2011 FSAE-A Competition Day 8

Day 7 which is technically day 4 of competition, is endurance day where the cars are tested to there maximum with two heats of two drivers completing 16 laps each as well as a drivers change. The endurance event is the highest scoring event with 300 pts on offer. Fuel economy is also run at the same time which is worth 125pts so all up there are 425pts on offer.

6:15am Wake Up

Today is the big day for a number of reasons, firstly for the second year in a row we are aiming to complete all events at competition. Secondly we are aiming to finish top ten this year which means that we need to finish enduro and actually score points this time. As last year while we finished the endurance event, due to the number of cones we hit plus going off track quite a few times meant that we had nearly 4 minutes in time penalties added onto our time which put us over time.

The team got up and the drivers were the first out the door and on there way to the track for drivers briefing and last minute checks of the car.

9:30am Practice Track

Wes and Dave are our first drivers in as they are generally quicker and hit less cones, we had a quick shake down of the car in the practice track. Unfortunately it had begun to rain, so fingers were crossed that the weather wasn't going to get any worse. We then went and fueled up with a bit of confusion over whether the driver needed to  be fully suited up or not meant that we were bumped back down the queue. UWA, Monash and ECU had just finished there first endurance, as our drivers were off watching the endurance we had to borrow ECU's driver to fuel up.

After we fuel up we quickly moved to join the queue, for endurance the run order is set by the order of finish in autocross so those that finished first start first etc, and if you miss your spot than you have to go to the back of the queue and you also get a two minute time penalty. In the mean time the weather had gotten worse and they had declared a damp track and then very quickly a wet track and then back to damp so we had to do a very quick wheel change from slicks to wets. Under the rules if the track is declared damp by the clerk of course then you have the choice of running either wet tyres or slicks, if the track is declared wet then you have to run with wet tyres. Due to the extremely wet conditions we decided to change to wets.

While waiting in the queue the weather had cleared up, and the track was starting to dry up from looking at the weather there was a 45 minute window until the next lot of rain was due to come in so we made the decision to switch to slicks, which turned out to be a very good decision.

11:00am Endurance Heat 1

Wes was the first driver and took off in a hurry due to it still being wet was a little slow, however he started to reduce lap times very quickly while only hitting a few cones to produce the fastest lap on lap 13 of 58secs which was very quick especially considering the conditions. We were over taking the guys out on the track, and overall the commentators were very impressed with our car.

Driver change over went very smoothly, with Stockton helping Wes out of the car and Dave into the car, and Dave was ready to start his stint. Dave took off and started off little bit hesitantly however he was very quickly settled into a routine and was driving very quick for the conditions. Luckily the rain held off and Dave successfully completed all of his laps, meaning that for the second year in a row we have finished all events at competition, which is a huge achievement. As well they hit very few cones so in theory we stand a good chance of getting some good points, however this year there are so many teams that are competing in endurance event its going to be very difficult to get a good placing.

After we finished the race, we headed over to refuel when Dan went off to get lunch today which is subway. After we got back to the pits we got the car up on the stand and conducted a quick spanner check and fluid system check to ensure that the car is still safe to drive while our drivers go off to analyse Go Pro footage and DL1 data.

In the meantime design results were released and we had come 13th with 105pts, while ECU won the event well done guys! and with UWA a couple of places below us.

2:00pm Endurance Heat 2

Endurance heat 2 started with Stockton and Penna our drivers, the track had dried out a far bit so the drivers should have a good shot of getting some good times. Penna started off and was a bit slow but had also never driven on the track, as he drove further he got more familiar with the track and got faster.

After a quick driver change over with Stockton getting in the car and started off quite well very aggressively.

Once stockton had finished we refueled and then set about cleaning up the pit bay and getting all the equipment back to our accomodation.

Once we had gotten all the equipment back to our accomodation we had our team photo as well as the Western Australian team photo.

6:00pm Award Ceremony

After which we headed off back to the accommodation and to get ready for the after party which this year has been once again organised by RMIT at the Colonial Hotel.

9:00pm Results

At 9:00pm when the team was at the Colonial Hotel the results were released, we had gotten 8th place overall with 477 pts, achieving a goal of finishing top ten.

A huge thankyou to everyone who has helped us this year as well as our sponsors and supporters it has been truely appreciated.