Each leader carried a binder full of calculations, graphs and data from the development and testing of their subsystems to help illustrate their concepts. The leaders all did a great job of presenting and the judges seemed impressed by the breadth of knowledge they demonstrated.  One thing that makes the Vehicle Design program at WWU so unique is that students get the opportunity to learn about every aspect of the modern car; from suspension and chassis design to engine design and electronics, and this knowledge showed in the presentations.

The last event of the day was the sales presentation, where a couple members of the team pitch a comprehensive business plan for the production of our vehicle to a panel of judges representing the executives of a mock manufacturing firm. The team has to convince the judges that the car meets the demands of the amateur, weekend, autocross/Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) Solo II racing market and that the car could be produced in such a way that would make a significant profit. It was quite a challenge for engineering students James Wright and Axel Schmidt to research the complex business and marketing concepts necessary to develop their presentation.  Nevertheless, the presenters did a great job and we have a great starting point in our preparation for next year’s event.  The sales event concluded our first day at Formula SAE Detroit, but the most important two were still to come.

Friday was the start of the dynamic events, which include acceleration, skid-pad, autocross and endurance. Acceleration and skid-pad were to take place that morning, with autocross in the afternoon and endurance on Saturday. Friday morning was cool but sunny, and the track temperature was rising quickly, so we decided to run acceleration first and skid-pad second.  The acceleration is a 75 meter sprint that takes 4 to 5 seconds for most teams, the equivalent of a 0-60 mph time around 3.5 seconds.  Drivers Billy Rahr and Trever McDermott both put down good times but we could quickly see the advantage of a well-tuned traction control system as they fought wheelspin in the first two gears. The skid-pad event is used to measure cornering traction, and consists of a timed lap around a pair of 50 ft circles linked like a figure 8.  Driving at the tractive limit, drivers Kyle Donohue and Adam Baxter posted good times with a lateral acceleration of about 1.3 g. We knew the car was capable of more but was not until the afternoon autocross event that we realized what we had done wrong.

Having never driven the car in such warm conditions or on such a sticky surface, we did not know how long the tires would last.  With only one set of new Hoosier tires, we had decided to keep 4-month old tires used for testing on the car and save the new set for the 22 km endurance race.  But after the disappointing skid-pad times, we decided to mount the new set of tires and see what they could do for the afternoon’s autocross.

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