Hello F-SAE Community!

What a great year so far. A lot of great competitions, started in Detroit and will end in a few weeks in Australia. Great cars, great design features and fantastic teams.

We started the Competition in Germany with a theme "Create an event for the students!"
Now the first German Competition is done and we are working on the next one. We received a lot of feedback from the teams, participated in Germany this year. And we promise that we will work on the problems you point out. Fortunately it wasn't so much.

But we are also looking for new ideas for the competition. What are the student's needs? What is important for you? What could be easier done, for example during registration, transport/logistic support, entry fee, feedback, timetables and so on? Just write down what is important for you, because we made this competition for you!

You can also send me an Email roeske (at) formulastudent.de

this is probably off subject, but it'd be pretty cool if FS Germany can do a wheel to wheel racing, like ROC (that's ROC and not IROC for you stock car guys).

I think what RiNaZ is talking about is not exactly 'Wheel to wheel' racing, but what we see in WRC events where they have a two lap spectator stages with two cars on the course at the same time.
There are two parallel circuits with a crossover, the cars start side by side but on different courses. They do a lap and cross over, swapping courses and do another lap to the side by side finish lines.
At no time can the cars actually come in proximity to each other, but there is 'car to car' competition and it can be very exciting.
It sounds like a fabulous idea, but there are two huge problems I see.
One is real estate, that is the space and place to run such an event.
Two is time, unless a decision was made that only the fastest qualifiers ean in such an event.
An option might be to have two paralell R&T type courses, where the cars start side by side, race off and do their thing and return to the start and finish line. A problem here would be that one course would always be seen as 'better' than the other, but Drag racing gets over this by allowing the fastest qualifier to choose lanes.
Anyway, keep the suggestions coming.
Regards
Pat

sounds like you guys are talking about a pro solo. They also have a starting tree too.

quote:

RiNaZ is talking about is not exactly 'Wheel to wheel' racing, but what we see in WRC events where they have a two lap spectator stages with two cars on the course at the same time.
There are two parallel circuits with a crossover, the cars start side by side but on different courses. They do a lap and cross over, swapping courses and do another lap to the side by side finish lines.
At no time can the cars actually come in proximity to each other, but there is 'car to car' competition and it can be very exciting.
It sounds like a fabulous idea, but there are two huge problems I see.
One is real estate, that is the space and place to run such an event.
Two is time, unless a decision was made that only the fastest qualifiers ean in such an event.
An option might

yeah, pat got it right, it's not a 'wheel to wheel racing' but it's as close as you can get. For those who are not familiar with it ... check out a short video of it here ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT6RzZt0p4U

Rinaz, Suddenlee,

that idea sounds like the FSAE Italy pursuit competition or the SVSU Grand Prix style. But let me point out the main problem for this.

TIME

The time is the main limit the organizers have during a competition. It is nearly impossible to manage that in the 3-4 for days of the normal competition.

An extra day is expensiv, track rental, volunteers etc. Even if you have the space to manage a 2nd track you need more volunteers, a second time keeping system etc.

But i will wrote down this idea and maybe we will see such an event one day.

Frank

I would like to see a 0-60?-0 event as follows:

Accel from a standing start, or rolling start by putting a 180º skidpad-radius turn at the start (think "J").

Come to a complete stop in a 30 ft long box at the end of the run. Your ET would be determined by a timing gate at the beginning of the finish box (it would be too hard to measure the instant you actually come to a stop). If you over-run the finish box you get a 0.

This could be done with minimal course addition (use the accel course) and would be easy to get cars through quickly. It would challenge the combination of accel, brakes, and driver judgement. To be nice to inexperienced drivers there could be distance markers setup.

Ive seen something like that before, its called road and track.

Your solution does sound better however, as the guys at road and track clearly dont know when someone cheats their coarse.

I would like to a see a 0-60-0 or some kind of brake test...we have to design them and they have to work but there is no real competition where they are tested to see who's is best. suspension is testing in skidpad, the engine for acceleration...

Getting teams to hold a steady 60 mph and then braking at a certain point would be teadious and impossible to be fair to every team. Everyone will vary from the 60 mph speed and not give accurate results to a braking "test." Plus, I think the auto-x and endurance involve enough braking.

quote:

Originally posted by PatClarke:.

... but there are two huge problems I see.
One is real estate, that is the space and place to run such an event.
Two is time, unless a decision was made that only the fastest qualifiers ean in such an event.

Three IMHO is that I would consider a two-lane course which is divided by plastic cones as still very close to wheel-to-wheel racing and thus quite difficult to explain to the insurance company.

Maybe it could be done with a single-lane course and the cars are placed at the opposite sides just like pursuit in cycling.



Tim

Hi Again,
The Saginaw Valley event, run after FSAE East is run to a formula similar to the Pursuit event Tim mentioned. They call it an 'Australian Pursuit' (or something, I don't know what the 'Australian' bit is all about)
It is run over a set number of laps, and the fastest car wins, or if the fastest car is about to lap the slower one, then the race is flagged off with the faster car winning, regardless of how many laps are run.

But, as Frank pointed out, TIME is the enemy so it probably won't happen.

How about an event that doesn't involve driving? And one that doesnt involve the drivers and doesnt involve the race track?

I am thinking about a pitstop challenge where the car is pushed into the pits and the team (Maximum number of pitcrew, say 4??) have to change the driver and all the wheels using only hand tools. Then the car is pushed out of the pit box. Time in to time out is the winner.

A variation would be a two at a time elimination event where teams race against each other. This would make for an exciting spectator event as it would all happen right in front of them with no level of danger.

This would give the non driving team members a chance of glory, and the event could be run at any time, even at night. Cars that did not make it on track could compete as there is no driving or even engine running required.
Any thoughts?

Regards
Pat