Ice racing!

[Nigel G.]

We heard some rumors of other teams making studded tires and we decided that taking a SAE car out on the ice might be kind of fun. A group called Our Gang Ice Racing (http://www.iceracing.homestead.com/) was having a "fun day" up in Georgetown, CO and they made an exception to the 4-wheel drive rule for us, but said we couldn't make our own studs with quarter inch bolts. So we had a set of 13" studded tires loaned to us by a local tire shop and strapped a 50lb sand bag to the rear cross bracing of the '05 car. Check out our website for the small video we put together www.formulabuff.com, (http://www.formulabuff.com,) its under "Anouncements". We received a pretty warm reception, and they all wanted us to come back and start our own winter race series using "cheater studs" which are half inch long bolts sharpened to a point. Anybody game for a Formula SAE-ICE competition....

[Nigel G.]

We heard some rumors of other teams making studded tires and we decided that taking a SAE car out on the ice might be kind of fun. A group called Our Gang Ice Racing (http://www.iceracing.homestead.com/) was having a "fun day" up in Georgetown, CO and they made an exception to the 4-wheel drive rule for us, but said we couldn't make our own studs with quarter inch bolts. So we had a set of 13" studded tires loaned to us by a local tire shop and strapped a 50lb sand bag to the rear cross bracing of the '05 car. Check out our website for the small video we put together www.formulabuff.com, (http://www.formulabuff.com,) its under "Anouncements". We received a pretty warm reception, and they all wanted us to come back and start our own winter race series using "cheater studs" which are half inch long bolts sharpened to a point. Anybody game for a Formula SAE-ICE competition....

[Dan G]

Pretty slick Nigel (pun intended). There was a comma at the end of your link, this one should work better...

http://www.formulabuff.com/

I wanted to give iceracing a shot this winter but the weather has been too mild. The few local lakes clubs use aren't frozen long enough or thick enough to drive on. Maybe next year, it looks like fun.

[Nigel G.]

Dan, thanks for the help with the comma, it was a lot of fun, but it was also a pretty good way to over emphasize wet driving conditions for driver training.

[Korey Morris]

nice..

I always wanted to do that, but we'll never get that kind of ice in KY.

[Jersey Tom]

Excuse me, but what the hell kind of crazy assed team would throw studded tires on their 2004 car and go wild on a frozen lake in the middle of February?

Oh wait, shit.. nevermind..

[chavez]

the guy in that jeep musta been crazy....

[Nigel G.]

you're right Tommy, only a crazy team would put studs on their '04 car. Obviously we are completely sane, since it was our '05 car. Dumb grumpy machinist.

[Conor]

That was one of the coolest videos ever...

[Jersey Tom]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Nigel G.:
you're right Tommy, only a crazy team would put studs on their '04 car. Obviously we are completely sane, since it was our '05 car. Dumb grumpy machinist. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well then I quit. For the 10th time this week.

[KU_Racing]

driving on ice... how does a studded-tire car handle on ice??

[cieutag]

Glad I'm not the only frustrated one, I've threatened to quit our team about 5 times today, but I'm only one of two people that know anything on our team.

[Conor]

Welcome to the world of engineering my friend... did you check the mirror for gray hairs yet? If they're not there yet.. they will be soon enough...

[Ppada]

Sorry What's that bag at the rear of the car?

[cieutag]

This is not engineering I engineer stuff at work for the government no less and there is a lot less hassle,
No gray hairs yet but they are falling out guess I'm destined to be bald by the time we get our car done.

[Marshall Grice]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Sorry What's that bag at the rear of the car? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
it's a huge NOS bottle...

ok, actually if you read the original post he says it's a 50lb sand bag.

[Jersey Tom]

Surprise surprise, didn't get much traction on the ice at first. Apparently when they went out (I was probably busy working on the '06 car.. or reading a book or something) they rolled with really short studs and they weren't doing crap. Thus, 50lb sandbag.

[Chuck Maddocks]

if you really wanna have some fun, you need more traction. drive on snow (like the jeep did) and you will actually be able to control the car (if you want to). much more similar to a rally. get a snow covered parking lot if you don't want to take it on the road. obviously you guys have driven your street cars on snow, and know what it's like. i've lived in vermont my whole life. I used to go 60 down my snow covered road in a jetta back in my crazy days (snow covering ice, which covers dirt). you can't turn when you go that fast, just point and go. no studs either, just snow tires. pretty stupid, but it would be a lot of fun to set up a course in a snow covered parking lot.

unfortunately uvm doesn't have fsae. they've got mini-baja, which would probably work better in this case anyway.
that's why i'm at maryland. we got car, yessir

stupid maryland people don't know how to drive in the snow anyway

chuck maddocks
terps racing - driveline