This is Part 10 of a series written by guest writer Ricky Nietubicz on his experience on the Formula SAE team at the University of Delaware. FSAE is a competition where students design, build, and compete with small formula-style racing cars. Ricky was President of his FSAE club, and his team went to the Nationals in Detroit during the 2006-2007 season.
So now you have a team, and you’ve put together a car, submitted the reports and other forms, and you’re getting the final testing and tuning done, and you’re all set to go to competition. Not so fast there, buddy, lets make sure your car is usable in competition. Ideally you won’t need to change anything, but nothing ever works out ideally. So, hope for as few changes, and changes that are as small in nature, as possible.
Like any racing series, FSAE has rules. Pages and pages of wonderful rules. The 2008 Rules document is a 118-page .pdf, available here. Thankfully, SAE is kind enough to also provide a 1-page “Rules Change Summary” that points you toward the rules that have changed in big and important ways, and it is available here. Now, one shouldn’t have to say this, but remember to read the rules. Carefully, and more than once. As an added safety measure, more than one person on the team should be sure to read the document, as the same series of words can be interpreted very different ways in many circumstances.
Rule changes can have great impacts on what you can do. Since most teams don’t start building a car in September and finish it in April, most likely there will be rule changes in mid-stream, that could have major or minor impacts on your design. Our team was behind the 8-ball more than once due to rule changes, because our car took several years to get to the Detroit competition. Lots of things changed over the years, requiring extensive retrofitting to the car. Read the rest of this entry »
