Formula Student News

[Alejandro]

Wassaa...

Hi. Any news from Formula Student.. please post it here.

[Alejandro]

Wassaa...

Hi. Any news from Formula Student.. please post it here.

[BryanH]

Just got sms from Rotor, re autocross,
RMIT 30 sec, University of Qld 32sec
Toronto 32sec but a lot more cars to run.
4 sec per minute is a fair gap
RMIT are in design finals.

[Mi_Ko]

I've red delft is in the design finals.

No other news so far.

[Mi_Ko]

Has anyone an update what's happening there? I can't wait to see the results.

As I heard and read, an newcommer, the TUG racing team, is doing very well! Best wishes to them for the endurance.

[ben]

Design final is:

Delft
Lulea
Tokyo Denki
Oxford Brookes
Brunel
Leeds
Monash
RMIT

University of Birmingham also did a 32 in Autocross on a damp track. Delft's 32 was on a fairly wet track.

Ben

[Big Bird]

ETS also made it through to Design Finals with their really neat composite tub car. A work of art that thing, just lovely to look at.

Also the surprise of the meeting for me is the Lulea car. I'd never heard of this team before, but they have shown up with a lovely tubeframe car with carbon wheels, torque box, A-arms, etc. Really nice and low too.

Cheers all,

[BryanH]

Look at post in comp section for endurance update

[BryanH]

RMIT wins F-student with score of 906.
Toronto 2nd with 785.
RMIT won enduro,autocross,overall dynamic (& fuel?) Rotor won driver award. Sorry but no other info.
Congrats to Big Bird, 18 months ago he pitched a concept to the team, got it past the skeptics and has made it happen! He'll be runnin around with his shorts on his head right now.
Also congrats to Rotor, who has shown remarkable strength of character in the last 2 months, rebuilding the 03 car into something capable of winning a 75km enduru and doing the business at Brunty, and at the same time finish design of 04 tub and machine the plug for it!

A small victory for Innovation that lowers lap times......

I'll leave Big Bird to talk about the advantages of 10" rims, Goodyears etc

[Igor]

Congratulations to RMIT for their solid performance. A very well deserved win.
I just got back from the UK but missed the final results of the individual events so I'm just as curious as the rest of you. I can comment a bit on the Delft performance though. The first day of dynamic events looked pretty good. Acceleration 4.12 and a very quick skid pad (but no final numbers yet). When the car went out for the sprint it had just started to rain, but even though the driver had to catch the car on almost every corner it was only 1.5s off the winnning RMIT lap. Our second driver did improve on the time when it was dry again, but only slightly. Today in the endurance the car died after only a few laps with an electrical failure. When the car was pushed off the track everything worked fine again, but that was obviously too late.
It was sad that Delft wasn't able to show how well the car could have performed on the track. They were trying to get a few extra unofficial laps in at the end of the day to get some laptimes to compare, but I left before that.
We are convinced that a small nimble car with a single cylinder engine is the way to go for this competition, but only have the acceleration and skidpad results to show for it.
So everybody remember how important your vehicle wiring is. (check the solder vs. crimp thread for more on that :-)

Well, time for bed, got to be in the office in a few hours.....

Igor
Delft alumnus

[Denny Trimble]

My hat's off to RMIT and Delft for showing us what an ultralight Single can do.

How much did the RMIT car weigh?

[Charlie]

Big congrats to RMIT. I think the Aussies were heavily favored and for good reason. I haven't heard much about Monash though?

Now I hope we can get one of those well-designed & proven single cylinder cars over to Detroit next year!

[Ben Hatfield]

Just like to say well done to Steve, Geoff, Mark and all the guys from RMIT. You have worked really hard on this car and its great to see you get the results for it. On behalf of myself and all the boys from ballarat congratulations once again.

Ben Hatfield
Chief Engineer
University of Ballarat

[Eddie Martin]

Congratulations to RMIT, good work guys.

Well done to all the other teams that competed.

I'm really interested to hear what happened over the weeekend but i'm sure most people are pretty drunk or just sleeping after the competiton. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Eddie Martin
UOW Racing
www.uow.edu.au/eng/racing (http://www.uow.edu.au/eng/racing)

[Charlie]

Or just sleeping drunks. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[gr8v8]

Denny our car weighed about 190kg wet from memory

I'd like to congratulate the boys on this awesome result, i wish i there with you guys.

How good is this little car!(aka 'the nimble one') Geoff, you had your critics mate, but i heard that he's jumped on the bandwagon in the uk, how nice of himhttp://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif enjoy the spoils mate

David Malvisto
Suspension Head 2003/2004uk
RMIT University

[Big Bird]

Cheers all, little blurry right now, but can definitely say that there will be no shorts over my head until I've been to the laundry. Maybe this afternoon....

Thanks for updating all on the forums Halfast, we really appreciate it. Mostly correct, although unfortunately Rotor didn't get the best driver award, it went to one of the guys from Helsinki who did a stirling job in the Autocross. Or is that sterling. Dunno. Oh, also, the team from ISAT in France won Fuel economy, they were running a WR450 as well and ran late in the day. They were well chuffed, congrats if any of them are reading these forums.

Denny, the little best ended up weighing in at 201kg with full fuel. Who said lightweight?! Funny, we spent six months after the Oz comp trimming weight off wiring looms, coolant lines, bodywork, chassis, trimming bolt lengths, blah blah blah, then blew it all away with a set of tyres 4kg heavier, a battery maybe 2kgs heavier, and who knows what else. We also left a couple of bags of donuts in the workshop one night. When we came back, donuts gone, car now 5kg heavier than previous. Hmm. We might have to re-christen it Homer...

Monash and Qld both had rough weekends, neither of them restarting for second Endurance driver. Qld won acceleration though with around 4.05 sec (??), Monash won presentation. Tokyo Denki were competitive and had us scared, crashed out of Endurance though (rather spectacularly bouncing all over tyre walls apparently).

Delft had electrical problems as above - a real shame, we were having a great comp with them and were seperated by three points going into final day. They are a great bunch of guys, very helpful and have given us some really good advice on building composite stuff. Thanks all, you deserve a very good result soon.

ETS won Design, from Delft and Tokyo. Homer came in fourth, other finalists were Lulea, Brunel, Monash, Oxford Brookes, and Leeds. Brunel's car was gorgeous, but didn't make dynamic events due to blown CBR engines (twice) therefore fell back in design. A real shame as well, another great bunch of guys who deserved better.

ETS won a heap of stuff as well as the design event - well done, gorgeous car. Lulea's car had some really trick electronic stuff like active suspension and a Bluetooth activated gearshift that could change gears from the other side of the room. Trick. They won an award for innovation fromt he IEE accordingly.

Could waffle on but already have. More details when I'm a little more awake.

Finally, a public thanks to the lads in our team who have made our result possible. Steve, Rotor and I probably get a bit too much credit just because we are known from these forums and the like, but there are a whole crew of guys who have put their heart and soul into this over the past 18 months. A huge thanks for your time and energy, and especially for supporting a design direction that at times seemed a little wide of the mark. Great work guys, I owe you all a beer. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Cheers,

[George]

Sounds like it was a good compeition.

The little bit of info I got was that Queensland won acceleration, but got black flagged at the driver change in enduro for oil breather line that had come off and sprayed a little oil around ... doh!

First enduro from 6 UQ hasn't finshed ... oh well. Its a pity too, after a quick drive of the 2004 car this year i'd have to say it's quicker than the 2003 one.

Any information on what happened to Monash?

Big congratulations to RMIT as well - great job guys.

[ben]

Monash faild to restart at the driver change and had some problems with their shifter on Saturday. I'll leave Scott to fill you all in in more detail.

We also DNF'd in enduro, but got 6th in accel, 8th in autocross (32.0 on damp track) and 17th in skid pad. Not bad for a car that had only ever done 2 hours of skid pad testing last week.

Congrats to RMIT, partucularly Geoff Pearson, who is the most friendly and open engineer I've met at a competition who had that fast a car. You guys did a great job and deserve all the praise you are likly to receive here over the coming weeks.

Monash were a great team to host, and I'm looking forward to hanging out at FSAE-A in December.

Ben

[Denny Trimble]

Ben,
You're quite the traveler, aren't you? All 3 events in 2004?

Geoff,
I like the donuts comment, I think our car must have swallowed a horse.

201kg with fuel is light, but there have been a few 4cyl's (and one 8cyl) in that range. Maybe we don't have to abandon the 4cyl ship... yet http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[Pachi]

Somebody knows some news about the UPM Racing Team in the competition? They are from Spain the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.

thanks!!

[V2 - Italy]

The Universidad Politécnica de Madrid team worked really hard to have a running car.

They passed the scrutineering, brake, noise and tilt test too.

They completed the acceleration but they had a mechanical failure before the endurance.

V2

[ben]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Denny Trimble:
Ben,
You're quite the traveler, aren't you? All 3 events in 2004?

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm graduating and it's up to our new team to decide whether or not to commit their budget to a FSAE-A campaign, however it is within sixth months of my graduation and I will therefore be eligible to be on the team, so here's hoping.

If not I will just have a pleasant holiday in the sun :-)

Ben

[andrewd]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by ben:

If not I will just have a pleasant holiday in the sun :-)

Ben <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

that cant be in england then http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[Grant]

"Halfast" is your name "Hal-fast" or "Half-assed"???

[Scott Wordley]

Monash had a tough weekend at FStudent.

After getting our car at 3am Friday morning we some how managed to get it together and to the track, completing scruit, tilt, brake and noise as well as doing design and presentation, all on the Friday. Found out we made design finals and also had a quick run on the practise track so were extremely happy. Also just wanted to say that we found that our UK cost and design judges were extremely interested, knowledgable and informed with regards to the competition and these cars.

Saturday dawned dry but with rain threatening in the arvo we were keen to get through the dynamic events early. Had a quick run on the practice track before heading to Accel. Bent our gearshift linkage on the first run so lost a lot of the morning fixing that. Also were scheduled to visit the cost judges which held us up an hour. Autocross opened early at 10am and most teams took advantage of that fact and got some laps in the dry, as rain was looming on the horizon. With gearshift fixed and cost done we raced to the line for autocross as blackclouds rolled over brunty. Put Al our best driver in the car and were maybe 4 cars away from the line when it started to rain. We thought the track would probably stay wet all day so we had him do both his runs on the increasingly damp track. First lap picked up a cone, second lap was clean about 33 sec I think. We then put jarrod in to the car for skid pan and watched him wrestle it round the damp track, very entertaining driving but obviously no where near the dry times.

The rain really came down for a while after that and we thought the arvo was over dynamic event wise but gradually the rain subsided and the track began to dry. The sun even came out for a while. We couldn't belive it, and were about to go out for my autocross and accel runs when the judges arrived at our pits for the design finals, which took about 45 mins. Got out for my accel runs first and ran some terrible times, as the engine had no go and I missed a few gears. Teams were starting to clog the line for autocross as more dark clouds appeared. We got in the line and were close to the front again when it started to rain. I was waiting to be flagged onto the track when the marshall declared the track damp. Oh well, did my laps but couldn't get it to turn in and missed gears, best of 34 sec I think.

Back to the pits very depressed as the rain came down again. The worst thing was the track dried out yet again about 45 minutes before the close of the day. We felt pretty stupid as we didn;t manage to run a dry autocross all day.

Went to the practise track to check the engine which was still way down on power. Got back to birmingham that night and found it was a throttle adjustment issue after the restrictor check on Friday. Only had 70% throttle since then.

Sunday were there early and ready for enduro. Had a run on practise track to confirm engine was now good. It was. Wheeled from practice track to enduro line. When we were called into the starting area we can't clutch the car. The pin that holds the cable to the lever at the engine has dissappeared. Luckily found something to secure it as we were getting waved into enduro. Don;t know what happened there. Al started out driving pretty quick but like me was having trouble shifting with the makeshift clutch. I don;t think he was able to pull 3rd for the first 4 or 5 laps. After that he got it figured and was much quicker, the car had really good corner speed and was quick through the slaloms. One of the RMIT boys later said that he was timing and Al was pulling 53s with a best of 52 sec. If anyone has official or more accurate times we'd love to know.

Al came into driver change and we swapped drivers in under a minute, luckily no leaks so we were good to go. Jarrod cranked the car and it turned over but you could hear it starting to slow down. No good. Rested it a few times and I thought it might start on one of the re tries but it didn;t. And that was it. So disappointed.

On behalf of the Monash team I'd like to thank Ben and all the boys from Birmingham for putting a roof over our heads for the last 2 weeks, and specially Damon for driving our hire truck round. Couldn;t have done it without you guys look forward to seeing you in Oz later this year.

Another big thank to Paul 'Handles' from the Gong and Cranston Polson Ex-Uni of Tas Team Leader who were both honoury Monash team member for the week. Thanks for all your hardwork in preparation and running round at the track, we hope to see you guys again soon too.

Big congrats to the RMIT boys, good show lads, deserving winners and consumate professionals.

Felt sorry for the Queenslanders, very impressed by that car and the amazing amount of work they put in to get it finished and to comp.

That ETS car was spectacular, saw their design boards too... worthy winners there.

The Delft car was amazing, an exercise in extreme minimalism. Possibly the friendliest team at comp also, enjoyed chatting with you guys on Sunday and at the after party.

Anyway, for me the highlight of comp was seeing RMIT, Delft and the Denki cars run so fast.

Guess what... singles do work hey?
Did someone say paradigm shift? Think that might require a new topic....

[BryanH]

Half Arsed! as in who the hell would think a single would out-perform the establishment
Daniel worked it out two weeks Ago so you are a little slow, After F-student I think I'm entitled to change it, maybe Obe 1cyl.

[BryanH]

Scary bedtime story #1 for F-sae designers
The question is not how much does RMIT 03 weighs, but how little 04 will weigh.

Scary bedtime story #2
Rotor was driving the enduro at 8 tenths in an attempt to win those precious fuel econ points and was still 1sec clear of next car(Al driving Monash very hard)

Scary bedtime story #3
At F-SAEA RMIT will have another leading Aust kart racer to partner rotor.
Bryan H

[clausen]

Talk about unfair advantage!

We need a control driver for this competition.

Or otherwise South Australians damn well staying in South Australian Uni's!

Awesome news coming out of England. Proud Dad?

Wish we had the guts to use a single this year. With the rest of the 'interesting' packaging our 04 car has, plus a single, we could possibly have had the shortest FSAE car ever http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[Ashley Denmead]

Scary bedtime story # 4

Anything can and will happen in motorsport!


Scary bedtime story # 5

Other teams have also realised long ago the benefits of a lightweight single cylinder car!


Congratulations RMIT it sounds like you guys fully deserved to win and i hope the success of the singles continue!

[BryanH]

Paul,would like to catch up and check out your car if allowed, I,m based 5 min from you guys, call 8346-3506 bh
regards Bryan H

[The guru of guru's]

Ahh Ash... i think you have mistaken the scary bedtime stories for the instructions found on the back of the epxoy bottle.....stop reading the forum and get back to work!!!
haha

[BryanH]

Ash is absolutly correct, all it take is some wierd arse "demon tweak",driver error,lightning strike etc. for rmit to finish last.
notice that I did'nt mention loose bolt, 5c part etc. because that is preventable in design or maintainance.
I have many times sat at the bar on a sunday night with fellow racers reasonably happy with my lot even if rotor didn't win because I knew that we could'nt have done any more preparation wise than we had. Putting your team into a winning situation takes a shitload of work, in rotors case 12 to 17hour days 7 days a week for 6 months,on first name terms with all the security guards!
Bryan H

[MikeWaggoner at UW]

"Scary bedtime story #2
Rotor was driving the enduro at 8 tenths in an attempt to win those precious fuel econ points and was still 1sec clear of next car(Al driving Monash very hard)"

A lot of people at 8/10ths are 99% as fast as they are at 10/10ths because of increased smoothness and better lines.

[Storbeck]

Congrats to RMIT, is that the first single to outright win an FSAE event?

Sounds like a well sorted car and a well deserved win.

Sorry to hear about Monash and Delft, two very interesting cars, there were probably a lot of people watching those two in particular. Each were possibly the ultimate in thier unique philosophies on how to go fast.

[BryanH]

99% correct mike, only mark can tell us what he could have peeled off and it seems he is the first winning team leader in history who doesn't see the need to write anything, maybe he thinks holding the trophy says it all.
Right now he is holidaying in northern italy with a houseful of young italian women.......

[clausen]

No problem Bryan,

It will have to be a look at the electronic version though, as there arent many parts of the actual car in one place yet.

Chassis should be in the workshop this or next week.

[rotor]

thanks to everyone who helped us in the uk, repeating what geoff said it was a very friendly event and one that i wont forget for a long time.
To clarify what my old man has said..
im not the team leader, geoff and steve take most of the credit for the car being so successful and also actually being there, i see many teams with good drivers but the car is untested an unreliable.
I agree with mike, in sae carrying corner speed and not flogging the car is not far off the fastest the car will go, but you get to save fuel.
we had a fast car last year at fsaea but that alone was not enough to win an event outright, the work done on the static events for formula student gave us a good spread of points, cheers to nick. s. and kym shead for that.
italy is great...

cheers
mark hester
chief engineer 2004

"its good to be single"

[Al]

12-17 hour days?!?

Imagine how good your car would have been if you were working hard http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

Seriously, congratulations on the result. It is a tribute to the professionalism of the team and the guts to follow your instincts.

Al

(PS Halfast, you must have good eyesight to see how hard I was driving from Adelaide some 20,000 km away http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif)

[sscollins]

There will be a full report on Formula Student in Wednesdays Motorsport News - with a technical look at the Oxford Brookes Isis FS04 (on sale in UK only)

[BryanH]

Al, I was repeating a comment made by a student who was trackside watching your run, if you weren't trying please accept my apoligies!

All of you guys that were over there should realize that there is zero info on the competition from any sources, and a lot of people around the world hungry for any info. I was lucky enough to get somme SMS messages (in middle of night!) so posted them. I thought better than nothing but not counting on how precious some of you are.
The real issue is with F-SAE, there is only 3 comps per year. It is too expensive for most of us to go and watch live but there is no webcams, no daily updates no press releases.I don't think the F-SAE brass realize how well known and interesting F-SAE comps have become.
Those of us who attend race meeting have become used to current technology, eg.Transponders on all cars, low power TV transmission of lap charts and race results or at least results printed for pickup after each heat.
It is possible to log all laptimes etc to Natsoft.com.au in Australia. Natsoft do virtually every race meeting in Oz live, race tracks are online to Natsoft and send data in a standard format.
regards Bryan H

Re 8tenths comment, rotors exact words were "short shifting at 8.5 to 9k instead of 10.5k to save fuel" IMHO looking at the dyno sheet that would have to increase to lap times.

Long hours for the guys is not as bad as it sounds as the RMIT team has an excellent workshop. It was a Gov.water board office complex so has all mod cons including Kitchen,central heating.
I dread to admit to our American friends that you can look out the bay windows in the early evenings and watch Kangaroos wander about.

[Konstantin]

The technical university of Braunschweig got the 3rd overall, first in ski pad and best European team..
Not bad if you remeber what happened last time.

Konstantin

[Al]

Halfast,

Agree with you totally on the lack of information front. We still have not seen any of the times from the endurance and we were competing in it! Best idea of how we were going came from Nick from RMIT's stopwatch. And I was joking with you in the previous post, I was going as damn fast as I could (which isnt rotor pace http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_frown.gif I cant wait to see what he can do in our car when we get a chance to put him in it!)

Anyway, does anyone out there have any official enduro times? If not, does anyone have some times which show us to be 3 seconds a lap faster than everyone else. They will do fine. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[V2 - Italy]

Look this post:
http://fsae.com/eve/forums?q=Y&a=tpc&s=763607348&f=825607348&m=41810476411&p=2

with the official enduro times.

V2

[Al]

Sorry, I meant individual lap times not the overall. Unfortunately we come under the heading of too poorly prepared and didn't finish enduro so it is impossible to tell from the total times how we were comparing.

Al

[V2 - Italy]

http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif

I am still looking for the lap times.

V2

[Mi_Ko]

I also have some news from university of Maribor (remember the last car in the Enduro):

They had serious problems with uprights and wheel stiffnes. This is a result of trusting FEM, made by rookies and the lack of testing time, which is always a problem, because the event is only a few days after our examn period.
The other problem they had, was a very hard steering mechanism. They experimented with a worm gear mechanism. (The steering got so hard, the driver bended the steering wheel)

But good news: They finished enduro (at last place http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif) and had en excelent static part (only 81 points lost), which took them to 24th place in front of some very good schools, which have a 10× bigger budget.

[Charlie]

Looking at the complete results, I am suprised to see there are NO american teams!

[leclercjs]

Charlie,

If you look right, there is Dartmouth, an Ivy league College!!!

We had good talks with those guys, and they are true americans.

[Charlie]

DOH, sorry about that guys. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[Kevin Hayward]

Charlie,

I hope the dropping numbers of travelling American teams is not a continuing trend. In the last year 5 out of the 14 (at December 2003) Australian teams made a trip overseas. While the costs and difficulties involved are quite large the experience has to be worth it (as you would know from Australia 2003).

If we assume 120 US teams if the ratio of travelling teams was the same as in Oz in the last year we could expect over 40 American teams making an overseas trip.

You guys started the competition but it has become an international event now and it would be great to see American teams taking on the world outside of their own backyard.

Kev

[V2 - Italy]

http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

Some pics from FS04 are available on our website:
http://firenzerace.too.it

&gt;2004&gt;Race

and many more are coming.

V2

[Konstantin]

if I remember corectly the fastest time was made by Monash. At least this was the case as long I watched the time monitor.

Konstantin

[Charlie]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Kevin Hayward:
Charlie,

I hope the dropping numbers of travelling American teams is not a continuing trend. In the last year 5 out of the 14 (at December 2003) Australian teams made a trip overseas. While the costs and difficulties involved are quite large the experience has to be worth it (as you would know from Australia 2003).

If we assume 120 US teams if the ratio of travelling teams was the same as in Oz in the last year we could expect over 40 American teams making an overseas trip.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I totally agree that more US teams should attempt an international competition. However your analogy is a bit flawed. The US competition is the main competition. The most teams, and the one competition that teams want to put on thier 'win' list the most. Monash would have been there if they could have made the deadline.

When this is the case international teams have a bigger reason to come here, than US teams have to travel internationally. This is maybe a bigger issue when trying to convince the school.

More competitions are great. You learn so much every time you compete. Our 2004 team was so much better off having been to FSAE-A. It was a huge time constraint, and I think we were very close to blaming (among other things) the FSAE-A trip on an unfinished car. And I think GT would say it hurt thier 2004 effort.

Bottom line is we want to win in the US. And if an international competition hinders that its not worth doing. I'm not saying that is always the case, but that is part of the reasoning why US teams don't travel more. Look at GT: They won everywhere else, but I promise you they'd trade one of those wins for a FSAE win.

In other words you have to ask yourself how much of a distraction an international competition is versus the benefit. Whereas international teams are more driven to the US competition to prove themselves.

[Kevin Hayward]

Charlie,

I do realise the error in my analogy ... I pretty much just put it there to stir up a few people. I definitely agree with the US comp being the main one ... though I do wonder about the effects of the upcoming split.

However I do think the US teams have a little something to prove now. I say this following Woolongong's efforts in 2003. Australian design and comp win and US design and comp win. Can this be done by a US team ... probably ... maybe not ...

Can all three be won by one team? What about the new races in Japan and Brazil?

I don't think these are challenges for the middle and tail end runners of the US comp but it may prove to be a worthy challenge of the powerhouse teams.

I would expect that this sort of challenge would not be accomplished in one attempt. It took Woolongong two shots to take out a double. I think that the teams who have already travelled have a bit of an advantage if they ever want to try and take a double or a triple.

Anyway looking forward to racing against whoever comes down to Oz ... if anyone is coming that is.

Kev

[Denny Trimble]

To be honest, we're not a "powerhouse" team, and we work all-out for a full 12 months just to do well in the US event.

Our faculty advisor is there for paperwork purposes only, we don't have an empire builder like Prof. George or Dr. Woods. I spent a month building the team back up after Detroit '04 just so we could get started on design of the '05 car with more than 4 people onboard. My girlfriend already has her crosshairs set on my head, so expanding the scope of our project to include overseas events is just not practical at this time http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

But if we ever do make it across one of the ponds, watch out!

[Rob Davies]

since formula SAE/SAE-A student is never a race as its too dangerous or whatever is said, its all about times, which leads me to think that the cars dont need to be in the same place to be compared aslong as the tests are similar

wouldnt it be a good idea to start using common sprint/autocross and endurance track layouts so that performances can be compared across competitions.

The acceleration and skidpad are already the same.

The static judging is already kind of random and people will complain that the judges in one continent are more leniant than others, but in general, if there is a code set out to judge these events there will be some correlation between what score you deserve and what you earnt be it un isa, uk australia or whatever.

That way people will be able to compare how they did with other teams from around the globe. People may mention differences in weather, or errors in course layout, but im sure that would be better than the current system and will lead to good discussion topics.

And of course I bet it is good fun to go to a foreign competition so u can do that aswel, but for teams that cant afford the time or expense this idea would make it more interesting.

Also as stated earlier, better reporting of individual lap times, event pictures etc... would allow people to see whats going on without having to be there

Just my idea...

[Rob Davies]

Oh and i forgot...since the scoring is normally made from the difference between you and the winner of that event in tha continents competition

the scoring system would have to change...maybe let Tmin be a time that is close to last years winner but that little bit faster meaning we will never be able to get that fast and the closer to that benchmark the more points we get rather than the closest to the winner..

[MikeWaggoner at UW]

The surfaces and track conditions are different, so direct comparisons are difficult. Detroit is often damp and rough, I don't know what the other courses are like. Being on rough pavement v. smooth pavement makes a big difference in the less driver influenced events like Accel and skidpad (I realize driver skill is big in these events still; our heaviest driver was our fastest accelerator!).

Car weight and horsepower may be the only international comparos possible, and I doubt we'll ever be able to trust dyno's....

[Charlie]

Times are far to condition dependent to do any kind of comparison. And cars change from competition to competition so you can't just say let's use Toronto's times as a correction factor or anything.

As proof of that look at acceleration and skidpad times. 'Same' course, vastly different results from place to place.

[BryanH]

Sorry Rob but I can't agree with any of that!
F-SAE IS a race meeting. It's about showing students what working in a race team is all about. And Fear is what its about..

If the rules were modified to make it easier the F-SAE comp. would be devalued.

But the comparo thing I have been thinking about, as some form of comparo that would be even approx. would be a big help to 1st time teams so that they have some idea of where they stand laptime wise.
I propose a time measure called a Max.
In most countries where F-SAE cars are built there is also Rotax Max kart racing. This class runs to worldwide tech rules including tyre compound and 160kg min.
You beg,borrow,steal a Max,run it on your test track/carpark the same time as your FSAE car, take best time of 10lap session. Correct both times to 1km track length and divide your time by the max time arriving at a pos or neg "Max"!

p.s.the difference btw best and average Max driver is usually &lt; 1 sec/km

[Rob Davies]

Sorry Halfast I didnt mean to downgrade the competition or anything by what I said. It is clear that the best combination of better cars and the better drivers wins.

When I meant it wasnt a race I just meant no overtaking is allowed other than if you the car infront of you gets pulled over, and that only occurs if you are clearly faster. So I just meant it was more about speed and times rather than bumper to bumper racing with overtaking manouvres and consequently the possibility of the kind of crashes we see in F1 etc...

I understand what you say about differing conditions and thats what I said in my initial post. But for personal comparison, same tracks in all continents would help people guess where they are at. You may say using same track would get boring but you can change the layout each year

Its alot easier to say 'lets add 1 second per lap because of damp conditions' than lets add 3 seconds per lap because of damp conditions AND they had en extra turn or two or more".

I just said this would be good for personal comparison for the teams and could be used for interesting discussion across continents argueing that the effects of each condition is this and that

[formula_geek]

Rather hard to do with the current venues, unless FStudent is used as the basis for the other courses. Bruntingthorpe doesn't offer the vast acres of available pavement (tarmac for those of you that drive on the wrong side of the road) that FSAE-US does. There would also be issues with teams competing in more than one event per year and having more opportunities to learn the track.

[Rob Davies]

Yeah very good point about Bruntingthopres lack of open space formula_geek - I didnt think of that.

I understand what everyone has said. I just got the idea in my head when people were saying they couldnt afford to go to other competitions etc. I thought it would be better than nothing despite all the problems in comparing.