Formula SAE Michigan 2009 Competition: Pictures, stories & more.

[Wesley]

I'm pretty sure it's Stuttgart, with 3 or 4.

[JamesWolak]

Originally posted by Dan G:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by JamesWolak:
What happened to UTA, UWA, and MSU?

They were all no shows to MIS. I had them on my top ten list.

What about Cornell? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>


They were in my top ten list too. Had troubles with their brakes in tech and then got DQed in enduro for leaking oil on the track. I will have them in my top ten list next year too.

[MalcolmG]

Pat Clarke:
If a car does not pass the template check at FSG, it will simply not be permitted to compete in any dynamic event! There are only two exceptions to this, they are the cars from Australia which competed at the 2008 FSAEA event and so are still within their 1 year FS/FSAE ‘life’. These cars would be permitted to compete if they failed the templates check, but would be penalised 35 points and be automatically disqualified from the Design Finals. However, both these cars are built to the 2009 rules and after their experience in Australia, will pass the template checks.

To make this clear, the 35 point penalty and admission to the dynamic events is not available to any car that made its FS/FSAE debut in 2009.

http://www.formulastudent.de/a...-column-january-3/1/

Admittedly it refers to FS Germany, which means the US organisers could have a different view of things

[RacingManiac]

Originally posted by Zac:
[Cornell, Missouri S&T, Florida, Toronto, Cincinnati, and Toledo. I think if you gave some of those teams 6 months to nearly a year of extra time to tune their cars and more importantly, get ready for the static events, the top five could look a little different.

I'd like to mention that Toronto is technically "foreign"....

[JamesWolak]

Just to comment on the TU Graz budget debate. If i were to throw $300,000 at my team this year we would still finish 3 days before MIS and get owned in design. Money won't fix all your problems.


So whats the word on UTA? I heard rumors they switched to hybrid?!? I might too after what happened to them in autocross last year.

[Mike Macie]

Originally posted by JamesWolak:
So whats the word on UTA? I heard rumors they switched to hybrid?!? I might too after what happened to them in autocross last year.

UTA is registered for West. I doubt it would be because of last year since West is run by the same people

[Kevlar]

Originally posted by Thomas Müller-Werth:
@michael:
I think it would have been better to wait 20 minutes before the endurance start to have a fair race.

Postponing the race 20 minutes still wouldn't have made it a "fair" race. Try being in the morning run group. I was one of the two Duke drivers for AutoX/Endurance. Due to a mechanical issue, we weren't able to run autox until it had begun to rain. We still placed 40th in autox. This put us as the 5th car off in the morning, running with teams that put down the same autox times in the dry as we ran in the wet.

After AutoX, we spoke with one of the event captains about a stipulation in the rules stating that "Based on the results of all dynamic events, and considering the operating conditions under which they were run, the endurance event captain may, at his sole discretion, move teams to different positions within the starting order." Having already placed 7th in acceleration and 15th in skidpad, we thought it was pretty obvious that we should run in the afternoon run group. Apparently the event coordinators didn't agree, or perhaps didn't have precedent to implement that rule, so we were forced to run in the damp morning conditions with teams running 30 seconds or more slower per lap (sorry, Navy). We still managed to place 13th in endurance, and 11th overall, which were both records for Duke, so I can't be too disappointed, but it's bittersweet because we know we would have done much better had we been allowed to run with similar-pace cars.

I hope the event organizers reexamine the inclement-weather policies for next year.

[Pete Marsh]

Congratulations to TUG on their win! Another awsome car it seems.
Also RIT and ETS looking very competitive and with a little more test and development time, surely hopefull of turning the tables on the European teams in Germany.

You must consider that the car TUG (and UAS ??) brought to MIS, and the teams running them, have the experience and knowlage from a couple of comps prior to MIS. I think this is the real reason for the apparent high performance of the foreign teams, nothing to do with budget. I believe this was the reason for the existance of VIR, so more local teams could be on their second comp at MIS.

At the German comp most of the top teams will be on their second comp with the car. This will make for a much more even comp than MIS and I for one am not ready to concead to anyone just yet, no matter how good their dyno is!

I have a little knowledge of Stutgart's team structure, training and succession. Its very impressive. Imagine your strongest team member, that has 4 years team experience, each on a different section of the car/team and has done few comps and static events. Well thats half their team, and the other half will be there next year. Its a very slick outfit, they could have brought a Baja car to Aus and still kicked butt! I suspect Stutgart are not unique within Europe, maybe this is even common, and UWAM for one, and I suspect many, many other teams would do well to try and see how they have achieved this team support and strength, and try to get some of it. Even from and educational standpoint, these teams are producing a lot of strong graduate engineers.

UWA has a template compliant car and is going to Germany this year as our Internation comp. We think we have a shot despite the fuel economy and autocross points changes. Time will tell.

What happened to Cincinatti and Florida? Did Oakland finish enduro?

Pete

[Zac]

There goes Pete with his logic and wisdom again...when you get to Luxembourg tell the guys in the lab I said hi.

I'm not sure about Florida, but Cincinatti was taken out of endurance by a 10 cent part failure. They had a pretty interesting suspension setup, they were running front and rear monoshocks and roll dampers that ran the full length of the car. I don't know that they ever got it dialed in(to me it looked like the spool they were running gave them a lot of issues), but I think the car had a ton of potential.

[D Collins Jr]

James: UTA is still doing FSAE (I doubt Dr. Bob would ever stop doing FSAE as a matter of fact). You're thinking of Texas A&M - College Station, who transformed their FSAE program to a Hybrid program after last season.

Kevlar: That's a very tough break. That's a very significant burden on the organizer's, and one I wouldn't want to undertake, but just for the record, I have seen them change the run order for endurance. But be very proud of your performance! I'm quite impressed!

I think it's interesting to combine Pete and James's thoughts to realize how critical organization is to excellence. Congratulations to Graz (both schools, actually. They've been to the US every year that I've been around, and done quite well. An impressive feat).