We will most definetly struggle to raise the funds to enter this year as a result, which is disapointing for everyone involved.
A price increase such as this also places many FSAE teams into risk of being disolved by there universities.

Considerable cost reductions for teams could be achieved by creating a no-frills event where teams bring there own tents to work within.
Providing camping areas would also considerable reduce costs for interstate teams and I'm sure everyone agree's there is plenty of space available for this within victoria universities grounds.

So, now that the fees have been semi-confirmed at $5,000 AUS, how is everyone feeling?

They stated that is based on 20 teams attending, which is what, 3 down on 2008? I'm sure the organisers are trying hard, but unfortunately I don't see anywhere near 20 teams making it at that cost, and what kind of competition would it be with 10-15 cars? I'm really disappointed that the consortium has pulled its funding, it seems short sighted as it really does look like it could spell the end of the competition in the next year or two

It is a large increase and it is going to be difficult to absorb. We looked at our budgets today and some major items will not be purchased in order to fund the increased entry fee.

At a recent Victorian FSAE teams night there was some promising disucssion on efforts to share resources better between FSAE teams. I do see this as a valid option to reduce the costs at our end.


Cameron Hudson
The University of Melbourne

so, entry is up... who's going? $5000 is better then the earlier number, but still steep. I wonder how much this will effect entry from overseas competitors.

We will be attending again this year.

It seems that increasing costs are affecting other competitions as well. I feel that this could see a drop in teams attending other competitions other than their main one for the bigger budget teams, and smaller budget teams struggling to build a car at all after raising the funds for entry fee or possibly changing to a 2 year scheme.

Deakin is not entering a team this year mainly due to a lack of team members . Plans are in place for 2010 and we hope to be back bigger and stronger than ever

That's disappointing, I was always fond of the cars you've brought in the past, and you were good dudes in 2007, putting up with us fixing our broken car in/outside your workshop while you prepared for comp

Damn that's sad to hear Deakin, your sidewinders have always brought a flavour of originality to FSAE-A! Hopefully a two-year project can work out for your team and you can come back bigger and better in 2010.

ADFA have confirmed we'll be going. Just need to get a car together now...

As an aside, I (jokingly) mentioned to Marissa about the possibility of the team bringing a bunch of khaki tents with us. Unfortunately that won't be happening, but we will have an abundance of sandbags in case it rains

UOW will be there. And I'm sorry to here about that Deakin, good luck for next year. Are there any other uni's that will not be attending?

Marissa said that 26 teams have showed interest, which is two down on the amount that competed last year (27 registered I believe). So it could end up with 15 teams competing. I think it will still be a competitive competition, it's just disappointing that there will be less international teams than usual.

We won't come back this year. We had a great time in Australia last year, but it was incredible expensive for us.
If we'll go to an overseas competition (what isn't sure at the moment) with our 09-car we'll go to Michigan. It is much bigger and going to the US is much cheaper than Australia from Europe.
So good luck for your new cars. Hope to see some of you at a competition somewhere in the world next year.

We'll be there this year for sure. We've found the money to enter due to the generosity of some of our major sponsors.

Now that thats settled, lets finish this car and get it on the track. See you all in melbourne.

i just had an email from optimum g advertising for a vehicle dynamics seminar in melbourne...

"Vehicle Dynamics and Race Car Engineering Seminar

in Melbourne, Australia December 14th-16th after the FSAE Australia Competition

by Claude Rouelle, president of OptimumG"

expected to see Claude judging!