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Written by Thomas Vogel
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Friday, 27 June 2008 20:13 |
We woke up today at 6:30 AM as usual at an FSAE competition and made our way to the track. When we got there, we prepped the car for our first acceleration run. We decided to go to the acceleration, get Kris to do his runs, then move on to the Skidpad event, tune the suspension, and return to the acceleration with Jon at the wheel. Kris went out and set our first time, 5.865 second… not very good. Kris' second run was bound to be better. Everyone was expecting a time of low 4 second…
Kris lined up his car the starting line; rev'd up the engine once or twice and was off!! But the excitement was short lived, as the half shaft tore apart… we were on our way to the paddock, I ran as fast I could to the information booth to pass a message to other teams that we were in need of a half shaft for a torson differential.
We were able to fix the problem by using another half shaft, but unfortunately it was too late to improve our time for acceleration and to score any points in skidpad… Overall, we scored 39th in acceleration with 3.5 points. During the repair we learned that we had placed 18th in the Sales Presentation and 8th in Cost… After talking to the judges, we could have been 4th if we hadn't been too honest on a part…
After finally repairing the car and regaining confidence, we were off for the Autocross event. Jeff was to be at the wheel for the two first laps, who then would give way to Sean. Jeff made two fast laps, one of 54 sec, and the other 55. The 55 second lap earned a penalty of 2 seconds, as Jeff had struck a cone. Sean adjusted the brake bias, as Jeff had locked up the wheel during his second lap. Sean was then off, slow at first to learn the track, and then faster… hitting the slalom, the rear left brake disc shattered, leaving 2 pieces of brake onto the track. We had an extra disc and sported the car with them. Further inspection of the brake assembly revealed a failure in a wheel stud. Kris worked on fixing them and it was time to go home… Hopefully tomorrow will be a good day… We finished 23rd in autocross, which sets us back compared to our standing after the static events… If we can finish endurance, big points can be gained… Tomorrow will only tell…
Until next time, we hope to have more good news… |
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Last Updated on Saturday, 28 June 2008 13:47 |
