Our own BAJA team is trying to end formula!!!!

[chinesefonz]

I am with the University @ Buffalo. This year was the first year we took a car to competition in 3 years. Most of the people that did work on the car we took did NOT go to competition. Hence we got screwed on design. Not only that but misjudgments in the car noise made us have to seriously restrict our exhaust making the car run completly like crap. This also caused us to have unbeleivably crappy skid pad and acceleration runs. It ran better in AutoX but then in Endurance just died out.


Now heres the problem. Its just one thing after another with our team. If its not conflict within our own team its conflicts with money or time or resources. AND NOW, our own SAE members are trying to rub us out. They are bitching at us for our 101st place finish, and are trying to just eradicate the whole formula team.

Now I know we are each seperate teams but we are all on the SAME club for the SAME school. We should be in eachothers corners, helping!! .... But instead we get nasty emails, and derogatory comments from the other teams, calling us stupid, and lazy, and putting their noises up like they are better then us. Quite frankly Im sick of all this animosity. It's so hard to build a racecar when not only do you have your own excpectation to live up to but you also have a bunch of guys trying to make sure you fail breathing down your neck also.

UUUGH.... I just feel like Im fighting a losing battle. I just needed to vent. I just feel like all the top teams never have to deal with this stuff. I mean I don't see what goes on behind the scenes, no one does. I just want other people that are strugglin to know, you arent the only ones. I feel like our biggest problems aren't building the racecar, it's overcomming all the crap and all the crappy people trying to bring you down....


Seriously, I felt more like a team with everyone at competition then I do with my own fellow SAE members at Buffalo... :-/ ... I wish there was more love for the University @ Buffalo formula team... Just want to let you all know, if you don't see us next year, chances are it was because the people on our baja team voted us off SAE and took our money. >: O ....

Good luck to you all, and hopefully I can compete with you all again WITH a CAR next year at Detroit.

Sincerly,
Matthew Brehm

[chinesefonz]

I am with the University @ Buffalo. This year was the first year we took a car to competition in 3 years. Most of the people that did work on the car we took did NOT go to competition. Hence we got screwed on design. Not only that but misjudgments in the car noise made us have to seriously restrict our exhaust making the car run completly like crap. This also caused us to have unbeleivably crappy skid pad and acceleration runs. It ran better in AutoX but then in Endurance just died out.


Now heres the problem. Its just one thing after another with our team. If its not conflict within our own team its conflicts with money or time or resources. AND NOW, our own SAE members are trying to rub us out. They are bitching at us for our 101st place finish, and are trying to just eradicate the whole formula team.

Now I know we are each seperate teams but we are all on the SAME club for the SAME school. We should be in eachothers corners, helping!! .... But instead we get nasty emails, and derogatory comments from the other teams, calling us stupid, and lazy, and putting their noises up like they are better then us. Quite frankly Im sick of all this animosity. It's so hard to build a racecar when not only do you have your own excpectation to live up to but you also have a bunch of guys trying to make sure you fail breathing down your neck also.

UUUGH.... I just feel like Im fighting a losing battle. I just needed to vent. I just feel like all the top teams never have to deal with this stuff. I mean I don't see what goes on behind the scenes, no one does. I just want other people that are strugglin to know, you arent the only ones. I feel like our biggest problems aren't building the racecar, it's overcomming all the crap and all the crappy people trying to bring you down....


Seriously, I felt more like a team with everyone at competition then I do with my own fellow SAE members at Buffalo... :-/ ... I wish there was more love for the University @ Buffalo formula team... Just want to let you all know, if you don't see us next year, chances are it was because the people on our baja team voted us off SAE and took our money. >: O ....

Good luck to you all, and hopefully I can compete with you all again WITH a CAR next year at Detroit.

Sincerly,
Matthew Brehm

[Angry Joe]

If you want words of support from other FSAE teams, I'd be happy to help. Just give us the necessary people to contact. I know this goes on at a lot of schools and words of encouragement from all over the country might do some good. You are not alone...

By the way, I PROMISE I will be civil and polite.

[ethanL007]

We finished 112th, competed in all events, and most of the people back at UNH are tickled pink witht that, mostly because they didn't do much of anything to help.

Our mini-baja team is a well established team (8th) place this year, and they have helped us out a ton (tools, materials, and machine shop access). Without them I don't think we could have finished. Developing a good relationship with mini baja would be a huge benefit to your team. The two projects should be able to co-exist.

Like angryjoe I am willing to send an email to an advisor, or baja team captain, if you think it would help any.

[chinesefonz]

thanks for the support... once again, it seems the people I am supposed to be competing against are the ones most willing to help us.

If worst comes to worst, I may go directly to the Student Association myself ( which is where we get our money for our club ) .... baja wants to take us down because the president of SAE at our school is now a member of Baja... he said that formula will be the first to go because we are the least successful. It doesn't make any sense tho because if we need money we will just try to get more sponsors. I don't see how there is any reason to just totally get rid of our team.

We get about 26,000$ a year to split between the THREE teams in SAE. Baja probably uses the least, and snowmobile may use about as much as we do, but thats because they had to buy a new sled this year. I mean... If they get rid of us I don't think SA ( student association ) will give them the same amount of money. SA will probably say to them, well since there are only two teams now you only get 16,000$ this year. I don't think they are thinking this through.

Formula continually pulls in about 40 kids every time we put up flyers for the club. I'd say formula is the most popular with the students wanting to participate hands down.

But thanks for everyones support... I'll let you all know how it goes, and I may take some of you offers on letters.

Its sink or swim time for us, this is what truly makes or breaks a team.


Matt

[Brent Howard]

Matt,

It is not a FSAE requirement for your team to be affiliated with a local SAE chapter. Our school does not even have an active SAE chapter, however we have 2 baja teams and 1 FSAE team. Worse comes to worse maybe think about starting an FSAE club and get your own seperate funding from the SA.

Brent

[SeanZasada]

Hey Matt

Don't give up!!! Fight this thing. This project is worth the battle. I can relate to exactly what you are saying. In 2000-2001, our school had a strong baja team, and our Formula team really sucked, and there certainly wasn't any love lost between the teams. We had lost many people to graduation, and our young team was left with no documentation or guidance to fend for ourselves. At the same time, Baja was thriving and there were thoughts of cancelling our Formula project. In 2001 our school pulled the plug on the car and we were denied traveling to the 2001 event (although the car was not race-ready, so while it was a hard pill to swallow, it was expected) We fought to keep it alive, and myself and two teammates came to competition in 2002 - JUST 3 OF US! I know what you mean when you got screwed in design - in 2002 we had no one there that could answer the electrical, braking, or suspension questions. We finished a crappy 109th, but we learned a LOT! Plus it fueled our desire for the competition. For 2003 we spread the word of the competition to other students and generated a lot of enthusiasm. We had to bust our asses with sponsorship and recruitment, and had a team of 11 people come to competition. After mechanial failures and a TON of lessons learned, we improved to 88th. At the same time, our project began to improve, the baja team lost a lot of the 2002 people to graduation, and they had made NO effort to recruit rookies or pass on any knowledge. The next 2003 team used basically the same previous successful car, but certainly the project did not improve they way they had hoped. Now, for 2004, we worked even harder to attract new members and sponsors, and we had 20 members go to competition, and 28 overall on the team (our largest team ever). This year, we placed 64th, entered every event, and barring starter problems partway through the endurance race, we would have easily been top 30! We raised the most cash ever in our school history too, while at the same time, the baja team was denied going to their competition, because they were not even close to having a vehicle designed or built in April.

Things have kind of gone full circle at our school for the baja and Formula teams. We are now the team with the most potential, while baja is not looking so hot. All I would have to say to your baja team is that because students are involved in these projects, members are lost to graduation. Therefore the success of these teams can really go in waves, so sometime down the road, they are going to look to your team for support! Some teams vary more than others based on the strength of their programs, but it sounds like you are in a similar situation to what we went through. Although our baja and formula teams have had a rivalry for as long as I can remember, the stronger team (cash wise) has always helped the lesser team, in order to keep our organzization healthy. We fundraise not for just our own team, but for our entire SAE organization (Air Cargo too). Under this umbrella, the stronger teams can keep the weaker team alive by raising more than its fair share of cash. If Baja did not fundraise back when formula sucked, then for sure our project would have been cancelled - for who knows how long. For 2004, because we made a huge effort to raise money, the baja team at least had a chance when their young team wasn't able to raise enough money. Lead by example and put in the time to fundraise (we had 67 sponsors this year for our team alone), and recruit new members. With cash in hand, they wont boot your team.

I too can write a letter to your advisor, or even ask our advisor to send a letter if you think it would help

email me at SZasada@shaw.ca if you like.

good luck and keep up the fight! There is always a solution.

[chinesefonz]

Thanks again to all of you, I am going to continue the fight. And I think, if anything, this has made our team stronger. We are all pissed now and ready to show everyone that we can build a top 50 or even top 30 car in one year with our small budget. Maybe even top 20. : D

We have a meeting later tonight to discuss how we get the ball rolling on our new car, to set deadlines, and maybe instate a new captain.

Hopefully we can get a rolling chassis before summer end. I would really like to see that accomplished. And like you said Sean, competition really re-sparked the huge flame that keeps you going. We had about 12 team members go, and about half of them have been on the team a year or less. Even the newest team members who have been around only for the spring semester now feel like they are really part of the team.

Also not being affiliated with SAE would be an option but I think getting funding from SA might be hard. But we can always use that as a fail safe. This year we are also going to be on a witch hunt for sponsors.

Thanks for all the advice, its nice to know that other teams have battled back from similar positions to have quite successful cars. Keep up all the good work yourselves and good luck to you all as well.

Matt
University @ Buffalo

[Charlie]

Use any adversity to your advantage, and MOTIVATE with it! I am a strong believer that sucess in FSAE is more from hard work than any kind of support. Although top 5 or top 10 might be difficult or impossible without some things, competing decently can be done with very little, and success breeds success, so strive to show the uni what you are made of and they very well might respond with plenty of support, once they see your hard work pay off.

Many teams have no financial backing at all, I know our team was like that when I started. $0, I mean $0 from the University, and we finished 38th. So consider yourself lucky to have the SA support and start working on '05. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[J. Schmidt]

That first post could have been written by Bill, our previous FSAE captain. We've got the Baja andClean Sled guys against us, they're basicly the same 12 guys. Also 3 of the 5 executive board positions are from baja or snowmobile.

We got to our shop in the fall to build our frame and our gas was empty and the TIG torch was stripped, cracked, and broken. Now, this is mostly the University's fault, they're against us too. We can't keep any kind of fuel (ie. propane tanks for the grill used for fundraising, fuel cells for our cars) anywhere on campus. We also got booted from our shop last year for 2 weeks because of a bad inspection by the fire marshal. No longer can we keep any flamables in our shop, nothing. Thankfully we could work in the high school's metal lab.

Here's how we're handling the situation...
FSAE is by far the largest team in UWP's SAE chapter (we have aero design, clean sled, baja, and formula) by about double the membership. When executive board elections came up in the spring we stuffed the nominations with FSAE members and pushed out those who were giving us problems http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif. We're not just trading rolls, the formula guys are reasonable, offer help, and DON'T STEAL THE OTHER TEAM'S PARTS. Man that pissed us off. Now FSAE dominates the SAE exec board and can start to get things done, like lobbying for permission to weld in our shop.

[jm1495]

Matt

Keep fighting... I was glad to see you all at competition and you did well for never attending a competition before. I saw alot of potential and enthusiasm from your team. You all were great paddocks neighbors as well.

Justin
Purdue University