GTMS at FSAE 2007

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Twenty years ago, in 1987, Paul Allen led the GT Motorsports team to its first FSAE competition. Car 66 placed 12th in a field of 24 cars at that event. This past week, GT Motorspors took its 15th car to the FSAE competition with car 24. In many ways, this year's team was equally as inexperienced as Paul's team, with the result that they finished 70th out of a field of 103 cars. From my 15 years' experience as their Faculty Advisor, that finish does not reflect the strength and quality of this year's team.

Over the past 20 years, GTMS has competed in 18 events in North America and 4 events abroad. The team has placed has high as 2nd in the North American event in 1990, out of a field of 23 cars; more recent top finishes include 3rd and 4th place finishes in 2002 and 2003 respectively, out of fields of over 100 cars. The team has won three of the overseas events, twice in the UK and once in Australia. Over the course of this past event I saw a GTMS team in action that demonstrated all of the potential that was evident in the team before our last climb into the upper echelons of the field, in the early part of this decade.

The Formula SAE competition comprises a blend of static and dynamic events, intended to challenge both the student's knowledge of their car's design, and, to challenge the performance and ruggedness of the car itself. The static events include a business presentation (GTMS placed 19th in this event, its highest placement), a design review, and a cost-to-manufacture evaluation. The dynamic events include a skid pad test of the lateral acceleration of the car, a sprint test of the straight-line acceleration of the car, an autocross event to test the dynamic capabilities of the car in terms of handling, and the all-important endurance event to test the reliability and overall performance of the car, including fuel economy.

The team's major challenge this year was personnel. Over the past few years the team had lost quite a bit of experience, and recruitments had yielded a team heavy on freshmen, sophomores leavened with a scattering of juniors. Some late year additions to the team added a few mature senior students who filled some critical roles most admirably. This year's team set their main goal as completing all events, including endurance. For a "near rookie" team, such is a significant accomplishment (admittedly, they were a very well resourced rookie team, with excellent support from the school, sponsors, and alumni. These are resources that most rookie teams lack).

The team did, indeed, finish all events. But, the lack of experience on the team had led to a very slow fabrication process for the car, such that it wasn't driving-ready until just before the team left for the competition. There wasn't time to find and fix any faults with the car prior to departure; they had to be found and rectified while also attempting to complete the competition. Past GTMS teams that have had time to develop and prove the car in Atlanta have been our top performers; this year's finish was cast by the late completion of the car. Nonetheless, the team rose to the challenge they'd set for themselves, and worked with excellent cooperation and dedication to achieve their goal of completing all events. Over the course of the effort, they had to fix two broken drive chains, a major oil leak from the engine (and I mean MAJOR), a leaking fuel system, electrical faults in the shift system and main power system, and a faulty spindle that unless fixed, would have led to the loss of a wheel while driving. Under extreme time pressures, they identified the problems, developed effective solutions, implemented them, and moved on to the next task. It was a pleasure to watch them in action. But, the time spent fixing the problems stood in the way of time on the practice track, and that consequence was reflected in our showing in the dynamic events.

Despite the adversity, in the end, they did indeed complete the all important endurance event. Car 24 hadn't even driven once in Atlanta and yet it drove for 22 laps (roughly 20 km) without breakdown or leaks. Now, that might not sound like much, but remember that these are high-performance, student-built vehicles. Of 92 teams that attempted the endurance event, only 39 finished. GTMS was one of those that finished, whereas other powerhouse teams such as Cornell and UTA did not. And, if we had consumed but 7 ounces less fuel, we would have placed over 30 positions higher. I've attached an image of a very happy team holding up their accomplishment (you'll understand what that means once you view the image).

At the end of it all, the top five schools were:
1 University of Wisconsin, Madison
2 University of Western Australia
3 Technical University of Graz, Austria
4 University of Cincinnati
5 University of Toronto

In addition to the host of teams from United States schools, teams from Canada, Japan, Venezuela, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Finland, Austria, Mexico, and Australia participated in this year's event.

Attendees at this year's event were: Kyle Barbour, Rob Butler, Drew Cattell, Jon Conley, Brad Davis, Carl Feather, Robin Fernandez, Miles Henslee, Brian Johnson, Sajit Jumani, Tom Kwasniak, Jo McHenry, Matt Parsons, Cliff Peppers, Damon Pipenberg, Jack Poole, Shaun Ramkumar, and Brian Sharrow. Many other team members contributed throughout the year.

I am extremely proud of this year's team, and very encouraged for the coming year. Various sponsor representatives who observed the team in action were impressed. Most of this year's team will return for next year's competition, and that carry-forward of experience is invaluable. Indeed, we already have out team leader in place for next year, Miles Henslee, and our Chief Engineer, Matt Parsons. The team is already setting goals and priorities for the car and their organization, and understand that next year's race is already underway. Stay tuned, folks, I think we're heading back up.

The team and I would like to thank all of our sponsors and supporters. Without them we would not have even had the chance of competing.

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