West Coast Prep For FSAE 04

[Bdeal]

Sac State still needs to pay just need to know where to send the dinero or paypal?
bdeal@yahoo.com

[js10coastr]

do we have to pass a full tech inspection before we run?

[wingman]

Hello everyone,

Everything is looking good for Sunday

The following schools are confirmed

> Cal State LB
> Cal Poly SLO
> UCSD
> USC
> UC Berkeley
> Cal Poly Pomona

Unpaid or tentative are >

> UCSB
> UC Sacramento
> UC Davis
> CSUN

Anyone else interested in attending please let me know, I do not want to exclude anyone. Thanks again to those teams that got their payment in right away!! With out that, none of this would have happened!!

Note to the schools that do not have a car ready.... GET THEM DONE!!! But if not, we invite you to at least send some key team members up to participate and learn.

Note to the schools that are bringing cars, this event is for your benefit, as such you will not be scored and there will be no "winner"� of the event. Your cars will only be scrutinized by the judges not put on display for the other teams unless you want to...

This is to be a practice event for the benefit of the teams for this years
competition and for us as the coordinators in preparation for a future FSAE
West Competition.

The dynamic events will be time only and unrecorded such that the
participants are preparing for the competition not competing against each
other.

Former FSAE design judges have agreed to attend for your benefit and will be coordinating the format for the static event to ensure it is similar to the actual FSAE event.


Judging:

The judging will be conducted in the morning in a similar manner to what you will experience in Detroit: in other words, during the morning session while you are getting teched and practicing on the skidpad and accel courses, the judges will make the rounds as a group to one car at a time and spend 15 minutes with the team followed by specific feedback to the team on the pros and cons of their presentation before moving on to the next car.

Tech requirements: the teams will need to adhere to the FSAE rules for tech but we do not have the time or the equipment to perform the complete tech inspection.

At a minimum to run your vehicle and team will need
1. Snell 95 or newer helmet
2. Your car must pass a normal safety inspection at an SCCA autocross
3. Fire extinguishers

All other FSAE specific requirements will be noted and at the discretion of the tech inspectors to be allowable, but remember our intent is safety! It is not to exclude you from running your car so gauge accordingly (i.e. the requirement for body panels will be enforced strictly on a case by case based of potential danger to the driver)


Just an update to the schedule:

There is a $10 entry fee per person into the raceway the day of the event

Gates Open at 7 am, just ask for directions to the kart track at the gate

So Cal SAE will provide lunch at the event
(i.e. I'm ordering sandwiches and will have water and Soda for the day)

Hotel, food, gas, race supplies and all other non-event arrangements are to
be made by the teams

Since there is an SCCA national event going on the big track, race fuel will be available at the track from what I am told


schedule for the day

7:30-11 am
OPEN FORUM
Once you have passed the safety inspection
Vehicle tech and design judging you are welcome to practice on the skidpad and accel courses, just remember to be ready when the judges approach you...

skid pad: skid pad is 2 50ft diameter circles forming a figure 8

acceleration: accel is an 82 yard straight run and will be set up on the straightaway of the kart course

11-12 am
autocross
to be run on the kart track with extra cones added to tighten it up a bit

12-1 pm
lunch

1-4 pm
endurance run on cart track
2 cars at a time spaced at opposite ends of the track
2 drivers per car, 12 laps each for 24 laps total

We have to be packed up and gone by 5 pm!!

If you have any questions please let me know

Cheers,

Wingman

[wingman]

Final note everyone

please bring a broom or 2 with you just in case

I'm headed for the track tomorrow morning first thing so if you have any ?s call me on my cell

cheers,

Wingman.....

[Micah Bayless]

UCSD SAE will not be making it this morning. We decided at 3am to stick around the shop and get another day's worth of work done, starting at 10am. Final items include restrictor location and painting the body and frame.

Please take (and post!) lots of pictures.


Regards -

Micah Bayless

[Courtney Waters]

Wow, big thanks to all those who made this event possible! It was a fantastic way to get prepared for the competition, and the judges feedback was invaluable. The venue was excellent, and it was much easier to focus on getting the cars set up without having to worry about the usual university parking lot dangers (lamp poles, curbs, cars, police, etc). And the kart track was an absolute blast! All the teams seemed to conduct themselves responsibly in the pits and on the track, which was great to see. Best of luck to everyone in two weeks!

[wingman]

Hello everyone,

Well, we pulled it off!!

Summary:

8 teams registered (2 of which brought 2 cars)
6 teams made it to the event
75 people total
65 students
10 coordinators

Gates opened 7 am
8-9 Kickoff meeting and safety tech for all cars
9-11:00 3 groups, 2 teams per group rotated between 3 stations:
Judging/ Acceleration practice/ Skidpad practice
11:00-11:15 Prep for AutoX
11:15-12:15 AutoX
12:15-1:15 Lunch (4 6ft Subway sandwiches, chips and drinks provided by So Cal SAE)
1:15-1:30 Setup and safety meeting for endurance practice
1:30-4 Endurance practice
4-5 Open track tuning session and rap up meeting
5-6 Pack up and go home


The venue:
Buttonwillow Raceway kart track and skidpad......

We could not have found a better venue for this type of event. Centrally located for the west coast teams, and equipped with all of the infrastructure we could have needed, including a covered pit area, which made all the difference (given it was 95+ degrees out there!!) Many thanks to the Buttonwillow Raceway Staff (Les, Carrie and especially Warren) for supporting us and helping thing's go smoothly. The Kart track was made for this event allowing us to just add a few cones here and there to slow things down to FSAE like parameters and the skidpad area was large enough to setup both the figure 8 and a brake lockup test area for the teams. And finally, I have two words for you BANKED TURNS!!!! Which, though not representative of the Silverdome parking lot, would have made this event worth the trip, even if the rest of the event had not been so successful!!

P.S. there was an SCCA National road race event being held on the big track this weekend, so there were racecars everywhere and a great atmosphere to take in....

The Judges:
Huge thanks to Mike O'Neil for bringing in such a knowledgeable and energetic team of judges!! These guys were extremely well prepared and focused on providing the teams with advice and feedback on their design presentations. Each team received 20 to 30 minutes of one on one with the judges. By the way, all the judges donated their time and resources to be a part of this event, so hats off to them.

The Teams:

We had 8 teams registered for this shindig

Cal Poly Pomona
Cal Poly SLO
CSUS
CSLB
UCSD
UC Davis
UC Berkeley
USC

CSLB and UCSD didn't make it, which is unfortunate, but I wanted to thank them as well as USC and UC Davis (who both entered two cars) for allowing us to meet our 10 entry goal.

I think I speak for all the judges and track support crew in saying how impressed we were with the way that the teams conducted themselves!! You were focused, responsible, helpful and professional in all respects. The success of this event was, without a doubt, made possible because of your maturity and attention to the schedule and the requirements of the day (more about this in the workers portion)

So in the end, we had 6 teams and 8 cars, which meant plenty of track time for all involved.

The Workers:

Huge Thanks to Gerry LaRue, Owen Riehle, and Mike O'Neil for their part in coordinating the dynamic events with me. Mike brought design scoring sheets and kept the judges on track while Gerry and I setup and watched over the skidpad and accel courses during the morning session.

For the auto x and enduro Gerry and I tracked times, laps and driver changes. Owen and Mike teamed up to fine tune the course layouts I had put together in order to keep safe and representative of the FSAE track parameters. Mike brought along his Kart so we used him as a baseline for the course layout (we REEAAALLLY had to twist his arm...nudge, nudge...wink, wink!!) I very much enjoyed working with these guys, and would do it again if I had the chance!!

Most importantly, thanks to the teams!! We were not able to find enough volunteers from industry to work the course during the autoX and enduro, so I asked the 6 teams to each take a section of the track and ensure that they would have a course worker in their respective section at all times. This could have been a mess, but as said previously, with minimal guidance from me, each team stayed on top of their section and rotated people in and out as necessary. FANTASTIC TEAM WORK!!

The Dynamic Events:

Given this was a test and tune, aside from defining a staring order for the enduro based on auto-x times, there were no times recorded for any of the events. The teams were responsible for tracking and recording their performance. This allowed the event to be much more low key than if we were having them compete against one another, not to mention the teams were still a bit unprepared so comparing them would not have served a constructive purpose. This by the way allowed us to run the event with a minimum of volunteers and equipment given that we merely had to account for safety and staying on schedule.

The morning session went very smoothly without any breakdowns or incidents. I did not get to see the autoX given that I was picking up the food for lunch, but Owen and Gerry had it covered beautifully!! We were running a bit behind schedule by the time we started the enduro, but much like the real competition, there was a lot of attrition in the enduro (mostly due to the heat) so we actually finished early enough to allow some open track time at the end of the day so the teams could workout some of those bugs that dropped them out of the endurance event. This was a great lesson for the teams in that only one car actually finished the 24 laps (and it was an old car that did it).

The following are the track maps for the autoX and endurance (note autoX was run clock wise, endurance was run counter clockwise)



AutoX course




Endurance course

Additional Thanks:

To So Cal FSAE for supporting this event and providing lunch for everyone, and to FSAE.com for creating a venue for teams and alums to share knowledge and coordinate events like this.

Final Comments:

Above all, I wanted to thank the drivers throughout the day for keeping safety first!! We held to a standing rule for the event, given that the track was a thin strip of winding asphalt rather than a course defined by cones in a parking lot, that if a car went of the track, that person was removed from further driving for the day, and if the car in question when of a second time, the car was removed from any further operation for the day. Well, I'm happy to say that I only had to remove one person from the event for going off course. Who might you ask?? Well one of the teams was kind enough to let me take a few laps in their old car at the end of the day, I spent the first 2 getting used to the course and the car, the 3rd at a slightly increased pace, and the end of the 4th being reminded that FSAE cars react differently than vintage sports cars that I have been driving for the last five years of post college life.... Well I went into one of the banked turns too hot, drifted to the outer edge of the track coming out of the corner exit and put all four tires off course thus requiring my self imposed removal!!! I'm totally embarrassed and am only admitting to this for the sake of reiterating my appreciation to the drivers who completed the entire day of testing without incident. There was no damage of any kind to the car by the way, and I probably could have played it off, but that would not have been fair to the rest of the people that kept it in the road all day........

So, good luck to all the teams this year, and to those that were not at this event, your going to need it!! As for next year, I would be up for coordinating this again on two conditions:

1. I got to work with such a great team of volunteers again.
2. We plan to have the event 4 weeks before with a bit more time to prepare.

If you west coast teams are interested, let us know so we can get the ball rolling a little sooner.......

If you teams have any pics from the event, please post them!!

Take care,

Wingman

[Sisyphus]

I would be happy to get some photos from the May 2nd event. I was only able to take a couple of shots myself. Please send any electronic photos you'd like to share to: gerry.larue@email.sae.org

I'll be happy to send an electronic copy of the group photo in return.

Thanks to everyone who attended and helped make the event a success (particularly those hardy souls who stood out in the hot sun flagging)!

[King Missile]

Send me some pics to...

Brett.Miller at Harley-Davidson.com

Why isn't Cal Poly Pomona updating their website? I saw pics of their 04 car on Grassroots Motorsports' website.