Campus Parking Lots

[SpdRcr]

Hi,

I was wondering what U.S. schools are allowed to have an occasional testing event on campus? Please let me know how you went about making it happen. Thanks.

[SpdRcr]

Hi,

I was wondering what U.S. schools are allowed to have an occasional testing event on campus? Please let me know how you went about making it happen. Thanks.

[Jersey Tom]

Work on the car all night till 2 or 3, then convince yourselves its a good idea to go rip through campus real quick before anyone notices.

[Greg H]

Our school has been really supportive of us and allow us to use the parking lot for the basketball arena (since nobody is going to the games) whenever it's empty. I couldn't tell you how we set it up because I've never had to do anything to get it. We also call the campus police to escort us out there. You should probably talk to your advisor or maybe someone at the campus police or parking authority. What school are you from and what resources do you have available?

[KU_Racing]

We use the same formal testing procedure as the boys from colorado. Work on it until you cant stand up, then go drive it in a dangerous, high traffic area to wake yourself up.

Just make sure it doesnt break, because then the freshmen that you just woke up by doing 11,000 rpm clutch drops outside their dorm windows at 4 in the morning will come beat you.

[SpdRcr]

sweet. the campus racing antics will happen eventually...
http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif
but seriously? anyone face and overcome opposition from their university to gain occasional access to parking lots?

[UTA racer rikki]

B. Bell,

We have always been pretty fortunate at UTA. You might start going up the food chain, starting with your department chair. See if you can't get someone in the department on your side with some pull. If you want to be brave go to the President if you can make time. If that doesn't work, maybe your student council or student reps or whatever can take your case to them.

Whatever you do, just make sure you have a strong arguement for your case. If you have to go somewhere else, there is the logistics and danger associated with hauling a car away from campus. Since we use our parking lots on weekends or when classes are out, there is little danger. Express that safety is your highest concern and outline what procedures you follow when testing (if they need that much detail).

Like I said before though, we are lucky at UTA. Big lots, faculty support through the President, and the campus police like seeing the car run as well. Just make sure your testing times aren't freshman waking in the wee hours of the morning. My two cents.

Anyone out there have to overcome opposition?

[cieutag]

In the past we were for the most part in good shape as far as testing, but a wreck in Fall 04 put a cease to that, the cars were locked down and a lot of paperwork and red tape must be crosssed before we can drive them. Don't get me wrong we can still test when we want to but it is more difficult.

I kind of think its for the better, the guy who wrecked the car was pretty close to having his neck rung by a steel chain. All because the throttle stuck and he didn't have the experience/knowledge/whatever to hit the kill switch.

The paperwork sucks but it cuts down the chances of that happening to me.

[death-or-glory]

All we had to do was ask campus security to close down one of the car parks, it wasnt to big but in this competition speed doesnt play that muck of a role. It went well for a wile but we were kicked out due to noise complaints(at that point in time we were almost 10db over the competition specifications). So now we get by doing donuts at the back of our workshop(texting axle strength i swear). http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[Blake]

Our schools baja team recently went on a lil mud riding tear through some of the campus empty field s and got the cops called on them, then the cop got there and wanted to drive it. It was pretty funny.
Blake
LSU FSAE

[TG]

I haven't even tried to get the school to allow us to use a parking lot... all of the proving grounds and raceways out here are more than willing to let us use their facilities http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[james17]

This is a very, shall I say relevant issue for our team at this point. We just got done getting calls from our Districts City Council Member, The University Presidents Office, and who ever the else got pissed off because we where driving the car at night, now get this, we had cleared the lot with both the local and campus PD's, we had cleared it with the school, and we where being nothing but safe, but a resident at a house OVER A MILE AND A HALF AWAY could hear the car with his windows down, so boom, no more testing after 8. On top of that, the whimpy dorm kids are calling the cops on us when we run after 11, who in college is asleep at 11, what gives?

Anyways, on subject, try creativity and good old fashioned extortion. There is a new lot on our campus that is never used on the weekends or after 8pm, we talked to our faculty advisor, presented him with a plan of saftey and what we where doing, call the police everytime we test, make buddy buddy with the local PD and boom we have an almost official testing lot (we also informed him we would give all our money back to the sponser if we couldnt get a lot, no testing = no racecar). Down the highway there is a closed Go-Kart track with a choice track, we got the land owners info, called him and he said all we needed to do was call him and he would open the track. We currently have a member speaking with the owners of the lot where the San Antonio Spurs play, he was simply bold enough to ask and they said maybe. Also, dont undervalue closed airports, closed big box stores, and autocrosses. Above all, don't be afraid to ask, the worse they can do is laugh at you hysterically for 20 minutes.

[RonBurgundy01]

I know you only really wanted input from American teams but i thought i'd throw in my thoughts...

We generally wait till about 6 or 7pm when the campus is pretty much shut down then seal off the car park with witches hats at any access point. Then we have a person at each of those points telling anyone who comes along what we're doing.

The only real thing is it is a good idea to have a fire extinguisher at each end of your testing area and make sure that you atleast have a helmet on if not a suit as well. This way if any "higher power" comes along you can at least justify your doing it safely!! haha.

[SpdRcr]

Thanks for the input. It sounds like I am on the right track for who to talk to and what I might expect. I'm just not to hopefully because we are a smaller school and we don't have any major parking lots (stadiums, etc)

Burgundy - haha I would love to try that idea, but I honestly think that would get our program shut down. Too bad the US isnt as liberal as everywhere else.

Our dept. chair, I quote 'I'm not a fan of this, it goes too fast'. All this being said homecoming day while he wore a bright pink moon buggy shirt. Not to mention a huge crowd around our car. He then asked, 'How often do they roll over' I replied, 'Not as often as the moon buggy team.'...I think it was like 3 years ago they managed to flip a moon buggy end over end!!

[EliseS2]

Make friends with your campus police or campus security. It was easy for us to make friends with the campus security because when they would come throught the engineering building at night, we would be the only ones to talk to. We would show them how to heat treat steel and all sorts of fun stuff. Then when we wanted to test on campus we would just call them up to close a lot and they would. We never told anyone in engineering when we would be testing. One night the baja team was drinking and finishing thier car and decided to test it out. So they were tearing through campus jumping steps and going across grass. Eventually the campus police showed up in thier squad cars and a chase ensued. Eventually the baja car was trapped by three police cars. Over the loud speaker someone said "Stay off the grass", and they drove off.

Also for serious testing we tested at the local baseball stadium parking lot. As long as there was no game that day, they were ok with it.

[jsmooz]

Guess I'll add to the stories. We were doing one of the "first drives" a year or two ago with straight headers in the middle of the afternoon on a Sunday. Someone inside the library called the cops. They came, we told them who/what we were doing. They said it was really cool and watched us drive for a while.

Side note: our campus safety doesn't have a problem with us, nor can they write us a ticket.

[Korey Morris]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by jsmooz:
Guess I'll add to the stories. We were doing one of the "first drives" a year or two ago with straight headers in the middle of the afternoon on a Sunday. Someone inside the library called the cops. They came, we told them who/what we were doing. They said it was really cool and watched us drive for a while.

Side note: our campus safety doesn't have a problem with us, nor can they write us a ticket. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
We where doing the same thing a couple of weeks ago, and the cops showed up and ask if we had herd any gunshots... We expllained that the open header combined with the rich mixture ... blablabla, then the cop radared us. 78mph in the campus lot was the best i could do in the small lot. I still have that guy's card in my wallet in case another cop gives us crap one day. He was cool though. Maybe he can get me out of some of these parking tickets....

[Patrick W. Crane]

CRAP! we just lost our lot permanantly due to construction...

65mph is about what the cops had us at in our lot. had a hard time catching us on the radar though...

[fsae_alum]

James....could also do what we did in the past....just show up at an off-campus lot and start driving. Once the cops/security show up, leave. Something is better than nothing. We did that at Blossom Athletic center and got way with it just fine. If you're referring to the old Malibu track...keep in mind that there is a hotel right next door to that. Can't wait to see you guys out here in the west. Where are my pics BTW?

Never ceases to amaze me how much attention an FSAE car can attract.