Race Cars and Motorsports

Thought you guys might be curious to see a couple snapshots from Formula SAE Lincoln.

If you're not familiar, Formula SAE is an international collegiate design competition. Teams of students from all over the world build one-off prototype racecars powered by 600cc engines, then bring them together and race them. It started as a once-a-year / one-venue deal, but now it has spread and there are annual Formula SAE (a.k.a. "Formula Student") competitions in England, Europe, Asia, and South America. There are two North American contests: one was held in Michigan in May (120 teams entered) and one held in Lincoln Nebraska in June (80 teams entered). In both cases, there are eight specific parts of the competition: Society of Automotive Engineering manages static/judged events ("design", "presentation", and "cost") whereas Sports Car Club of America manages the dynamic/performance events (an autocross, an extended endurance test, a skid pad test, an acceleration run, and a fuel economy test.)

In theory, the students have been challenged to design and build a prototype of a car that's intended for 1000/unit serial production and ultimately intended for sale to amateur racers for a spec-series racing class. Many years ago, that concept flew out the window and now most of the top teams pay virtually no attention at all to design-for-manufacture, for cost control, for ease of service, or even for durability. Typically, about two-thirds of the cars can't survive a thirty minute perfectly-smooth-and-flat-surface "endurance" event without breaking. The "cost" part of the competition is a complete joke and no one who matters seems remotely interested in reforming it. One obvious result being that well funded teams have a huge advantage over clever and hard-working but poorer teams. The rules were updated for this year, but in a way that seems deliberately calculated to emasculate the cost event even further.

But for folks like you and I who love to see bleeding-edge technology thrown around without regard to cost, all is peachy. Woo hoo - miniature Formula One cars!

Without further ado, I present a particularly splendid example,

University of Texas at Arlington's 2012 Formula SAE racecar:


Sprint car wings have long been outlawed in Formula SAE. Most of the top teams therefore run these...


A really silly use of carbon fiber. (Incidentally, they're really proud of the two-part clutch/shifter assembly you can see in the background here.)


Engine displacement can be up to 600cc, but all air must be drawn through a small single round restrictor plate... hence, a converging/diverging nozzle is called for. Is that a home-made guillotine-type throttle body? I wonder what they use for a throttle position sensor. These cars are fascinating.


A really smart use of carbon fiber

Incidentally, this team did quite well. They finished second-place overall, seventh in the autocross event, and third in the endurance event. In the cost event they tied for 23rd place with a team whose car would cost $7200 less to make. (Did I mention that the cost event rules have been emasculated... teams can now score mega bonus points by simply explaining how one small aspect of their car might have designed in the first place to be a modest 15% cheaper to manufacture.)

Congratulations are due to the University of Kansas, Lawrence! - overall winner. Second place in the autocross. First place in the endurance event.

I had to leave Lincoln early, so I regret that I didn't get to see the cars actually race. I was keen to take more photos too. Of the cars I saw, I think the Rochester Institute of Technology was probably the niftiest looking - it weighed in at just 330 pounds - which I thought was pretty impressive. (It only completed one of the five dynamic events though.) I see in the results sheet that the University of Alberta's car only weighed 303 pounds... Amazing! For comparison, UTA's car (above) weighed 419# and University of Kansas - Lawrence's car weighed 464#.