We have completed the competition and have been awarded a third place finish out of a total of 19 full hybrid cars. Considering this is our first year at competition and the fact that the first and second place finishers had excellent drivers we are extremely pleased with our place. We really could not have asked for more!! I still can't stop smiling!
I posted some more pictures to the gallery from the endurance event.
Matt
After the stressful technical inspections on Monday and Tuesday we did quite well today and breezed through the rest of our inspections and then completed our acceleration and autocross events with respectable times. The official times have not been posted yet, but its looking like we should be in the top 5 out of around 23 schools. Considering this is our first year we are very pleased and our data logging system is already providing us with extremely valuable data for optimizing our system for next year.
The fastest track time on autocross was about 41 seconds and ours was 47 seconds. The fastest times were set by the Italian team and Texas A&M. There were probably 3 to 4 schools ahead of us in that gap. Unfortunately, I got a little hot on the throttle and spun out on my second run, but Ace (our other driver) kept the car in control and secured the 47 second lap time. We feel like our car could have performed significantly better, but with our limited driving experience we did our best.
I'll post some pics here, but check the gallery too for other pictures and videos.
Matt
The second evening at the track
Getting ready for our acceleration runs
Ace finishing his first run in autocross
Well, competition has been quite busy and tiring so far. We finally passed through both the mechanical and electrical technical inspections at about 5 pm today.
The electrical inspection went quite smoothly thanks mostly to the great design that Justin has done for us. The wiring was extremely well isolated and tidy making this inspection a breeze.
Mechanical inspection, on the other hand took us a while to get through. Unfortunately, the shoulder harness mounting bar was not up to spec with new rules so we had to weld in some tubes. This was difficult because of the lack of proper equipment. Fortunately, the other teams have been so great in sharing their tools allowing for us to finish this up.
Tomorrow we will need to finish up the tilt test and noise test and then we will be fully through the inspections. After that the racing will begin. First are the acceleration and brake events and then later in the day will be the autocross race.
Check out some new photos from comp!
Just setting up in the NASCAR garages
The three Cali teams!
Look at all the other schools
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