Who is driving??? [Archive]

ANDONI

03-23-2003, 08:44 PM

Hey guys...

I was just wondering how many of you out there are already testing their car???

Where do you practice?? School?? Parking lots?? During the day, weekends or at night??

Thanks..

see you soon........

Andoni Mazeika
www.formulasaeusb.com (http://www.formulasaeusb.com)

ANDONI

03-23-2003, 08:44 PM

Lyn Labahn UW-Madison

03-23-2003, 11:45 PM

Andoni,

Well there has been a little bit of drama for us this year. We had our parking lot that we used for many years taken away so that it could be used for permit parking at our nearby hospital. We searched all year for a spot to drive, and had very little luck. Our school is located in an area that is has very scarce parking, and any businesses in the outlying areas around the city denied our requests because of insurance issues and noise.

It was also very difficult to find parking lots without curbs all over the place, because few businesses go for the "asphalt wasteland" look anymore, they put shrubs and the like all over to make it look presentable. At the 11th hour we found a place 30 minutes outside of Madison. It is former Dana factory in a sleepy town. The lot is a little rough, and has tons of pebbles on it, but we can drive there 24/7. The only pain is that is a drive to get there.

If you want to seem some brief testing vids, check out my thread below. Hope to see you guys in Detroit this Spring!

2002/2003 Team Leader
Best overall average finish of the new millenium http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Michael Jones

03-24-2003, 11:10 PM

We have similar issues in Ithaca. Small town, little industrial base, spotty access to campus parking lots that changes based on factors outside our control, and a half-hour drive away from nowhere in particular. Coupled with the weather, it's amazing we drive at all.

But we do. Most weekday driving is acceleration since we have a nice road for that in a very isolated part of campus next to the school orchards and a dumping ground for unused library materials. No one ever goes down the road after 5pm, so it's ours.

Skidpad we can usually do Fridays when people clear out early.

Auto-x we can do 20-30s courses fine on weekend days, usually. This is constrained by noise complaints in a weird little upscale enclave that dislikes noise, the Vet school, who requests we stop when they unload sick horses for the safety of the workers (sick horses hate racecars) and potentially parking rezoning that may send cars intending to park at our West Campus (currently under renovation) to the Vet school, the furthest east point on campus and a good 20 minute walk away. They get to pay $50/mo for that. :-)

The 2003 car has been out pretty regular regardless. Two or three decent weekend driving days so far, quite a few not so fun cold days. I've driven skidpad in 9F (-13C) weather in the past. Painful, and frozen rubber sticks to pavement like eggs to a Teflon frying pan.

Where there's a will there's a way...but lot access and weather is something we definitely have to plan around. A good reason why the car is done so early.

---
Cornell Racing
http://fsae.mae.cornell.edu

Pavan Dendi

03-27-2003, 10:05 AM

I am very happy to announce that the UT Austin car was completed recently. We went to test it for the first time Monday evening and had excellent results. The car turned out to have natural neutral steering and sticks very well with the new Hoosiers.

As for testing locations, I guess we are very fortunate as we have a place to test 24/7 365. During the day, we use an old airport parking lot and when it gets dark we are allowed to use a parking lot on one of the campuses. Look for a video on the UT FSAE website soon of our early testing.

*edit* http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_razz.gif I guess it would help if I gave out the url: http://www.me.utexas.edu/~fsae/ *edit*