Wet Weather Tyres for Formula SAE !

[Sleeque]

Wow, I was just looking at the new SAE forum (mentioned in my other post) and I see a new rule regarding wet tyres. They are no longer going to stop the event if it rains, instead you will fit wet tyres and continue. This is how Formula Student has always been, and it works well after a fashion.
I am sure there will be some furious debate over this major short notice change in the rules.
Choice. 1. Sit on your asses and wait for the bitumen to dry, or..
2. Fit your wets and git goin' ?
I know what I would rather do, but I bet there are bulk arguments against.

Maybe this is the 'wet event' rule someone alluded to on this forum a few months ago.

Slan leat
Sleeque

[Sleeque]

Wow, I was just looking at the new SAE forum (mentioned in my other post) and I see a new rule regarding wet tyres. They are no longer going to stop the event if it rains, instead you will fit wet tyres and continue. This is how Formula Student has always been, and it works well after a fashion.
I am sure there will be some furious debate over this major short notice change in the rules.
Choice. 1. Sit on your asses and wait for the bitumen to dry, or..
2. Fit your wets and git goin' ?
I know what I would rather do, but I bet there are bulk arguments against.

Maybe this is the 'wet event' rule someone alluded to on this forum a few months ago.

Slan leat
Sleeque

[Sleeque]

I am amazed there has been no response from US team members to the news that next year FSAE will be run in the wet if it rains !
Surely this is of some interest and worthy of debate ?

Slan leat
Sleeque

[U of S Engine]

I don't know about the rest of the low budget - low member teams out there, but this is a real set back. Not only are we short of the cash to come up with another set of wheels and expensive tires, but also the seat time to practice in the rain. I know it's better than not at all, but it's getting to be a bit late to stuff $2000 into our budget for this stuff. Good luck guys

www.engr.usask.ca/~formula (http://www.engr.usask.ca/~formula)

[David Money]

I sincerely hope that it is understood that at either everybody needs to run in the wet, OR everybody needs to run dry, NOT a combination of the 2. Granted this just increased our budget by $2000 but as compared to last year where we built our whole car with one purpose in mind (to complete the endurance event) only to be rained out of it, it is by far the better of the 2 scenarios. One is kissing away $2000, the other is kissing away way more!

[Charlie]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Sleeque:
I am amazed there has been no response from US team members to the news that next year FSAE will be run in the wet if it rains !
Surely this is of some interest and worthy of debate ?

Slan leat
Sleeque<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm glad you posted it because I didn't know about the new rule change until you did.

But there isn't much to say or debate; Now we will have to have a spare set of wheels and tires, it costs more but it's better than what happened last year.

-Charlie Ping
Auburn University FSAE 1999-present

[ben]

I think we Brits were always surprised that this wasn't in the rules before.

When Formula Student was set up it was always "It's raining lets get the wets out". With the weather as it is over here we always assumed you'd need wets.

I accept that it increases budgets and the timing sucks - it SHOULD have been done before September at least, but as others have said, buying a set of wets is better than sacking off the endurance event.

Ben

[formula_geek]

Just a note for those teams who won't have the money to purchase additional wheels and tires for Formula SAE.

When we were competing at Formula Student this past July, a similar situation arose. We showed up at the event with one set of slicks and one set of wheels, having been promised that tires and mounting provisions would be available during the competition. It was raining on and off throughout the entire competition, and as our luck would have it, when we were slated to run in the endurance the track was completely wet. Since the Yokohama tire guy didn't stick around for the final day of competition, our two options were to run in the rain on our slicks or drive half an hour to the nearest tire shop to get rain tires swapped on. Needless to say, this made strategy decisions rather difficult.

Since we were promised by the track marshal that we could run on our slicks should the event be declared wet, we opted to stay on our dry tires and hope for the best. We ended up driving through standing water on slicks, not exactly the ideal situation. However, Georgia Tech did quite well on slicks, with their excellent traction control system and wet driver training keeping them going in a straight line (unlike us /infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

So to sum up, I feel that SAE needs to clearly identify if teams will be allowed to run on slick tires at the event. One option might be to have someone from Goodyear and Hoosier available to groove tires when the weather turns foul.

Travis Slagle
Kettering University FSAE

[ben]

Being on a year out last year, and unable to attend the competition, I have heard second hand about the disappearing yokohama tyre man.

I agree completely that this service, should (as promised) have been available throughout the competition. At least this would allow teams to only purchase wet tyres if absolutely needed.

Ben

[James Waltman]

Here in the Pacific Northwest I think we must have similar weather to those of you in England. It pretty much rains all through the winter. We had talked already about getting a set of tires for the wet just so we can test drive at all. It looks like we may have to do it now (if we can come up with some money I mean).

My problem is that it may not be right to have teams running on what must be different degrees of wetness throughout the day. If all the cars ran at the same time I wouldn't have a problem because they would all see the same conditions.

I know that F1 cars run in pretty wet conditions but they all run at the same time. You could be sure that if they ran at different times during the day and Michael Schumacher ran wet and was slower than some team later in the day that ran dry there would be a huge uproar. I can see it happening that way in Detroit as well.

The post on SAE's board says the rules are not even complete yet. It is a real shame that it has taken them so long to even get a preliminary draft of changes. This is a problem that was a big embarrassment to them last May and I think it should have been solved right away. Waiting until several months into the build cycle to change the rules is unacceptable.

I would like to see a rule that freezes rule changes sometime in early September.

James Waltman
waltmaj@cc.wwu.edu
Formula SAE
Vehicle Research Institute at
Western Washington University

[Sleeque]

I couldn't believe that such a major rule change was happening wothout debate, and I am glad I reposted it !

Slan Leat
Sleeque

[This message was edited by Admin on November 21, 2002 at 07:57 PM.]

[Dominic Venieri]

At the competition last year, Carroll Smith made mention that they were seriously considering a wet weather plan like Formula Student for this year. Based on that, we figured into our budget for a set of rains.

The rain tire rule poses a series of interesting questions.

1. Michael Royce in his post on the SAE forum says something to the effect that "it's ok to make a rules change halfway into things since this doesn't affect the design of the cars in any way." Last time I read Carroll Smith's books, it told me that suspension design starts from the tire, and goes in. We now have no idea what tire we will be using. Can we run both slicks and wets? Are they going to mandate a molded rain tread? Can we run cut slicks? Shaved treaded tires? Each of these tire options is going to have a different spring rate, and affect suspension design in some way, be it spring rates, anti roll bar calcs, etc. etc.

2. Cost report - which tires do we spec on the cost report? I know hoosier rains cost about $40 more per tire than the slicks do. Do we need to cost 2 sets of wheels and 2 sets of tires?

3. Weigh in - which tires (if we have a choice b/n slick and wet) do we weigh in with? Same goes for wheels.

4. Tire changing facilities - is Tom from Mid Atlantic Motorsport going to be there with a huge stock of rains, and be able to change and/or cut tires for everyone when it rains? I'm sure some teams would love to be able to hold off on spending for rain tires if they can.

5. Shaved tires - I know if we get a pair of molded rain tires, we will want to shave them. Those suckers are heavy.

6. Scoring - how will they equalize or handicap scores when there are wet and dry runs in an event? Not to mention just the differences in tires. One idea is to follow the SCCA Pro racing protocol. Call the event a dry event, teams have the choice of running slicks, or changing to wets if they desire (on road events they would come in and pit, and swap to wets). When they call it a wet event, everyone has to run wets, even if it doesnt rain. Doing this would at least even out the playing field as far as the loss of traction from a treaded tire. But it would also require every team to have wet tires on hand.

7. Wet weather testing - we have a real hard time with this one. 5 years ago, our campus autox club sponsored an event, but it was rained out. Our car and the car from Union college showed up. Everyone left, but the guys from Union stuck around for a bit, and some schmuck from our school (not on the team, just some random student) convinced them to hop in the car and take it out (in the rain, on slicks). 2 minutes later, he stuffs it under a metal barrier, head split open, and in a coma. Needless to say, Union's program was promptly ended, and ours came under close scrutiny for safety. The fact that our current test site is that same parking lot, I don't know how well the idea of wet weather testing there will go over. We are trying to find an airport to test at, but how many schools Risk Management offices are going to support moves like that?

That all came up at this week's team meeting. I'm sure a lot of people have thought the same things. There is also the cost factor involved, as so many teams out there scrape by to get a car built, and don't have the cash handy to drop it on a second set of wheels/tires. We're lucky to be one of those larger number/"big-budget" teams.

www.formularpi.com (http://www.formularpi.com)

[Chris Maher]

Racing in the wet is not better than racing at all. UCF got screwed out of all points in the endurance race last year because it was raining. With the new rule, even if you only had slicks, you could still put the car around the course and finish for some points.

Chris Maher
Secretary,
University of Central Florida,
Society of Automotive Engineers
info@ucfmotorsports.com
www.ucfmotorsports.com (http://www.ucfmotorsports.com)

[Chris Maher]

Whoops, that first statement didn't come out right.
Racing in the wet is better than not racing at all.
There, thats better.

Chris Maher
Secretary,
University of Central Florida,
Society of Automotive Engineers
info@ucfmotorsports.com
www.ucfmotorsports.com (http://www.ucfmotorsports.com)

[Charlie]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Chris Maher:
With the new rule, even if you only had slicks, you could still put the car around the course and finish for some points.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If I'm not mistaken the rule explicitly states if it rains, you run rain tires, if you don't have rain tires, you forfeit anyway.

They say thier specific definition of rain tires is forthcoming...

-Charlie Ping
Auburn University FSAE 1999-present

[Michael Jones]

...it depends what their definition of forthcoming is. There have been strong arguments made by many on the non-trivial nature of this rule change, both administratively and in terms of performance.

If it takes them a couple of months to work out the details - and I suspect it will, since their initial release sounds well-intentioned but still sketchy, logic would suggest this rule change be put in place for 2004 so that teams can digest its implications and plan accordingly.

As for 2003 - and 2002 - the simplest solution to ensuring everyone runs endurance in the dry is to allow the time for that to happen. The Road and Track thing really should've been bumped to allow the 50+ schools that didn't get a chance to run the honor of doing so. I'm sure the schools that did run in the Road and Track competition wouldn't have minded the wait much. Bumps the banquet too, but you can hold that as an informal event if need be. People don't spend nine months building a car to see other cars run and eat pizza.

[vinHonda]

Like Formula One and other forms of open wheeled racing like British F3, we SHOULD engineer our cars and be prepared to train our drivers in the wet.

On the argument that there will be 'dry' times and 'wet' times: I wish they would post the fastest lap at Formula Student this year. It was done in the wet by our car, beating out teams racing in the dry. And yes, we did indeed have to sit on the tarmac with half slicks and half rains on.... and decide on which tire to go w/ in the seconds before we raced. The rims don't matter. As long as there is the tyre support.

Good for FSAE for letting us run in the rain like real racers. Buy a set of rains, it costs $1000. Save the money by just wearing tshirts instead of fancy polos. And if it's lap times and driver training that you're going to complain about...... I say, build a proper fast car, and tell your driver to be cautious (we never did any wet weather testing)

It's all about what you build.

University of Toronto Formula SAE Racing Team
www.fsae.utoronto.ca (http://www.fsae.utoronto.ca)

[James Waltman]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> vinHonda
"Buy a set of rains, it costs $1000. Save the money by just wearing tshirts instead of fancy polos."�
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You guys must have a big team and a big budget. For us it is not so simple. We may have trouble coming up with the cash to buy t-shirts.


James Waltman
waltmaj@cc.wwu.edu
Formula SAE
Vehicle Research Institute at
Western Washington University

[vinHonda]

Which is another good thread!

How is everyone's budget??

University of Toronto's Formula SAE Racing Team Budget for the 2002 racing season including trip to the UK to compete in Formula Student was: $35,000 CDN. Which is approx $24,000 USD.

Our team is small, with only 14 team members.

University of Toronto Formula SAE Racing Team
www.fsae.utoronto.ca (http://www.fsae.utoronto.ca)

[David Lemire]

McGill Racing Team did well last year with peanuts...

Overall we never had more than 10000$ CDN, about 6250$ US...

Of course we got so free material and a lot of us spend of their own money...

I would like to know if some of Canadian Universities get money from their Engineering Department... last year we got 1000$ CDN...

David Lemire
Team Leader
McGill Racing Team

[vinHonda]

McGill,

Yes, indeed, the University donates approx $10,000 of the $35,000 budget. This is purely liquid cash. The project is deemed to be worth approximately $55K..... which is.... i dunno in USD.

I hope you guys will have a car ready for next year's University of Toronto Formula SAE SHOOTOUT!; we have sponsorship for it, and it looks like it will be held at Mosport!!! more details to come!

University of Toronto Formula SAE Racing Team
www.fsae.utoronto.ca (http://www.fsae.utoronto.ca)

[Richard Lewis]

Well UVic was promised $5000 from the engineering department in January of last year, and we haven't actually recieved it yet. However, we did spend it anyway, so now we have a debt that they are supposed to pay. I guess it all works out in the end.

FYI, our total budget was about $22,000 canadian last year. ($14,000US) but being our first year a good chunk of that money went to initial start up costs. (tools, tables, computer, etc.)

-------------------------
UVIC Formula SAE Team
http://members.shaw.ca/drax77/UVICFSAEcar.jpg
http://fsae.uvic.ca

[Sam Zimmerman]

The rules committee posted the new rules governing wet weather in November and promised clarification within a couple of weeks. I haven't seen where they have clarified it, has anybody else? I am curious if we will have enough time to change the tires ourselves or if we will need two sets of rims.

We have no returning members on our team, just a bunch of rookies, so any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Sam Zimmerman
University of Idaho
Vandals Racing

[Argus Tuft]

Sam and the Vandals...sounds like a good name for a band =]

In response to your enquiry re the new tyre rules, be just a little patient because an announcement is imminent.

There are no surprises, and common sense will prefail.

I hear there will be a 'dry' 'wet' and 'damp'
declaration. dry tyres in the 'dry', 'wet' tyres in the wet and either in the 'damp' with permission to change in the driver change area.

The specific details will be released shortly after the final draft has been vetted by all who need to.

Argus Tuft

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy !

[James Waltman]

Michael Jones gave the heads up about the current status on January 13th in the
» FSAE.com Forums » Competitions » Wet Weather Rules Announcement thread.

Basically there was a link to SAE. It looks like the details have not been worked out (and why rush, we have almost 5 whole months left) but we will be running in the wet.

http://www.sae.org/students/fsae-rain.doc

One of the changes under consideration for wet weather:
"Safety Barricades – Safety barriers will be installed to protect the key track marshal positions."

It seems to me that once they decide that the cars will have a hard time staying on the track putting up safety barriers may not be the best course of action (maybe we should stop running!).

Could someone let me know where the November announcement is? I think that it was on the listserve but I couldn't find it. I think that is where they assured us that our designs would not have to change so they were justified in changing the rules so late.

James Waltman
waltmaj@cc.wwu.edu
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/
Formula SAE
Vehicle Research Institute at
Western Washington University

[Michael Jones]

The original November release is in the SAE forums. Agreed with the safety barricades issue. Should be, well, interesting...

---
Cornell Racing
http://fsae.mae.cornell.edu

[matt giles]

I think the wet tire rule is excellent. It may be dissapointing if you can't afford rain tires, but no one ever said racing was an affordable thing to do. If SAE decides to regulate what tire you actually decide to use, that will be dissapointing though. You can drive in any weather with a slick if you go slow enough. Conditions change, and if it's to your disadvantage, thats too bad. It was too bad when most schools couldn't do the endurance last year. Racing is always part luck. Even on a dry day the track is different at the beginning than at the end. If everything was perfect and equal, we would all be in spec racers that someone else built. And it would be boring as hell.

-Thats my opinion

Matt Giles
Composites Team Leader
Kettering FSAE

[Angry Joe]

I can't say I'm sorry they allowed this, but funds are an issue with us. We'll probably treat it as an emergency contingency, which means the cheapest tires (and wheels, if necessary) that we can find.

We'll be the car running on 13" escort rims and snow tires at competition http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

Just kidding... I hope

Lehigh Formula SAE

www.lehigh.edu/~insae/formula (http://www.lehigh.edu/~insae/formula)

[Dominic Venieri]

teams could always just run on a hoosier rain tire the whole event. they're not so bad, as long as you design for them.

you could also go with your slicks, and have them cut. tom at mid atlantic motorsports (the hoosier guy who goes to Detroit) cuts tires.

www.formularpi.com (http://www.formularpi.com)

[Nigel Lavers]

The UofA has ~25g budget, but we've been trying to get out of debt for the last few years (was at -8g and we've reduced it to -2).

The Engineering department gives us a lot: ~$5000 along with resources like a team truck (from the 2000 Ethanol vehicle challenge), a brand new storage space, and technical support from the technicians in the shop.

We have a much further drive than the teams in the East, so our travel budget is about $11,000. If there was an Western FSAE competition we would be able to save a lot of money and time.

Nigel
FSAE
UofAlberta

[Dominic Venieri]

wow that is a hefty travel budget. it costs us about $3,000 US to get from Eastern NY to Detroit. That's for 16 people, arriving Tuesday and leaving Sunday.

www.formularpi.com (http://www.formularpi.com)

[Brent Howard]

I completly agree, the U of C only had a budget of 17 000 canadian last year for everything (including travel). We do have some things from the last few years, but not near enough. I would love to see a western FSAE, or move the location every year. It's quit e abit more difficult for western teams to compete when fully 1/2 their budget goes to travel. International teams have it even worse, but I don't think that this can be solved easily. I guess if a FSAE south America was introduced pretty much every continent would be represented(except for the japanese team)

Brent

www.ucalgary.ca/fsae (http://www.ucalgary.ca/fsae)

[matt giles]

Maybe competition will begin moving around if pontiac gets destroyed. I honestly don't know what is going to happen to the stadium, but the Lions play downtown in ford field now and I doubt they will be doing much to keep the parking lot decent. (or at least as good as it is now). I do like being 45 minutes away from it at kettering though.

[Michael Jones]

A question for the Detroit teams - do you arrange to use the Pontiac lot for testing? And when are they going to blow that sucker up?

A west coast competition would be fun, and at least would broaden the scope of competition for North American schools for those (including us) who can't scrape together the considerable funds required to jump across large oceans.

---
Cornell Racing
http://fsae.mae.cornell.edu

[ANDONI]

Our travelling budget is around 28.000 US.
About 10.0000 for airplanes of a team of 15. 4000 for the stay with at least 3 days before and 3 days after competition. Another 10.000 for the transport of our car, last year via FedEx. The rest for vans and the truck.

O course, that is our budget. Some of it is sponsored or partly sponsored. For this year, hopefully we will get the tickets and the car over there with the sponsorship of airlines. I mean, the plane goes to US anyways....with or without us. Why not give us a ride?? http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

As for the racing in the rain. I think it is awesome. If we had the car ready soon enought, we cut get more dry racing training then most of the teams. So that is no worry, cause the car won´t be done for a while. It just makes it more fun and fair for everyone..

Have fun....

Andoni Mazeika
www.formulasaeusb.com (http://www.formulasaeusb.com)

[Chris]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> We may have trouble coming up with the cash to buy t-shirts.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'll drink to that! Our budget primarily goes to replacing lost tape measures and refilling the argon tank. Sure would like some wet tires though...

------------------------------
If at first you don't succeed, put it in the bench vise and hammer the piss out of it.

[Michael Jones]

http://www.sae.org/students/fsae-rain.doc

The rules were updated last week, look pretty complete now. Announced without fanfare in the official SAE forums.

---
Cornell Racing
http://fsae.mae.cornell.edu

[James Waltman]

I think that the wet tire rules have a problem. Probably not intentional but a problem the way I read them.

If you show up to tech inspection with treaded tires and they are declared your "dry tires"� it looks to me like you can't run your "dry"� treaded tires if the conditions have been declared wet. This seems to rule out the option of using a treaded tire throughout the competition.

James Waltman
waltmaj@cc.wwu.edu
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/
Formula SAE
Vehicle Research Institute at
Western Washington University

[A Reinke]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Sleeque:
Choice. 1. Sit on your asses and wait for the bitumen to dry, or..
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

ha...they cancled the 02 event with our car 50% done in the endurance event, only to see the sun come out 15 minutes later. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_mad.gif