"Official Results"

[Fergus Wilson]

Dear All,

The top six placings were:

Wollongong
RMIT
Western Australia
Queensland
RIT
Auckland

At least that's how I remember it!!!

It was pretty close right till the end, with Wollongong about 20 points ahead of 2nd, with 2nd and 3rd about ONE point apart.

Official results will be posted on www.sae-a.com.au (http://www.sae-a.com.au) in the next couple of days, as will pictures of the event.

Fergus Wilson
FSAE-A 2004 Scoring Advisor/Official Photographer/UOW Alumni

PS: Other things you might have missed:
UOW hitting the wall on the practice track on Friday
Adelaide winning design
UWA's Kinematic suspension
Ticuna/RIT's "altercation" in the enduro
Wollongong beating RMIT by 0.01sec in Autocross
Adelaide winning the "Bling Bling" Award
ADFA's car with the "bullet holes"
Newcastle winning the "practice track award"
Deakin's single cylinder sidewinder
A lot of drinking at the after-party!!!

[Denny Trimble]

Congratulations to all the teams! I expect everybody will be sleeping for the next week or so.

If anybody has photos they'd like posted on the web, feel free to email them to me: dennyt at u.washington.edu

I can't wait to see pictures and read more about the cars!

[BryanH]

Point gap 1st to 3rd was actually 10 points!
RMIT had it in the bag until the engine was slow to start and then stalled after the driver change and on the way to the out gate and lost several laps before it restarted.
Slow cranking was the culprit, possibly my fault or dead cell in battery.
Winning twice in one year is not meant to be easy.....
RO4 was easily the fastest car on the track with Mark making up a half lap,passing W,gong and putting another 20sec into them before the driver change. The car likes to be driven very straight, looks exactly like an F3 car in on track behaviour. can be pushed very hard without getting ragged, eating cones etc.
Interesting to note that when both cars were close together W,gong turbo car had more initial low speed accel. but RO4 had more top end accel. Maybe aero drag is more significant in these low torque cars than we thought. (it was a fairly fast track)
Both cars are on laptimes a step up from the rest, but W,gongs car cooks it's rear tyres, big time in the 2nd enduro which resulted in serious cone eating and entertainment for the crowd! Maybe won't be a problem in sunny Detroit. btw RMIT used 2.54 litres to Gong 4.7L
RMIT 67bhp/180kg Gong 90bhp/219kg
With another 5 months development on these cars Detroit will be interesting........

[Charlie]

Wow, congrats to UOW for another victory, and also to RMIT for what I'd consider a much more impressive accomplishment for thier single than even the FS win.

Very interested to see these cars perform in Detroit, hope I can be there.

[V2 - Italy]

Congratulations to the winner and to all the teams.

I'd like to know the endurance track lenght, the average speed, and the best lap time of the main teams,
waiting for the official results.

Daniele

Visit the RACE OF CHAMPIONS home page, really a beautiful event at the Paris Stadium...
http://www.waypoint.be/rocevent2004/

[Eddie Martin]

It was an amazing competition, the best run and organised sae event Australia has had. The venue was great, full credit to everybody at sae-a and the consortium.

I think from memory the final points were Wollongong 853, RMIT 836 and UWA 834. This is just from memory and they may be a bit wrong.

The Wollongong boys did have a crash in the practice track on thursday that damaged the crush zone and nose cone but it was fixed reasonably quickly, didn't look very pretty though. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif Even though i'm a bit biased the uow car was consistently the fastest during the enduro's. Obviously the car/team won't be going to the states in May but the 2nd, 3rd and 4th placed cars will be.

Rmit had a great little car, deserved to be higher than 6th in design. The design judges had a lot of "discussion" about the final results of the design event. Hester and all the guys did an amazing job, they are going to be a force in America next May.

UWA had many innovations with a new "kinetics" suspension system and variable length intake runners, very impressive car. They had a problem restarting at the driver change in the 1st enduro but came back strong in the sceond enduro. With the experience from the usa 04 comp under their belts they should do very well at the usa 05 comp.

Deakin had a 160kg sidewinder with a ktm single cylinder engine, they had some problems though the weekend and I don't think they made it out on track. Adelaide won design but from memory didn't complete the enduro. Monash had problems with their carbon tub and couldn't compete. Jarrod and all the guys put in a huge effort. The guys from Auckland had a great first year car that was competitive all weekend.

The autocross turned into a shoot out between RMIT and Wollongong, with Wollonong just coming out on top. Both cars were in the 39 second bracket, with the next best team in the 42 second bracket i think.

The first enduro was full of drama. Many cars spun on the crest of the hill in the track. The anu car hit the rit car, damaging both. It was a shame that such heavy contact occurred at an sae event but luckily both drivers were unhurt. The qut car spun and hit a barrier at a marshal's station after the driver misinterpreted the course and was a bit too aggressive at the controls. Again luckily nobody was hurt. Both times the track safety procedures worked well.

The final enduro was spectacular. Rmit chased down the gong in the first stint, with both cars setting some very impressive lap times. When rmit went to their number two driver and wollongong changed to their number one driver the tables turned with dangerous dave from wollongong passing rmit twice. Dave did get very tired about half way through his stint so couldn't push as hard. UWA were held up as lots of cones were being hit all over the course. Kev Hayward from wa struggled to get a clean run because of this. I couldn't believe how many cones were hit by the drivers out there, the marshals were kept running all day to replace cones.

Hopefully some more international teams head down to Australia next year and the Australian cars go well overseas.

Eddie Martin
UOW Racing Alumni 01 - 04 / FSAE-A Volunteer – Track Marshal.

[madman]

Thanks for the replies guys. Those of us a long way from home and not able to make it appreciate the detailed info. Makes us wish we were studying again. Maybe I'll do a Kev and become a permanent FSAE student. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Anyone got some piccies from the event posted?

Thanks,
Brian

PS. Eddie - good write up. UOW not going to the states?

[IsheeM]

Could someone elaborate on UWA's "kinetics" suspension system?

Thanks,

[Chris Clarke]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> The anu car hit the rit car, damaging both. It was a shame that such heavy contact occurred at an sae event but luckily both drivers were unhurt. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Can any elaborate on this. Why did it happen? What specific damage did each car incur? What was the marshals response to this?? i.e. were there any changes for the second endurance?

Does anybody know if this is the first collision between two FSAE cars?

Chris

[Mark Bacchetti]

Pictures?!?!?! http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[Dave Riley]

Well done to all the teams.

Apparently the crash between ANU and RIT was due to the ANU driver getting a bit impatient and trying to overtake before the overtaking zone. The cars tangled up and RIT ended up with a front wheel on the back of the ANU car. RIT was able to repair for the 2nd run but the ANU car couldn't.

Sorry if I've got this wrong, I wasn't there, but that is just an unbelievable thing for a driver to do...

The UWA kinetics system, and I'm no expert at all, uses a system of hydraulics to make the car unbelievably stiff in roll but to keep it nice and soft in bounce. It is similar to the system used on the Citroen WRC car which won the championship 2 years in a row, and on the Pajeros which won the Dakar last year (?). It has been developed by a local company, called Kinetics, who have sponsored the team for two years now, and adapted for the UWA car by some very clever students - uses custom dampers, hydraulic accumulators, etc, all built in-house. Apparently you can grab the car by the roll hoop and not be able to move it from side to side, but can lift an individual wheel off the ground. With obvious implications for tuning and dynamic performance.

Again, sorry if I've got that wrong... I work in the mining industry now and it has drained my brain.

Get ready for another Aussie invasion in May!

Dave
ex UWA Motorsport

[Nick Winzer]

Almost right Dave http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Yes that's right I'm still tuning in even though I'm on the other side of the country. Good to hear my old team is doing so well. Well done fellas!

The Kinetic (no plural) system uses interconnected hydraulic cylinders at each wheel to achieve passive mode decoupling for both transient and steady-state motions (see www.kinetic.au.com (http://www.kinetic.au.com) for a better explanation). Glad to hear that Nando got it working in such a short space of time - well done mate!

Nick Winzer
2002 UWA suspension designer, former Kinetic employee and now PhD student at UQ

[vinHonda]

Congrats to Wollongong, and esp to RMIT!!!! Those guys were a great battle in FStud 04, but they seem to have their stuff together to put another win in there.

Big Bird or Mark (karting wizard, as we know him in Toronto) I"d like to hear your thoughts on the track and how much faster your R04 is compared to the car you brought to FStudent.

I'd really like to see you guys take on the USA. You guys are a small but SKILLED team, with a really good driver. I'll be there as a judge.

Please send pics to vinhonda@yahoo.com

Cheers,

Vinh
Toronto FSAE
2003, 2004 Team Captain

[Nick McNaughton]

What a week...

The UWAM team is absolutely ecstatic about the result, this has been our best competition yet. Congratulations to RMIT and the Wollygongs, we'll get you next year. With first to third place within 10 points, the comp was nearly decided by a couple of cones in the enduro.

I think FSAE-A had three winners this year, us Aussies just need to get it together for Detroit and knock off the likes of UTA and Cornell.

[Eddie Martin]

The results have been posted at http://www.sae-a.com.au/fsae/index.htm

Dave is correct about the anu/rit incident. On the back section of the course there was a slalom section that went straight into a passing lane. The anu car was behind rit in the slalom when the blue flag was put out. The marshal's station was about 40m before the passing place. Rit saw the flag and was finishing the slalom before entering the passing lane to let anu by. As soon as the anu driver saw the blue flag he tried to pass rit by missing the last section of the slalom. The right rear of the anu car was ripped off and the front left of rit was damaged. I was at the next marshal's station along the course and had a very good view of the incident. As soon as the incident happened we red flagged the race and a recovery vehicle came to clean up the mess. During the second endurance more cones were placed to mark out the slalom.

Got to agree with nick there were three winners this year, such a close competition. I don't think anybody knew who the winner was until the awards ceremony. 17.4 points between 1st and 3rd must be a record. UOW won't be going overseas next year doing so many overseas competitions takes a lot of time, effort and of course cash. The team needs to spend 12 months on a car and not 6 like over the last couple of years.

[FFDave]

Congratulations to all the teams,

What an awesome event. We had such an amazing time in sunny Australia and learnt a hell of a lot about making Formula Sae cars go fast!. On behalf of the Uni of Aucklands FSAE team, id like to thank all the teams and the organisers for their incredible hospitality. Especially RMIT for giving us space to work on the car and test it. Also to Deakin for helping us with workshop space and Wollongong for their help at the event. Also congrats to adelaide on the bling bling award, you were luck we didnt bring over the 13" chrome spinner hubcaps!. look out next year!. We had a great time, made good friends and cant wait for next year. Thankyou all

Dave
Uni of Auckland

boat race champs

[ben]

Hi Guys,

Awesome comp, having done all three this year I can say without a doubt that FSAE-A is the most friendly of the three and probably the best venue - excessive dust on the skid-pad notwithstanding.

Watching UWA, 'Gong, and RMIT all on track in the Enduro was my highlight of the year. The Aus teams are less conservative than the US teams and better at putting together reliable cars than us Brits, this makes the event really exciting from an engineering perspective.

Hard luck to Monash who were robbed on the Bling award, and I think our Bob may want to argue on the boat race winners laurels :-)

Ben

[broberts]

"Apparently the crash between ANU and RIT was due to the ANU driver getting a bit impatient and trying to overtake before the overtaking zone. The cars tangled up and RIT ended up with a front wheel on the back of the ANU car. RIT was able to repair for the 2nd run but the ANU car couldn't.

Sorry if I've got this wrong, I wasn't there, but that is just an unbelievable thing for a driver to do..."

I absolutely must correct this so as to somewhat prevent the tarnishing of TICUNA's image in this competition.

First of all, it is not fair on the driver nor the team for people who were not witnesses to the event to be making comments such as the ones above.

Our driver was cruising around quite casually for his entire endurance run. Anyone who had been watching him for any period of time could tell you that he was neither being aggressive or impatient. He very rapidly caught up to the RIT car, however, and soon afterwards the event occurred.

The incident was not a case of trying to jump the gun, but a case of confusion due to the questionable cone layout on the slalom. With dave quite close to the RIT car, the marshall flagged RIT to enter the passing lane. Immediately afterwards, the RIT car moved right into the last slalom, but unfortunately our driver thought it was the passing lane and sped off.

In my personal opinion - and the opinion of many people - had the cones been set up initially the way they were set up post-incident, this would not have occurred. Should our driver have been so close? This is also debateable, as he had been quite close for a number of passing lanes before finally seeing the blue flag. If he had not have been so close, the blue flag may not have been shown at all. It should be clear, however, that there was no malice or impatience in his actions.

Finally, we did get back on the track for the second enduro. The hard work and team effort that was displayed for the 4 hours after the incident truly embodied the spirit of the competition. Not just shown by our team, but by the efforts of Swinburne and Wollongong in their assistance. It didn't seem to matter, as the rest of the competition decided to take the comp photo before we were finished, and before the endurance event was scheduled to be completed.

I hope this clears things up, cheers,

Bevan Roberts
TICUNA Motorsports

[Dave Riley]

Bevan,

"First of all, it is not fair on the driver nor the team for people who were not witnesses to the event to be making comments such as the ones above."

I was merely repeating pretty much verbatim what someone who was there told me on the phone, and I did make it clear that I wasn't at the comp. I had no reason to expect that the info I'd been given was wrong. Just trying to fill the information vacuum http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

However I apologise if anyone misconstrued what I said as fact and to TICUNA if they feel I've been unfair. I can understand a driver being confused at the track layout, having been there and done that myself... that's what you walk the track for, although I know that when you're out there things are a bit different. The fact that more cones went out for the second run would seem to justify what you say.

[Big Bird]

Assorted notes from a blathering and still rather fatigued old codger. Still recovering from Sunday night....

What a great event. It was such a pleasure to be involved in a competition that was so hard-fought and yet so friendly. I spent far too much time over the weekend talking to our supposed "rivals" at UWA, UoW, UQ etc etc, and never once came across any of that crappy one-upmanship that I've seen in some other forms of motorsport. Cheers to all for remembering the real purpose of this comp - to learn about engineering, and to get to know a few "like minds".

Congrats to UoW for their great win, well done. We didn't think you'd do it especially after the Friday incident. Dangerously Underweight Dave, well driven in the Autocross and Enduro mate - you'll have to come down to Melbourne next year for a holiday and we'll start loading a bit of pizza and cheesecake into you.

Also congrats to the UWA lads, great car and a bank of knowledge within the team that we can only be envious of. Kev and I were chatting on Friday about how close we thought the comp was going to be, and the 1 point margin between us pretty well proved that. A bit too close for my liking!

UQ were the quiet achievers, silently slipping into fourth overall with a minimum of fuss. Nice car, pro team - another quality effort.

I was going to give a few of my personal "merit awards" at the afterparty, but was worded up by Stuart Charity not to talk too long. So for me the standout performances:
*Uni of Auckland - what a great effort for a first attempt. It will be scary to think what you lads are capable of in future comps.
*Uni of Adelaide - A huge ramp up from previous efforts, and deserving of better final results than you got. Congrats to Paul, Gug and the crew.
*Deakin - what a great little car and another massive turnaround. It was a real shame that the car didn't make it on track, but hopefully we'll be competing against you lads at FStudent in July. Pending finances.....
*Ballarat - worked their borlottis off all weekend, never gave in. You impressed a lot of people with your tenacity. Ben, Sean and the crew, well done and here's hoping we'll see you on track in the near future.
*ADFA - first attempt, completed everything, great effort. Entertained us all with some interesting interpretations of where the track went. Camouflage paint scheme didn't show up the dirt when they got sick of driving on asphalt http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif
*Monash - the tough luck award. A huge effort to pull so much together with such a small team (and given the interruption of FStudent, as we are well aware). A real shame it didn't make it on track. Next time....
*All the track marshalls - it got pretty damn roasty out there in the sun, and I don't think those lads (and lasses) got the credit they deserved. I don't know how many of them would read these forums, but cheers if you are.

Finally, hearty congrats to Rotor, Pat, Dan, Grant, Deano, Kim and the rest of the RMIT crew for a bloody good effort. I won't be taking credit for the result as personally I haven't been too involved since we got back from FStudent - a combination of of exhaustion and a uni timetable that kept me a good hours drive away from the team. Given the resources we sucked away to get to the UK, it has been an outstanding effort for the 04 team to get a car together so quickly. Especially a first carbon tub. I did about five laps in the new car around the uni and it is a damn dream of a thing to drive - puts the old plugger to shame. I can't wait until the US next May. Oh, and thanks for having faith in the little single thing - it deserves a few iterations and it is damn nice seeing this years car and next following the same route.

I've nearly typed my fingers down to stumps now, so I'll sign off and give someone else a go. Cheers all (if anyone has read this far!!)

[broberts]

"I was merely repeating pretty much verbatim what someone who was there told me on the phone, and I did make it clear that I wasn't at the comp. I had no reason to expect that the info I'd been given was wrong. Just trying to fill the information vacuum Smile

However I apologise if anyone misconstrued what I said as fact and to TICUNA if they feel I've been unfair. I can understand a driver being confused at the track layout, having been there and done that myself... that's what you walk the track for, although I know that when you're out there things are a bit different. The fact that more cones went out for the second run would seem to justify what you say. "

That's fine mate. I just wanted to ensure that any opinions made were based on first-hand accounts, whichever way those opinions ended up slanting.

Cheers again,

Bevan Roberts

[RacingManiac]

So how many of these Aussie rockets we can expect to see at Michigan this year?

[Big Bird]

From memory there will be ourselves, Uni of Western Australia and Uni of Queensland. We're all really charged up about the idea, it should be a lot of fun.

Cheers,

[jonno]

congratulations aussies on what by all accounts sounds like a superb event run in the right spirit: I'm gutted we couldn't get over there. Looking forward to seeing you guys over at FSAE, and hopefully a few of you can get over to Formula Student as well

[rotor]

Thanks eddie/charlie/vihn and geoff for the kind words, it has been a tough year and iam proud of what our small but ridiculously hard working team has done to show the merits behind not following the rest of the SAE world in design..

FSAE-A was a great event, well done to erin and the rest of the SAE crew for organising it so well.

Wollongong showed what a world class team they are and have given us the extra incentive to step up for the 05 US comp, speaking of which i cant wait because its been two days without flatout fsae and im bored shitless!

Mark Hester
Chief Engineer
RMIT 04

[reece]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by FFDave:
Congratulations to all the teams,

What an awesome event. We had such an amazing time in sunny Australia and learnt a hell of a lot about making Formula Sae cars go fast!. On behalf of the Uni of Aucklands FSAE team, id like to thank all the teams and the organisers for their incredible hospitality. Especially RMIT for giving us space to work on the car and test it. Also to Deakin for helping us with workshop space and Wollongong for their help at the event. Also congrats to adelaide on the bling bling award, you were luck we didnt bring over the 13" chrome spinner hubcaps!. look out next year!. We had a great time, made good friends and cant wait for next year. Thankyou all

Dave
Uni of Auckland

boat race champs <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


Yeah nice job with the boatraces and the wicked car! that was a sweet effort you guys puit in!

Reece

[BryanH]

Vinh, it's 7%

[RacingManiac]

wicked news about the Aussie teams thats coming to Detroit.....can't wait to see the new RMIT car in action and the Kinetic Suspension on UWA's car....

[RacingManiac]

That's good news about the Aussie teams coming to Detroit...I can't wait to see the new RMIT car(tubbed?), UWA's Kinetic Suspension, and UQ(weren't they the one with the spool? do they still have it?). Shame about UoW not coming this year.

Good job all on your success, now sleep for the next 6 month so we can catch up....http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif