Formula SAE and Insurance Question for a new team

[Matt Liberatore]

Greetings everyone from Tufts University. My name is Matt Liberatore and I am the Team Manager for Tufts Racing. We are a new team that is just forming this year with aspirations of competing next year. Before we can reach that stage though, we seem to have hit a speed bump, insurance. I was recently told that our insurance policy at Tufts excludes any type of competitive racing. This would essentially put the kibosh on our club. Since this is a university and not a Formula 1 event, I would imagine that this is a fairly common problem. If it is common, there must be a relatively easy fix. Has anyone here dealt with this type of issue? If so, how did you go about solving it?


Thanks for the help,
-Matt

[Matt Liberatore]

Greetings everyone from Tufts University. My name is Matt Liberatore and I am the Team Manager for Tufts Racing. We are a new team that is just forming this year with aspirations of competing next year. Before we can reach that stage though, we seem to have hit a speed bump, insurance. I was recently told that our insurance policy at Tufts excludes any type of competitive racing. This would essentially put the kibosh on our club. Since this is a university and not a Formula 1 event, I would imagine that this is a fairly common problem. If it is common, there must be a relatively easy fix. Has anyone here dealt with this type of issue? If so, how did you go about solving it?


Thanks for the help,
-Matt

[Mike Flitcraft]

Tell them it's not competative racing, it's dynamic physical analysis of a mobile structure.

Have ya'll talked to the student govt./dean of ME/president of the university, or treasurer yet? I'm sure they'll have more answers than we would.

[Matt Liberatore]

Thanks for the quick reply Mike. I have talked to some people within the administration but they have all been less than helpful. I was hoping to gather some ideas and ammunition based upon what other teams do before I went back to pester them some more.

-Matt

[Mike Flitcraft]

Matt, I don't know if you're a member of SAE yet or not, but they have some very useful testimonials to the programs you may want to check out (I'm not sure if they're available to the general public or not).

http://students.sae.org/competitions/supermileage/testimonials.htm

People from Ford, Dominion Gas, CAT, Nissan, Cessna, Ford, GM, Polaris, Porsche, Honda, and more are on there talking about FSAE and other student competitions.

Besides, think of the advertising potential a race car has on the local markets.

[Jersey Tom]

Stay under the radar. Its a senior design project. Don't mention racecar. Don't try to be officially recognized by the school. Jus keep it cool.

[Biggy72]

Well it doesn't say anything about building a car, so you've got awhile to work things out.

The first thing we had to do was come up with a series of checklists for each sub team leader. As an example the drivetrain leader goes over each thing on a very thorough checklist within the drivetrain, and everything is double checked or triple checked by another person or two. Show them you have a good idea of what it takes to be safe. Make sure as many procedures within your shop that have to do with safety are kept up (ie safety glasses, proper clean up of spilled fluids ect). Also elect someone as a "safety officer" and their sole job is to make sure everyone follows safe procedure. This is a bs role, but it looks good to people that don't know any better.

Once you're getting ready to do some dynamic testing you will probably never be running at the same time as any other cars so it's not in the least bit racing. We had to have a cop come out and check our speeds on the courses we set up to make sure we were under a safe limit, and he checked to make sure we weren't too close to any light poles, curbs and anything else that could hurt us. After a couple runs we haven't had a cop come check on us since.

Also if you don't have racing or motorsports in your club name that should help as well. Just do what the person that gives the go ahead says. After awhile they will realize you don't want to run into anything and you're smart enough to figure out how not to. Once you hit that point as long as you don't screw up and do something too stupid then they shouldn't bother you any more for awhile.

[JR]

Ask them why they allow university athletics. Football has a worse record of injuries than FSAE, and a heck of a lot less academic benefit!

[Frank]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">our insurance policy at Tufts excludes any type of competitive racing </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

yes, common, but all your activities EXCEPT compitition (including testing)should be covered, and your public liability insurance should be appropriate also.. (you need this if you have to rent/be sponsored a commercial testing facility)

i dont know what happens at the US event, but the australian event is sanctioned by CAMS, and all participants sign their life away

[Matt Liberatore]

Excellent. Thanks everyone for all the replys. I will be sure to keep all that stuff in mind.

-Matt