LTU might/should be able to make it down there with our 04 car for the racing.

Depending on how things go over the next month, we might end up with an old school formula SAE competition .

-Ken

UT Austin will be there with one, maybe two cars.

I was watching the news this morning, and it looks like we might need some pretty good rain tires when we come down there. But thats alright we did some rain testing the other day.

http://www.localriders.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=7139&size=big&papass=&sort=1


http://www.localriders.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=7138&size=big&papass=&sort=1

Our fourth annual Texas Autocross Weekend is rapidly approaching. It will be held on the weekend of 23-25 July. On Friday, it is shop tours, preparation, and a social at Dr. Woods’ house. On Saturday, it is racing on the UTA campus with the 98 FSAE endurance track in the morning and a more open SCCA track in the afternoon (after lunch BBQ). On Sunday, we will attend the SCCA Solo II regional autocross named the “Carroll Smith Memorial” in honor of Carroll who attended several Texas Region events. This should be the largest AM class in SCCA’s history.

We have heard from the following schools: UTA (9 cars, we have to match all of Ohio!), Texas A&M (2 cars?), UT Austin (2 cars?), Oklahoma U (2 cars?), Ohio State (3 cars), Akron (3 cars), Cincinnati (3 cars), Kansas (2 cars), New Mexico (3 cars?). Lawrence Tech, Wisconsin-Madison, and Arizona have said they are interested. Other regional schools are possible, but I haven’t heard from them. A team from Mexico plans to attend to watch. Brian Lewis from Performance Electronics plans to attend. Several of our sponsors and local SCCA autocrossers will attend. Yes, that could be 12 different universities with over 30 cars.

We need to start making final plans. I need to know (1) the names of everybody that will be here from your school (we will make name tags), (2) the names of all drivers for the Sunday Autocross and which car each will drive (we will pre-register you), (3) the car number on your cars (we have to select racing numbers for Sunday), (4) how many tee-shirts and what size you will want to buy (we will pre-order only the requested shirts, we got stuck with 50 shirts last year), and if you plan to attend the social on Friday night (I may have to buy a bigger house).

The motel directly across the street from the UTA track is Park Inn International (toll free 866 432 7275, and local 817 860 2323). They have offered us doubles (up to 4 per room) for $45 and singles (up to 2 per room) for $40. They have a continental breakfast are walking distance from the track and fast food. You should make your reservations early since they have about 30 rooms right now.

Please e-mail me at woods@mae.uta.edu with this information, the sooner the better. This is the last public announcement; I will start giving more details by e-mail only.

Dr. Bob Woods

On Saturday July 24, eight Formula SAE teams converged on the campus of the University of Texas at Arlington to practice driving, to compete with each other, and to share ideas of design and driving of these unique racecars that are designed and built from scratch by universities in a time period of one year. The universities represented were the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA), the University of Texas at Austin (UT), the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), Texas A & M University (TAMU), the University of New Mexico (UNM), the University of Oklahoma (OU), the University of Kansas (KU), and the University of Cincinnati (UC). UTA brought out 8 cars (2 more cars were left in the garage due to lack of drivers), UC brought 3 cars, and TAMU, UNM, and KU each brought 2 cars for a total of 20 cars and 53 drivers.

The morning session used a track from the Formula SAE endurance event that was representative of the specifications for the Formula SAE cars. In the afternoon, a second track was setup that was more open and faster representative of a Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) autocross course.

In the morning session, Jordan Mussler TAMU took the fastest time of the day (FTD) in the 04 car (no wings) with a time of 50.240 seconds around the 0.504 mile course with an average speed of 36.1 mph. In second place was Ken Hassler UTA with 51.535 in the 99 250 cc car reving to 20,000 rpm. Erick Kohler UTA placed third in the winged 04 car with a lap time of 50.128 plus a 2 second penalty for a cone he hit. Rounding out the top ten were Chris Vogt TAMU with 52.491, Ken Hassler UTA with a lap time of 50.703 plus a 2 second penalty for 1 cone, Carl King UNM with 52.726, Ryan Reineck TAMU with 53.305, Jon Huddleson UTA with 53.748 in the 04 car, James Lawrence UNM with 53.994, John Burford UTA with 54.491 in the 98 250 cc car, and Pavan Dendi UT with 54.631. Erick Kohler UTA set the fastest lap time of 50.079, but he hit 4 cones dropping him out of first place.

In the afternoon session the cars with wings got a better workout around the 0.555 mile course. Erick Kohler took FTD with a 48.749 in the 04 winged car with an average speed of 41.0 mph. The car recorded a turn at over 1.6 g’s on the asphalt parking lot. Ken Hassler UTA took second with 49.470 in the 99 250 cc car without wings. Rounding out the top ten were Jon Huddleson UTA with 50.007 in the 04 car, Chris Harrington TAMU with 50.159, John Burford UTA with 52.094 in the 99 car, Scott Schmidt KU with 52.250, B.J. Stoney UC with 53.424, Vincent Shepherd TAMU with 51.978 plus a 2 second penalty for 1 cone, Pavan Dendi UT with 54.434, and Jeff Stroh TAMU with 52.976 plus a 2 second penalty for 1 cone. Dr. Woods UTA would have placed in the top ten in the 1988 car but there was a timing error. Jane Willis who took first place at SCCA Nationals in FSAEL last year in UTA’s 03 car ran 51.768 in her first drive in the 04 UTA car.

On Sunday July 25, the FSAE cars gathered for the Texas Region SCCA regional autocross for the largest AM (or FSAE) class ever held. There were 15 cars and 41 drivers entered. SCCA named the event the “Carroll Smith Memorial Event” in honor of the legendary author and racecar engineer. Carroll was the design judge for FSAE and attended several Texas Region and Texas Autocross Weekend events. SCCA has prepared a traveling trophy to the team that takes FTD in FSAE in this annual event. This year UTA will hold the trophy.

Erick Kohler UTA took the top time of 36.007 driving the 04 car with wings. Jordan Musser TAMU took second with 36.365 in the 04 car without wings; wow what a spectacular display of driving of a car that had handling issues. Dr. Bob Woods UTA placed third with a 36.702 in the 03 winged car. The two UTA cars with wings recorded 1.7 and 1.8 g’s respectively on a high-speed sweeper on the concrete parking lot. In fourth place was Jeff Stroh TAMU with 37.244. Rounding out the top ten were Jon Huddleson UTA with 37.583 in the 04 car, Ken Hassler UTA with 37.721 in the screaming 250 cc 99 car reving to 20,000 rpm, Chris Herrington TAMU with 37.952, James Lawrence UNM with 38.665, Chris Vogt TAMU with a single run of 38.867, and Denver Stone UTA with 39.282. The full results for event 5 are posted on the autocross website http://autocross.com/texasregion/.

This was a weekend filled with socializing, exchanging of ideas, and true FSAE competing. I think everyone had a great time, we did.

-Dr. Bob Woods, faculty advisor UTA
Woods@mae.uta.edu
http://fsae.uta.edu