Congratulations to the crew from Toronto on an excellent effort. Well deserved I'm sure, and it couldn't happen to a nicer crew. Each year they show up with a slick team and a good, honest car that is well tested and reliable. That's all. How long is it going to take before their competitors truly wake up to this??

I won't bother buying into the boasting that is appearing elsewhere in this thread. What I will say is that during our short visit last year we met many teams capable of displaying outstanding sportsmanship and humility - a few names include Toronto, Delft, Loughborough (cheers Deano!), Brunel, Birmingham, and pretty well all the crazy Germans and Austrians. These and many others were capable of competing without unnecessary chest-beating, and certainly without their drivers feeling they needed to play one-upmanship with their competitors, whether it be in "good humour" or not.

We are in an enviable position where our universities and sponsors are paying for us to play race teams for a year, with the luxury of little retribution if we don't get it right. The majority of competitors are appreciative of this, and respectful of others who are willing to jump in and give it a go. Let's hope I've misunderstood the nuances of a few of the preceding posts and that some of us aren't getting a little too precious

Cheers all,

ETS is the first one up - some cockpit/pealbox photos, unpright/suspension photos, the engine/diff/backend, a couple on the track and several of their display board:

http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/mac65/misc/formula%20student/Photos/ETS/

Update:

All photos are now here:
http://web.mit.edu/cosic/www/FSAE-UK-2005/
The old link will work for a few months more then die - if you're using the photos update your links now.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: markocosic,

Well done to Toronto for their overall win, and to Hertfordshire for coming top UK position. We're absolutely over the moon with 8th overall, and 2nd UK team, and can't quite believe it!!!

We'd like to thank a number of other teams for helping us out over the weekend. Firstly, the German team who came to our rescue with a spare banjo bolt when we managed to shear ours off on the outlet from our fuel tank! Thanks guys - I can't remember the team name, but they were looking for a differential most of the weekend.

Also, thanks to Oxford Brooks, for lending us an engine expert to confirm some of our thoughts on the engine problems we had on Saturday. That saved us a great deal of time. Cheers.

Finally, I'd like to thank the rest of our team for just being absolutely brilliant fun over the course of the last year, and building a great car as well. Also, our Faculty Advisor, Karen, and the rest of the academic and technical staff who helped us out, especially Carl and Dave.

Thanks to all the teams at FS this year - especially the team from TU Graz for their entertaining singing at the campsite!!!!

Cheers

Alastair
Very Happy Team Leader
Cardiff Racing

i would firstly like to thank jim for those kind comments, we feel that we were hard done by in the design judging, as at the time all but one of our judges (the chief judge) loved our car and said so openly, when asked if we were proud of our car we replied deffinitely, the judge said that he thought that we should be very proud of it!

anyway, cant wait for the design breakdown to come through so we can see what we 'did wrong'!

i would also like to thank the drexel guys, as they thanked us after their enduro run, when actually i think that they helped us more than we helped them.

we did manage to recover the chain that came off our car and are as yet unsure at to why it snapped, we have never had any problems with it in the past, and that enduro was the first that chain had done, where in testing we used the same chain for 4 enduro runs back to back!

i would also like to say a very well done to the guys from the Queens uni Belfast, as that car looked on rails in enduro, had a chat to them in the pits after and they are genuinly nice guys, i wish them all the best in the future!

quote:

Originally posted by Denny Trimble:
Igor,
I can't figure out what these lexan guards over the shocks are for:


Can you enlighten me? Also, how do you like the Fox propedal shocks? Seems like they do all sorts of fancy things that aren't so good for racecars...

Denny, the Scruteneers want, that all teams covers their shocks, for that case, that a spring break and hurt the driver. (Only for Shocks in the front)

Like to keep up to speed with all the goss about Formula Student, so thought I better make a few comments about the UK prizes issue.

First, I apologise for the rather late inclusion of a UK specific electronics prize. As a general policy I have been trying to avoid such prizes, but that one sneaked in. Of course sponsors have the right to give whatever prize they want, within reason, but I am aware of the sensitivities and will continue to discourage such prizes in future.

On the subject of the "Best UK Class 1 Team" Prize, this has been in place for many years, without anyone objecting. It is sponsored by a UK organisation (i.e. it is not one of the IMechE/FS official prizes) and its monetary value is less than the Best European Team and Overall Winner Prizes. Given that Formula Student is held in the UK, was started by three UK universities, and has more teams from the UK than any other country, I do not feel that giving a prize to recognise the best of that large sub-set of teams is inappropriate. As to the jeering at the awards ceremony, I found it distasteful, offensive and insensitive. Given the events in London last week and the fact that the Union Flag was flying at half mast throughout the competition, those responsible should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

As has also been said in earlier postings, the UK teams were cheered when they got their prizes, so overall I think it best to put the episode down to the emotions (and heat!) of competition and put it behind us. If any of the teams involved wish to make a public apology via the FS web site, I am, of course, happy to publish something or indeed to pass on emails if asked.

Overall, I, my staff, all the judges, marshalls, officials, sponsors and other vounteers all had a thoroughly enjoyable event. The standards of engineering and presentations were truly impressive (as Ross Brawn himself observed). Brunty did us proud, and I'm looking forward already to FS2006! Many many thanks to all the students and faculty advisors and congratulations to all the teams, whichever country they came from!!!

This post is getting too long, so just a quick request that anyone that wants to comment on this year's event is welcome to email me (address is on the FS web site). Any feedback, positive or negative, all helps me to make the thing even better next year, which is, after all, what it's all about.

Brian Robinson
Formula Student Manager
Institution of Mechanical Engineers

P.S. Overall classifications for all Classes now on News page of FS web site...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Life of Brian,

just thought id join in on this. it was my first competition and i had a great time, even though our engine only ran for the endurance, of which we completed 6 laps before a body panel came loose and we were pulled. one of the other teams told us we were getting 57s after 3 laps having never driven the car properly before and running on a hybrid carbs system. we'd been sleeping for 3 hours a night for months before the comp trying to get the engine sorted, only once at the comp we realised why our injection wasnt working. it turned out our machinists made our toothed crank wheel from stainless steel instead of mild steel (thought they were being helpful by making it stronger), hence no magnetism and a crap signal. im really proud of our team for never giving up and getting the car on track for the enduro, even if we didnt finish. afterwords we realised we probably wouldnt have finished anyway, 6 laps - 2l of fuel, we'd have emptied our 10l tank! blue smoke all the way and a throttle that was either on or off.

Think we had the best tilt test failure as well, our filler neck worked loose on the petrol tank and came off just as we were titled, think we poured out something like 4litres of fuel good laugh!

I want to send out a warm welcome to all the teams who helped us, there were so many, namely Coventry, bath, sunderland, huddersfield, and many others. the toronto guys desereved to win, they were really friendly and i had a good discussion with them. as to oxford brookes, the comments so far havent been wrong. after 2 hours of sleep we were up at 4 working on our car outside the halls where we were staying and when they wandered past about 7ish the comment "the competitions that way lads" almost got them a smack in the face. then later when we were tidying up after ourselves "is that your new chassis?" pointing at the wheely bin we were using. if i wasnt rushing like a mad man, i would have nailed that wanker. i really hope he isnt representative of the rest of the team.

overall i had a great time, i dont think anyone worked on their car as much as we did at the comp! (my apologies if we seemed too busy to talk) we're gonna be giving everyone a run for their money next year

Cheers

Michael
University of Strathclyde Motorsport
The only Scottish team at the event

as to the jeering of british prizes, it sounded distinctly like it was coming from the 60 odd tug racing team, but i cant be sure.

Just to say hi to everyone at the event. I want to thank the organisers and those that gave up their free time for us guys to prove ourselves on the world stage. We owe you alot and I'll be doing my bit when I wouldn't feel like I'd be imparcial to some teams, or have more experience to critisise.

Following Jim's comments Birmingham were a stunning team, very helpful with an awesome car. Most of the teams were helpful and I'm glad I could help out a few teams that needed it. The standard of UK cars/teams is going up very quickly. As for a team that has been mentioned a few times for less than responsible sportsmanship, all I can say is that some of those guys are genuinely nice people and are probably in shame at the actions of just a few.

I feel honoured to compete with the fantastic cars on show. The need to finish a car early and test it proved itself once again. That would be my tip for any new teams. Ditch the girlfriends, ditch the job, and forget about having a life.

John Goddard
Engine Guy [+ more]
Second driver out on the endurance :-P
UH Racing Class 1 [Car 20]

I'm not from brookes, but i was walking by when i over heard the wheelie bin comment. You say you were using the wheelie bin at the time, tho to me it looked as though you were racing it down the drive and the people pushing it seemed to find the funny side of it. It appears that some people are jumping onto a 'we hate brookes' band waggon. I had a few dealings with the team over the weekend and found them to be a good bunch of people. Their achievments over the last few years should be commended. It does seem however that they have fallen into the same boat as ferrari, people are jelous of their success's and so choose to slag them off.

I apologise for any annoyance I may have caused with my comments during the competition. I understand how you feel and would like to assure you that the comments made were not designed to degrade you efforts in the competition, merely banter that has been misconstrued and that obviously was untimely. Congratulations on your awards and I hope you will be competing for many years to come.
On another note I would like to address the issue of “cockiness” I believe that the actions of the Oxford Brookes team during the 2005 competition were entirely justified. If we wish to close our pit we can do so, you don’t see professional racing outfits allowing their pit to be used as a thoroughfare and why should we.
People that were interested in viewing the car introduced themselves to the team and were given a guided tour.
I believe that a certain writer on this forum decided after our DNF to jump our barrier and proceed to take close ups of car, at which point he was asked to leave as the team were in no fit state to be hassled by outsiders. I believe this maybe the root of some of the animosity towards the OBU 2005 team.

Again may I apologies and wish you all the best,

Many Thanks

Joe Hartog

fairs fair, i think the issue should be laid to rest, we may have taken it the wrong way due to our complete lack of sleep and elevated stress levels. i was awake for 25hours straight before driving the 6 hours to the comp. their achievements deserve respect, though no one in this competition should feel the need to be jealous. Im always thinking how can we better this or that for less money rather than i wish we had that much money to spend. best case being carbon fibre monocoques, whereas results show steel spaceframes are just as competitive. we were exstatic to finish 3rd in costing, and the approach we choose has enabled to do this. i just wish we'd had the time to read about how spark plugs are made!

I agree with Psychosis, lets put this to bed about Oxford Brooks. I received an MSN from a team member from Oxford Brooks this morning apologising for there actions and stating that they meant nothing by it all, we continued to have a half hour chat about our weekends and formula student in general. To be honest that’s what i wanted to do from the start, the guy was a top bloke and i hope to talk with him again. To be honest if we had done a 3.8 second acceleration run in testing we would have been cocky. I also think you are all making a mountain out of a mole hill about corning off their pits, we all must have been delayed over the weekend with people in the way when you were working on the car and all the professionals do that. I just wish we had thought that far ahead too, we could also have done with Loughborough’s laminate flooring which i thought was a great idea but would take a long time to setup and dismantle.

Some info for Birmingham on their chain, i talked to our team about their failure on Sunday night and one of our team worked for Force Hill climb cars last year on placement. He said that in hill climbs a new chain often breaks for no reason but after you replace the broken link it will be fine till the end of it's like. A valuable lesson to be learnt by all teams.

So let’s get on with more stories about teams weekends, pics and congratulations.

Also did anyone get any pics of cars on two wheels, i just missed the Ryerson one by a few seconds.

James Waters
Chassis Designer, Suspension, Packaging and Race Engineer
University of Hertforshire Car 20

Well done Herts

You do realise if your car got the same time as our old car (class 200) you would of came second overall!

Cheers for re minding us that Simon, if we had we may not finished the enduro like the Class 200 Herts car and then we would have been below 15th and not won Best Brit.

James Waters
Chassis Designer, Suspension, Packaging and Race Engineer
University of Hertforshire Car 20

What happened in the autocross then?

Nice result anyway, not putting it down at all.

In response to Brian's message, I'd like to congratulate him and his team for the excellent organisation at the event. Your willingness to listen and discuss ideas with the teams is commendable and simply posting messages here shows how much things have improved in the last couple of years. Keep up the good work!

I appreciate your comments regarding the UK prizes in relation to the high proportion of UK teams involved, but still, it's hard to appreciate how it might be consistent and fair. At the rate things are going surely there will be large numbers of teams from specific countries entering, so will there be national prizes for them once the number of entries reaches a certain level? I guess this would be impractical eventually…

I hope I don't appear to be sticking my nose in where it's not wanted, but I couldn't help feel some sympathy for the UK teams having to collect their awards under such circumstances regardless of whether the jeering was fair or not. After all, entitlement to bragging rights for the year is surely reward enough for the leading team from each country

Congratulations to Herts for their performance - I clearly remember visiting them a few years ago when we were looking to start FS - they were extremely helpful and gave us the full tour of their facilities in the true FS spirit. Now we are up and running (well some of the time!) it's worth pointing out that we're more than happy to welcome other teams that wish to visit us, so if you're in this neck of the woods give us a shout…

In response to Geoff's comments - I'm highly disappointed that you lot weren't able to make it to the UK this year. However, on the positive side it did mean we were one place better off in the overall standings! Hope you're making a better job of the PhD/FS combo than I did

Thanks James for comments re: laminate flooring. It was a bit of a last minute decision - we managed to put it together pretty quickly - i.e. Wednesday night/Thursday morning. At least now we have careers in the cheapo home improvement market should the engineering work dry up…

Cheers,
Dean
LU Motorsport 2001-2005

Great job by Brian and the team again.

My view on the Best British Team award is that it's an embarressment. The Australian event started after us and Aus teams have won all three events.

My views on why British teams haven't won would require an entire thread on the state of UK unis but suffice it to say that I find a UK only award an insult to the multicultural nature of the competition.

Ben

quote:

Originally posted by ben:
...suffice it to say that I find a UK only award an insult to the multicultural nature of the competition.

Agreed.

If you'll excuse me playing devil's advocate with my choice of examples, I think its about as appropriate as "best all-white team", "best all-male team" or "best all-christian team"!

There is *massive* resentment amongst the student community about such discriminatory awards, and the backlash against them is already starting to gather pace.

IMO its a credit to the non-UK competitors that they've remained this quiet this long, and that they still cheered the winners of the prize/only jeered at its existence.

Assuming our conscience were to allow it, our university anti-discrimination policy would not allow us to collect such a prize even if we were to win it...

I did feel the jeering was wholy inappropriate. as already mentioned from a sponsors point of view thats what they want, they need the income from british universities, their target market i.e. RS components who recently lost a number of university contracts. But it is insulting to the british teams that we need our own prizes because someone feels we cant compete on an international scale. as already mentioned, british universities are generally underfacilitated. i know for a fact our university seems to think that because you can do FEA on it, you dont need to manufacture it! resulting in them throwing money at PCs, but we dont even have a CNC machine! HSE is such that we're not even allowed to use a pillar drill, let alone lathes or mills. we are fortunate in that we are allowed to weld hence thats why most of our parts are welded from steel plate/tubing. how does everyone else get on?

I have to say that this was our first time at Formula Student and I was disgusted with the track officials. Many times there were cars stopped on track and no flags were in sight. This caused a danger for everyone involved. This lets me and the members of my team appreciate how strict the marshals are in Detroit because at least it is safe.

As for the UK team awards. I agree with ben on this issue. The FSAE event in Detroit was started in Texas, and if there were a best Texan team award at this event there would be a HUGE uproar from all those involved in the event. And if you are going to give awards for best UK and European team where then are the awards for best North American, Australian, South American and Russian team, after all these teams have paid thousands from their OWN POCKETS to attend this event and help make the event as exciting as it was. After all, the fastest lap times in the endurance were from Canadian teams (Waterloo, Ryerson and Ecole Polytechnic) and since this event is all about winning (words from Mr. Robinson himself after the awards ceremony when approached by one of my team mater) this should be recognized.

All in al I would just like to say that I would not recommend going to the event if coming from North America. It is too costly an event to go to and be discriminated against by the event staff at Formula Student.

Sincerely,

Adam