Vacation Time!

Tuesday four of us rented a car for our biking trip. The least expensive vehicle we could find which would fit us all was a focus wagon, 220€ for the 4 days. Over here not every car comes with GPS like the Hertz cars in the states so for an additional 18$ we upgraded to GPS, which in turn upgraded us to a Mercedes C Class diesel wagon which was around 400€ for the same rental period but we paid in total 235€ for it. Woot! Time to hit up the autobahn in style! 600 km later we were in Winterberg, Germany at the bike park.

Unfortunately the "campground" was going to cost 28€ for the four of us so we headed out to find a fire road. We found one and ended up doing some pretty good offroading in the mercedes wagon to get to a place to sleep. Allright, dirtbagging it in a mercedes for the next 3 nights.

Wednesday was the first day of mountainbiking. Compared to Whistler, or any other bike park I've seen, the prices are cheap. It was 39€/day for a FR bike rental, 25€ for the pass, 8€ for the helmet, and 6€ for the pads. All in all we spent ~160€ for two days of riding, it was pretty sweet. More later, time to leave for Zurich.

SUNDAY

We woke up today, most of us still drunk, and packed up the truck. After leaving we stopped at an Abbey in Melk, Austria which was ~15 minutes from the race track. Pictures cannot describe how amazingly ornate it was...just wow. After leaving that I could not help but smile thinking about how much fun that competition was, I enjoyed it more than Hockenheim which was a blast and way more interesting that FSAE West in California. I cannot wait for the next few days as I will be mountain biking with 3 of my teammates, unfortunately not in the Alps, but we will be hiking there on sunday. Unfortunately I only have one more week here, as much fun as it has been I also can't wait to get back to eugene and hang our with friends, ride bikes, and work on my BMW '02 & Georges '02 for the next month until school starts.

MONDAY

Spent a lot of time unpacking the truck and organizing the BA's shop. Did some laundry, which is insanely expensive costing 4.50€ for one load of wash and 5-6€ for the dryer. Meandered around Friedrickshafen for a while and now it's time to pack for tomorrow's trip, we'll see just how fast our rental car can hit on the Autobahn.

FRIDAY
Today was the start of dynamic events, aka skid pad and acceleration. We didn't do as well as we had hoped in skid pad and our accel times were about 0.1 seconds slower than usual so we ended up 6th instead of 3rd. One of teh tricks in skidpad is to heat the tires up fast so you have more traction on your second lap. Most teams do this by burning out right before and at the start line, for us it's not as much of an issuse because we run smaller tires than most teams(10" rim instead of 13"). UAS Munchen got a little over zealous and took out the timing display their second time out. Again there was a lot of waiting around.

After all the events there was a group panoramic photo take and to prove how light our car is 6 of us held it as shoulder level with a driver in it...for 5 minutes. All of the other teams had the "whoa..." look on their face.

I went for another run, shorer this time as the sun was setting. Wow, running through little Austrian towns and fields of corn as the sun sets is very calming. I even came across an idyllic green field with a lone oak tree in the middle, bordered by a corn field on one side and a forest on the other.

SATURDAY
Autocross and endurance, worth 550 of the 1000 points were today. We ran late in the pack in Autocross and ended up posting the fastest lap time by over a second! Endurance starting position is based off autocross lap time witht eh fastest teams going last. Since we had a long break, noon-5pm, between driving I decided to go on a run and what a run it was. I intended on just running to the top of this hill and back, about 9k, but I got carried away when I reached the top. I ended up running 16-20k, far and away the longest run I have ever done. I was goine for about 1:45 and dead tired when I finally finished.

Our host school was second in autocross so at the end of endurance it was just us and them out on the course. Both of our drivers did a very good job and we ended up winning endurance by a large margin once fuel efficiency was factored in.

The award ceremony was after a catered dinner and we ended up cleaning house with the awards and for the first time OSU won a formula event! We actually owned with 918/1000 and the next closest team had 775. There was champagne and lots of fun at the post award ceremony party, I think the pictures speak for themselves...

Win...

It's been a while since FSG, we just finished FSA yesterday, so here's a rundown of the last week. wednesdayWe left for FSA and the drinking started early with the 8:30am stop at the grocery store to buy breakfast...and beer. I was not in the "party van" which ended up being a good thing, as I was sober when we arrived and I got some sleep in the van. In Germany it is legal to have one less open beer than the number of occupants in the vehicle aka everyone but the driver is allowed to drink while the car is moving. The "party van" took that to the extreme and they all got really drunk which made for a few interesting pit stops on the 600km drive. There were a few incidents at the McDonalds, unfortunately we did stop there however I had enough food and avoided buying anything, and then we were back on the road. Eventually we arrived and the first thing that happened was the party vans doors sprung open and 3 guys ran off into the corn field for another pit stop.

The camp ground was across the street from the track so it took less than a minute to walk from the pits to the camp site. The track itself was awesome. It had elevation changes, sprinklers to wet the track, many different configurations, and a rain driving instruction area which was a bunch of fountains so people could hydroplane the cars for drivers ed practice. The whole track is laid out on maybe 10 acres and also includes a karting track and a dirt pit for rally practice. There was a Mitsubishi Evo 6 or 7 out on the track practicing wet weather tarmac rally and drifting skills.

THURSDAY

Today was the static events day where we had to have the sound level of the exhaust checked, the car put on a tilt table, weight, brake test, and tech inspection. We also had our marketing and design presentations. It started out very slow as we did not get a number for tech and that was the first thing every car has to do. Eventually we got the tech judges over to our tent and it ended up being the fastest tech ever, about 20 minutes instead of the usual 2-4 hours.

I went for my first run in Austria that morning, up into the hills. It is a very nice place and I wish I had my road bike to explore the area more.

The party that night started around 8pm and we decided the Germans and others, most of the teams were from Germany, needed to learn flip cup and beer pong. We had the largest game of flip cup I have ever seen with 22-23 people per side at the games peak, it went on for a good 3 hours with rotating people.

Fail...

Saturday evening after everything was done I was on my way back to the camp with 6 others when one of the german students told us he heard we could get on the roof of the mercedes building right by the pits. We decided to give it a shot figuring the doors to the roof would be locked, we were wrong. The view from up there was amazing, I would have loved to watch some of the cars practicing on the track from up there. Well as it turns out we were not supposed to be up there and not 15 minutes later security shows up. They take down our names, fortunately they didn't care about what teams we were from, I was only concerned about having this not affect our team in any way. Instead the head guy decided to think up a penalty which ended up being for us to clean up a few oil spills in front of the pits.

I ended up partying that night with a few guys from a california school. We ended up at TU Wien's camping spot where they had cold pils on tap and a live band, it was really sweet.

Sunday was the final event, endurance, worth 325 of the 1000 points. The day was supposed to be overcast with rain, rain was what we were hoping for as our car being much lighter and with lower power is a lot faster than the heavy high HP cars. If it had rained we would have won no problem, however it didn't. That was the first unfortunate event. Our first driver out was doing well until he got passed by Stuttgart(the dominating team for the last few years), next lap he got a little carried away and hit two cones, finally he hit two more in the last few laps. A while later our second, and more experienced, driver came out. He was doing very well until he got passed by Helsinki, only to have them break down not 400 feet later. Their driver is a total asshole, after getting flagged to leave the course he coasted around until he was barely moving and finally left, causing us to add almost 25 seconds to our lap, and by that time Stuttgart had caught up and was allowed to pass us. Fuck that team, I hope their car fails catastrophically before FSG next year. Getting passed is terrible also, it adds a minimum of 10 seconds to your 55-60 second lap. Luck just happened to not be on our side that day as the next lap our muffler fell off and the officials pulled our car out of the event meaning we had just lost up to 325 points from our total score. We were one of two teams to not finish endurance who were pulled for things which didn't affect the car, everyone else, about 45 teams had a failure which imobilized their car. The other team was RIT, who beat us in california by 9 points. Two american teams, us and RIT didn't finish for somewhat BS reasons, the other two did finish but not on the podium. If us and RIT had not been pulled we would have been 2 and 3 on the podium, behind Stuttgart.

That was a major downer, to come all the way over here and do really well in autocross, second fastest lap by a significant margin, and have a small part fall off because we cant find any steel rivits.

After endurance, a bunch of the german students stole about 20 flags, each team had a national flag set up by the organizers above their pit. I ended up being given the swedish one which was awesome. The party that night was a lot of fun, although they ran out of beer by 12:45am and the party was supposed to go until 2am. We were each given a token for one glass which was filled and then exchanged when empty, so my goal was to get as many glasses as possible since we could keep them and they were nice 0.5L mugs. I ended up snagging 19, 7 of which were for other team members, it's funny I ended up with 12 as that was the unreasonable goal I set for myself. Now I have 14 total, one from the first night here and another pils glass from the night before. I am going to have a hard time bringing all those home.

Monday we packed up the truck in the rain and headed home. The car I was in went into Hockenheim only to learn their monday's are like our sunday's, nothing is open. Everyone in the car was tired so after food they went back to the car and napped while I walked around the town. I don't think it's worth driving to other than for the race track, but if you are near by I would definitely suggest just walking around it for an hour or two.

On the drive home we ended up getting a bit lost and then finding out the road we needed to take was closed. After buying a full size map we eventually found our way back home. Again I saw some sweet cars like a porsche turbo which blew by us doing probably 230 km/h.

Today we slept in and spent most of the day doing laundry as we had to walk 45 minutes to the laundry mat. Laundry is very expensive, I only had 5 things so I tossed them in with other people but most paid 10+ euros to wash and dry just one load! After spending about 5 hours there we walked down to the lake, ate and drank a bit, then walked home. Tomorrow at 8am we drive to Austria, about the 5 hours, maybe 6 if the traffic is bad, it's 600km. Unfortunately no time for photo's, maybe next week.

FSG Competition

We arrived Tuesday to learn that the members of our team who left early to get a good campsite fucked around and didn’t arrive until the last car, the one I was in which left 3 hours later. We didn’t get the campsite we wanted but I think the one we ended up with works better for our group, it’s large and we can be as loud as we want until as late as we want. We got everything set up and had a few beers, the germans brought 400 liters of beer just for us in addition to the hundred+ kegs which will be at the Mahle sponsored party on Sunday. On the trip over we were driving down the autobahn at 205 km/h for a while. Driving here is so nice, everyone knows what to do and follows the rules. I saw a Ferrari 430, Porsche Panamera, and a porsche turbo on the ride down.

Wednesday

Wake up late had lots of organizing and waiting In line to do to get our place, unfortunately we ended up 52nd, some teams had been camping out since Monday morning for their spot. There were a bunch of cars running the race track including an Alpina B6, a Audi R8, a few formula BMW cars, and a misc spattering of porsche’s and others, even a mini. The B6 had the most amazing sound coming from it's tailpipes and was faster than the formula BMW cars!(not the same thing as formula 1, much less power) There was a german car magazine testing out a M5, E 65 AMG, S6, and Jag XF R, later in the day it turned into a drift session...pretty sweet. I got my first look at german cars…wow, those teams have a lot of money, some have double deck semi trailers, deals with companies for testing prototype tires, engines, wheels, electronics, you name it… Some people went out to party with UAS Gratz, and to teach them American drinking games like flip cup and beer pong, they all were fairly hungover the next day and Robert showed up at the tent at 3:45 am plastered. It would have been a fun party to attend but I think it was a better idea to hold off until Sunday.

Thursday

Today I woke up late and went for a run around the perimeter of the Hockenheim track, probably 4.5 miles and I ran a little too late, around 10:30, I was sweating like none other after that run. It felt good for sure and hopefully I’ll get another lap or two in. Today the magazine had an exige, cayman, mini, focus rs, and something else to test out. Again there was some drifting attempts, mostly including failed attempts spinning into the grass and around on the track. I spent most of the time waiting around, taking pictures of other people's cars, and watching the magazine car test.

Friday

Early morning for design, business presentation, brake test, sound, tilt, and final inspection. It looked like the presentations went well but we ended up 26^th, I think the judges are biased towards 4cyl cars with aero and just don’t believe we know what we are doing even though we have the best vehicle dynamics guy in the world currently.

It took us 22 tries to pass brake test, next year we are NOT going to run the hope in the rear, probably the AP Racing or something similar. If the brake test was reasonable and was a stopping distance from a speed then we would be fine, the brake works great while driving, just not on baseless tests. That was the drama of the day, we had the brake line ferrule fail twice until we got a new one and are still running it, again, we will use a proper brake set up next year, hopefully I’ll be doing that, and no cast iron.

Started the official Girls of FSG folder, giggidy giggidy goo!

I’m getting lots of great ideas for the 2002 and our next years car, also for the 06 car if george and I can buy it. There is a BMW M3 GT4 car here and it has the coolest doors, all fiberglass or CF with lexan windows, they weigh nothing…, there is also the X5 4.4L twin turbo V8 here and the packaging is amazing, it’s just a fucking square block with the turbo’s hidden under the plastic cover.

Saturday

Today was the first dynamics events, acceleration, skid pad, and autocross. We did very well in everything but skid pad which we still did well, just not what we could have done. Today we officially went from a team no one knew to the most talked about team after coming in second to stutgart who has been winning consistently over the last 5 years, they have a 4cylinder engine with a lot more power and we were able to pull out a 54.307 just behind their 54.188. The next fastest was Delft who has been using the single cylinder for a long time now, they had 54.887. After that there was one 55.8something and a few low 56's but we really destroyed everyone today. Acceleration we ran 4.228 which beat Delft by .149 seconds and came in 8th, skid pad we were 17th maybe, it was good enough to keep us in contention for the podium but not that great overall. It was a long day and the party we ended up at was well deserved. Late to bed, early to rise. Endurance is tomorrow and we have to wake up at 6pm for no other reason than the drivers have a meeting and they think everyone needs to be awake. Since we were top 6 we will be running last in endurance tomorrow.

I'll post up pics when I have time after competition.

Boating in a car

Since I have yet to see another car in this position I thought I should post this pic, also it highlights our very clean undercarriage packaging. It's off to Hockenheim tomorrow for the competition so it may be a while until the next post. On the 1st we went out for our first day of testing. It was a good day for sure. We learned cast iron rotors, which is what everyone else uses because of the material's properties, don't work for our small brakes...they shatter in the first 15 seconds.

The rest of the day went well, our car was faster than the BA, the university hosting us, both with our fastest driver and their fastest driver in our car. Our driver had a bit of trouble keeping the back end in check even pulling a double doughnut around the pyramid of cones on. We broke the shifter arm also but were able to get it back together. On the way back I got to drive one of the BA student's 70's Opel Kadet, verz similar to the Datsun 510 and to my BMW 2002, except with a 55hp 1.2L engine...wasn't the fastest, still fun.

Sunday brings a strange German rule, apparently you can't drive a vehicle over 7k gross kilograms unless you are delivering food, so we had to transfer everything to a smaller transport truck. The weather was supposed to be bad, a change from the near 100 degrees of the day before. We got out and set everything up only to have the BA shear an axle shaft, they were done for the day and drove home. Once we got a few problems sorted it started to rain...hard. It sucked to be the drivers but we did get some valuable testing. Since we had never driven in the rain before we got to test out our modified rain tires and it turns out our drivers were only about 5% slower and hit 90% fewer cones making them significantly faster. It eventually stopped raining and started to dry out just as the police came and shut us down. Now, we had permission to drive there from 8am-6pm but Germans (according to the ones hosting us) like to complain and it was sunday afternoon. No biggie though, they were really nice about it.

Monday was another day of testing, this time out at an airfield instead of sponsor's parking lots. Both cars were having some trouble as always, the BA more than us after their radiator started leaking then a diff mount broke. It rained again and even though this course was much more open than the previous ones and over twice as long we were still posting 5-7 second faster times over a minute+ lap time. Unfortunately we can't get the proper honda oil over here and we destroyed the rod bearing and now have to drop our spare motor in. Although we have been faster on every track set up by the BA thus far, their car sounds amazing...just amazing. I almost want a 4cyl engine next year just for the sound, I'm not sure but I believe they don't have traction control and if they did the lap times would be closer for sure.