2nd place overall at FSG 2010!!

MRacing made the run up to the stage twice at last night's awards ceremony, once for winning the acceleration event and again for placing 2nd in the competition!! Both times we were jumping up and down singing "It's great to be a Michigan Wolverine!"

Business: 40th (54.44 points)
Cost: 48th (63.92 points)
Design: 5th (125 points)
Skidpad: 6th (59.96 points)
Acceleration: 1st (75 points)
Autocross: 3rd (96.78 points)
Endurance: 2nd (287.6 points)
Fuel Efficiency: 20th (55.18 points)
Overall: 2nd (814.89 points)

TU Delft took 1st place (866.56 points), and UAS Zwickau took 3rd (776.87 points)

The team will be returning to the States tomorrow.

Damage assessment: Our rear anti-roll bar broke during the endurance race and our .100" thick oil pan had all its material scraped off from bottoming out. The track had two sections where cars were being thrown into the air. Before the race we added a layer of JB-weld to the bottom of the oil pan for some added safety and that seems to have saved us. One more hit and the pan would have broke, and we would not have finished endurance!

The team would like to send a giant thank you to all our sponsors, family, and supporters for helping us get this far! Our success would not be possible without you!!

Endurance completed!!!

The final four of endurance was a fantastic race. Michael Mosburger drove for us first, consistently hitting times in the 49 second range. For the first half of the race we were the 2nd fastest car on the track behind TU Delft, laying down consistent 48 second laps. Global Formula Racing's car did not finish the race due to a brakes failure. Garrett drove the 2nd half, consistently turning 51 second laps. TU Delft's second driver continued to be in the 49's and they were very hard to catch. There were no problems at the driver change, and no problems with the car on track. The car is currently being measured for fuel consumption.

The entire day was taken up by the endurance racing and there are many spectacular highlights from today. Regensberg's car burst into flames while out on the course, and forunately the driver got out of the car quickly and the fire was extinguished. TU Graz suffered a suspension failure and did not finish. Stuttgart also did not finish due to a powertrain problem. 41 out of 76 teams finished the endurance race today.

TU Berlin's endurance came to a gut-wrenching end when their car repeatedly lost power and came to a stop in the middle of the track. They restarted it every time and would drive another lap before losing power again. Their driver limped the car like this for the last few laps until on the final turn, the car lost power again and they had to roll the last 20 feet at a snail's pace to cross the finish line. If the finish line had been 5 feet further they would not have made it.

The team is overwhelmingly happy and relieved with the completion of endurance. We are packing up our crates before the awards ceremony begins tonight. We still have no idea what the top 5 results are for each event, so we have to wait until the awards ceremony to find out the overall winner.

Skidpad and acceleration results released

6th in skidpad for 56.96 points

We believe we finished 1st in acceleration for 75 points, but the event officials are intentionally witholding the results of the top 5 in each event in order to make it a mystery who will win the competition overall.

Full results are posted at http://www.formulastudent.de/events/event-2010/results/

5 cars have completed endurance so far.

Many design judges have come by to look at our car today, as well as members from other teams. Engineers from Audisport are visiting our pit this morning as well so we are getting a lot of positive attention.

Competition Day 5: Endurance Race

The autocross scores are posted and MRacing is in the top 4 along with Global Formula Racing, TU Purin, and TU Delft. Today's endurance race will be run in the order of autocross times from slowest to fastest, so we will be one of the last cars on the course. We will likely be running around 4:30pm Germany time, but it depends on how quickly the event goes. Times for yesterday's skidpad and acceleration have not been posted yet.

The entire endurance race will be streamed live at http://formulastudent.tv

Our two endurance drivers, Garrett Huff and Michael Mosburger, are walking the course right now. It rained this morning and the track is still damp, but drying. Right now it is partly cloudy above the track and a chance of scattered showers is in the forecast so tire selection will be crucial today.

A brief summnary of how endurance works: The race is 22km long, 11km for each driver. No parts are allowed to fall off the car or drag on the ground and no fluids can leak. At the mid-race driver change, the car will be checked over by officials before being allowed to continue. There will be 4 cars on the track at a time, and passing can only occur at designated passing lanes. The 4 fastest cars from autocross will run together after all the other cars have finished. We are in this "fast four" group. Our fuel economy score will be calculated based on our fuel consumption during the race. The race is worth 325 points, and fuel economy is worth another 100 points.

48th in cost, currenly 2nd in autocross

We scored 63.92 out of 100 points in cost. This puts us at roughly a 20 point disadvantage to many of the other stronger teams, so we need to rely heavily on our dynamic event and engineering design scores.

Garrett Huff started off autocross with two runs in the 54 second range, putting us right in the middle of the quickest teams. Michael Mosburger was able to post a 53.043 and then a 52.539, both times fast enough for first place. However, Global Formula Racing has just answered back with a 52.453 so we are currently in 2nd place for autocross. TU Delft just ran a 52.561 with their first driver. TU Munich is right behind them with a 53.095. Both our drivers have taken their runs so now we are just waiting to see how quick everybody else is. ETS is having problems with shifting, not being able to hit 3rd gear. They can only drive in 2nd and 4th gear. Stuttgart has yet to run. Autocross is far from over so we are hoping to hold on to 2nd place.

The team ran autocross early so that we have adequate time to prepare for design finals which begin at 8pm.

Remember that you can watch the action live at http://formulastudent.tv/

Skidpad complete, sitting 1st in acceleration

Skidpad did not go as smoothly as planned. Katie Lapham's first run did not count, and her second run was in the 5.2s range. Sam Fowle's runs were in the 5.3's. This puts us in the middle of the pack for the skidpad event.

Sam drove first for acceleration, posting times in the 4.2's because of bogged launches. We made some changes to the launch control settings, and Katie was able to run a 4.004 and then a 3.975. This puts us in first place for acceleration with half an hour left before skidpad and acceleration close. TU Munich, TU Graz, and Global Formula Racing are the closest competitors, running in the mid 4.0's

After Katie's fastest run, members of MRacing who were spread out in the crowd of spectators cheered "Go Blue!" in unison.

The official times will be released later today.

Live streaming of dynamic events

To watch today and tomorrow's dynamic events live, go to http://formulastudent.tv/

Competition Day 4: Skidpad, Acceleration, Autocross

Dynamic events begin today with skidpad and acceleration open from 8:30AM - 1:00PM. Each event is worth 75 points.

The skidpad event tests the lateral (turning) speed of the car. The course is comprised of two tangent circles (like a figure-8) in which the car goes around one circle twice, and then switches to the other circle to turn the other direction twice. The average of the times it takes to go around each circle is taken. The acceleration event consists of a straight line track 75m long.

The team just finished up preparing the car. We will be heading to skidpad first, then acceleration. Today's acceleration event should be very exciting. We won the event at MIS with a 3.766s time a few months ago but TU Munich posted a 3.751s time at FS Silverstone. The surface at Silverstone is notoriously fast, so it should be a neck and neck race between MRacing and TU Munich now that we are on the same surface.

Autocross will be from 3:00PM - 8:00PM. The course is a one-lap sprint containing turns in both directions ranging from high speed sweepers, slaloms, to tight hairpins. The result of this event is very important because it is worth 100 points, and it determines the running order for tomorrow's endurance race. We need to place very high in this event so that we will not be blocked by slower cars during endurance.

An update on other teams: Wisconsin suffered a turbocharger failure in the test drive area yesterday and had to swap their spare on. The nut holding the compressor wheel loosened, allowing the wheel to crash into the housing. TU Graz was at the engine test area all yesterday afternoon due to engine difficulties. As of this morning they are still trying to solve the problem.

Photos taken by event photographers can be found at http://www.formulastudent.de/events/event-2010/gallery/

Competition Day 3: Business Presentation, Cost Analysis, Engineering Design

Today we completed the Business Presentation in the morning followed by the Cost Analysis and Engineering Design events in the afternoon.

We scored 54.44 points out of 75 points for our Business Presentation.

We are still waiting for the result of the Cost Analysis.

After Engineering Design, we were selected for Engineering Design finals along with Stuttgart, TU Munich,TU Graz, Ravensburg DHBW, Karlsruhe IT, UAS Wiesbaden, and UAS Zwickau. The design final is going to be held on Saturday night,and all group leaders are doing their best to prepare themselves for it. This is very promising for our overall outcome because Engineering Design is worth 150 points, and we have secured ourselves a spot among the top 8 in the event!

Competition Day 2: Scrutineering

We completed scrutineering this afternoon on our third attempt. The car was sent back to the pits for modifications to the firewall and driver positioning. It was a very frustrating ordeal to pass scrutineering and the general consensus among other teams is that the inspectors are being very nit picky this year. Regardless, our team is cleared to drive.

Noise went very smoothly, with our exhaust coming in at only 103dB. The forward-facing muffler mounted inside the sidepod seems to contribute a lot in noise reduction.

Tilt table went smoothly as well.

Passing the braking test took a few attempts, but that is normal. The event officials enacted a new rule that speeds must be kept between 30-40 kph after our car reached 80 kph before the braking zone last year.

All 4 inspection stickers necessary to drive are present on the nose of our car.

The team is currently hosting some executives from Bosch. They are getting a tour of our car and an introduction to the team members. The importance of this visit is huge because it could open the doors to many new opportunities both technically and financially.

Tomorrow we have the engineering design (150 points), cost analysis (100 points), and business presentation (75 points) events.

Competition Day 1: Registration and Scrutineering

The team completed registration this afternoon and we have already unpacked both our crates into our pit area. We are 39th in line for scrutineering which is going on today and continuing tomorrow. Final preparations are being made to the car so that we can pass through smoothly.

The motorsports atmosphere is in the air here. All day there is the sound of screeching tires and full throttle exhaust notes from cars making laps around the track. Notable cars on the track today were a Mercedes SLS and a Lexus LF-A. Just a week ago our pit area was occupied by Formula 1 teams.

We are sharing our garage with RIT, TU Cottbus, Global Formula Racing, Loughborough, and Stuttgart DHBW. There are posters in the area describing the World FSAE Rankings, in which MRacing is pictured along with 4 of the best teams in the world: TU Graz, Helsinki, Stuttgart, and TU Delft. It's very apparent that we are recognized as one of the best at the competition.

This year, the Formula Student Electric competition is being held alongside ours. They have a separate paddock to house the 15 registered teams. Interestingly, their endurance race will be held at night after ours.

Auto&Technik Museum and some friendly competition

Yesterday the team visited the Auto and Technik Museum in Sinsheim. The showrooms were filled with cars, planes, machinery, and weapons of all sorts. The museum had many unique and sometimes unusual items on display such as a history of chainsaws, wedding gowns, and vacuum cleaners. In the evening, we checked in to our hotel in Bammental followed by dinner in the beautiful city of Heidelberg.

Today we went kart racing at a track near Karlsruhe. We happened to run into the Fast Forest (Deggendorf) FSAE team. They were there making last minute preprations to their car, as well as their Formula Electric car. They are a 2nd-year team, and it's quite impressive that they were able to build two cars, one gasoline, one electric, with such a small group. Today was the first day they've driven the electric car (just one day before competition begins!) and everything seemed to work properly.

The whole team had a great time karting this afternoon. Competition at the Hockenheimring begins tomorrow with registration and tech inspection. We will be unpacking our crates as well.

New photos at http://community.webshots.com/user/mracingfsae

Testing complete: MR-10 ships to Hockenheim

Today was another successful test day. No mechanical failures hampered the skidpad and autocross runs. Michael, Sam, and Garrett had ample time in the car to practice their events.

Oklahoma and RIT had plenty of time to drive today as well. ETS was only able to get some skidpad testing done before encountering shifting problems. By the time we left the air base, they were still working on their car.

At the end of the day, we packed up our crates again and loaded them onto a flatbed to be taken to the Hockenheimring. A small group of team members will accompany the race car to Hockenheim tomorrow. The team will be moving to the next hotel tomorrow and have two days off.

Overcoming small obstacles

The team encountered some small issues trying to get the car out on track today. During engine warm up, the water pump sprung a leak. After installing a new pump and driving the car for a quick shakedown, we discovered that an aluminum insert had pulled out of a rear lower control arm. The rest of the afternoon was spent switching the suspension back to steel components and setting the suspension up again. The car will be ready to run tomorrow morning.

ETS suffered a transmission failure today and had to perform an engine swap in the afternoon. They should be ready to go tomorrow. Oklahoma’s car ran reliably today and they were able to get skidpad and slalom practice done today. RIT arrived with their crate this afternoon, but did not make it out onto the track.

Day 1 at Rammstein Air Force Base

The team begun competition preparation at 10AM this morning. Unpacking of our two crates went smoothly. We spent the majority of the day getting the car ready for tomorrow’s shakedown. The carbon fiber control arms were installed along with one-piece forged aluminum wheels. System checklists were performed as well. Finding fuel for our car was quite an adventure, as most German gas stations do not have the E85 (ethanol) that our team uses. We did not have the opportunity to fire up the engine today due to the lack of fuel.

Oklahoma University begun their preparation alongside us. They were able to unpack their crates and start their car up. ETS had a late start on their preparation because their crate did not arrive until the afternoon. There was no sign of RIT or their crates today.

We are beginning suspension setup early tomorrow morning and plan to have our car ready for testing by noon. It should be an interesting day having all these teams working side by side and sharing a test track.

Photos are now available at: http://community.webshots.com/user/mracingfsae

MRacing arrives in Germany to begin preparation

The team arrived in Germany early Tuesday morning at Frankfurt Airport. After checking in at our hotel, we spent the afternoon in Kaiserslautern. The city is nearby the U.S. Air Force Base in Rammstein.

On Wednesday, we drove through Strasbourg, France on our way to the Schlumpf Collection in Mulhouse, France. The museum had several enormous showrooms filled with automobiles from every point in the history of the industry. The vehicles on display were all of French, Italian, and German origin.

Tomorrow the team is heading to the air force base to begin preparation for Formula Student Germany. RIT, Oklahoma, and ETS (Montreal) will be joining us as well.

Photo updates will begin tomorrow, as it very late and the team needs sleep for tomorrow. Goodnight from Europe!

MR-10 en route to Germany for Formula Student

The 2010 Formula Student Germany competition will be held August 4-8 at the Hockenhimring in Hockenheim, Germany. The venue is a historic racetrack that Formula 1 and other high-caliber racing series have competed at in the past and present.

The MRacing team is nearing completion with preparation for FSG. We will be taking on the best teams in the world at this event. MRacing will be 1 of 5 American teams competing. At last year's event, we were the highest placing American team, at 5th overall. This year we are shooting for 1st place.

The MR-10 has undergone a rigorous summer testing regiment to maximize speed and reliability in Germany. The car is sporting several upgraded components. Most notable is a new lightweight carbon fiber suspension.

After an arduous week of organization and packing, the MR-10 and all the team's supporting supplies and tools were packed into two crates to be shipped to Germany. The crates will be arriving at the U.S. Air Force Base in Rammstien, Germany for a few days of testing prior to the competition.

The team will be arriving in Germany on July 27.

MRACING FINISHES 2ND OVERALL

The podium results are as follows:

1st - Oregon State
2nd - University of Michigan Ann Arbor
3rd - TU Graz

The awards ceremony tonight was a long and decorated one for the Maize and Blue. MRacing received trophies and prize money for placing 2nd in endurance, 1st in acceleration, and 2nd in all dynamic events. The team also received trophies and money for winning the FEV Powertrain Development award (for outstanding fuel economy and acceleration performance) and the Joe Gibbs Simulation award (for Sumeet's hard years of work on his suspension simulation code). The prize money amounted to over $8000.

We would like to thank all our sponsors, family, friends, and alumni for the wonderful support you've given us. Your contributions directly contribute to our success. We are thrilled with our results and we are aiming for 1st place this August at Formula Student Germany.

GO BLUE!

Fuel consumption looks promising

The MR-10 used 3.097L of fuel during today's endurance race. Compared to other competitive 4-cylinder cars similar to ours, this number looks pretty good. We are still waiting for other cars to finish endurance and have their fuel consumption measured.

Finished endurance!

We have just completed endurance with no reliability problems. The car is at the fuel station for a fuel consumption measurement and will be impounded for a standard technical inspection. Michael drove the first half of the race, posting competitive times among Stuttgart, TU Graz, Maryland, and Oregon State. Stuttgart was easily the fastest car on course until a drivetrain failure took them off the track. Missouri S&T was also unable to finish the race after a cone broke their front wing. ETS was not allowed to finish the race due to an oil leak.

No problems were found with our car at the mid-race driver change. Garret found himself in a heated battle with RIT for his half of the race. The RIT driver caught up to Garret shortly after entering the track and Garret was flagged to allow RIT to pass. Garret fought right back and was able to pass RIT a few laps later. RIT stayed right on Garret's tail until he completed the 22 kilometers.

The team is very proud of continuing our string of three successful competitions in a row. There are still many cars waiting to do their endurance race, as well as design finals tonight. The overall placement of MRacing at this competition is highly dependent on the endurance, fuel economy, and design final scores. We will post the results as soon as we find out.

Lunchtime preparation for the endurance race

The team is currently having lunch courtesy of our parents. We really appreciate the contribution they make every year to keeping our team members running strong during competition.

The first run group of endurance has just finished, and the second group is beginning to line up outside the dynamic area. The MR-10 is making stops at the Kaz Technologies tent and the fuel station before heading out to the track.

MRacing ready for a strong finish

Good morning everyone, MRacing has reached the last day of the MIS competition. Today is the endurance race, which is worth the most points of all the events in the competition. The result is crucial to the overall result of every team competing. The race spans 22 km which is shared between 2 drivers for each team. At the mid-race driver change, the car is inspected by officials for any leaking fluids and broken components before being allowed to continue. The fuel economy score will also be determined from today's race based on how much fuel each car takes to finish the race.

We are currently setting up the car for the endurance race to ensure the car is fast and reliable. The MR-10 will be running in the faster of the two run groups, scheduled to begin at 1:30 PM.

Unofficial scoring can be found at :
http://students.sae.org/competitions/formulaseries/

MRacing finishes top 10 in autocross

Garret was the first of our drivers to take the course this afternoon, laying down a competitive 68.814 and 65.424. His times were enough to hold on to 6th spot through the first round of drivers. They were bested by TU Graz, Maryland, and Stuttgart's second set of drivers, but Michael charged right back with a 64.670 and 64.111. This landed us a top 10 spot in the autocross event and a spot in the faster of the two heats in tomorrow's endurance race.

The MRacing team was presented with a trophy and $750 at tonight's award ceremony for taking first place in the acceleration event.


The University of Michigan Alumni association came out to support us during the autocross event today. The team shared their experiences with the alumni as we all watched the cars take to the track. The dean of the engineering college, David Munson, was in attendance and was thrilled with the success of our team. Thank you all for showing such strong support for us today!

Tomorrow will be the endurance race. The team is excited for a 22km battle between Europe and America's fastest cars. MRacing showed its potential this summer to be the fastest on track when we scored 2nd in dynamic events at Formula Student Germany, with Stuttgart coming in first. We hope to finish out the strong showing we have had so far at this competition.

MRacing first in acceleration

Ryan Kraft laid down a blazing 3.882 second run, followed by a 3.888. The crowd erupted after seeing the times. Katie Lapham bested those with a smoking fast 3.766 and a 3.771. The closest teams are Cornell and TU Graz, both in the 3.9's.

After dominating the acceleration event, we moved over to skidpad. Katie put down a 5.15 average skidpad time between her two runs. Ryan ran an average time of 5.25. These times put us among the most competitive teams for the event.

We placed 5th in Cost Analysis, and 20th in Business presentation.

Garett and Michael are preparing for this afternoon's autocross. Our times in this event will determine which run group we are placed in for tomorrow's endurance race.

Static events complete

MRacing did not advance to design semi-finals. We were shocked to find out that only one team from our design queue was selected, while three were selected from another. Many other high-caliber teams did not advance, adding to the surprise of the judges' decisions.

Although everyone on the team is upset about the unfortunate design result, we are all very excited for the two days of dynamic events ahead. Tomorrow will be skidpad and acceleration in the morning followed by autocross in the afternoon. The autocross result will determine our starting position for Saturday's big endurance race. Please come out to MIS and support us if you are in the area!

Remember to check back for new photos at http://community.webshots.com/user/mracingfsae

Well done in business presentation

Technical Director John Hooff did an excellent job in the business presentation; the judges were pleased with John's understanding of Lean Manufacturing.

We are anticipating the design event semi-finalist list coming out in the next couple hours. The team has high hopes of being on that list.

Rain tire scrubbing and a quick suspension setup was just completed in preparation for tomorrow's events. The thunderstorms have parted for some very welcome sunshine as many people are gathering around our paddock to take a look at the MR-10.

Competitors having trouble

University of Stuttgart is having trouble passing noise, measuring at 116dB. Stuttgart is one of the strongest teams attending the competition.

Quote of the day:
"Why are you so heavy?"
-Michael Mosburger to Stuttgart

90/100 preliminary points in Cost Analysis

We scored 90/100 preliminary points in cost. These points will be adjusted according to the performance of other teams.

The shifter cable mount is cracked, so the car is at the welding tent for quick repairs.

In other news, we have sold a Yoshimura muffler to Rutgers for $450. We purchased the muffler from another team last year in order to pass noise. Rutgers still does not pass noise.

MRacing is track ready

We passed tilt early this morning and headed to design. The new 45-minute judging session proved to be an advantage. The extra time allowed the fine details of the MR-10 to be fully explained to the judges. All team members said they think it went well. We were judged by an engineer from the US Formula 1 team and he seemed positive about our car.

We then moved to noise, passing at 108.5dB. Braking went smoothly as well, despite traction problems accelerating in the rain. The officials intentionally failed us just because they wanted to see the MR-10 launch again.

Michigan is the 4th team to pass all tech checkpoints.

The team is breaking for lunch and preparing the car for this afternoon's cost event.

Good Morning everyone , May 13th first update

Good morning everyone,

Despite the bad weather at MIS ( as always) , MRacing's spirit is at high , getting the car ready for fuel , tilt, and design event .

More updates after each events

Photos


Leo

The MR-10 passes tech inspection

We passed tech inspection with a 409 lb weigh-in. The team is checking every system on the car in preparation for tomorrow's events. We will be heading to brake, noise, and tilt first thing in the morning. Some members are returning to Ann Arbor early to finish preparations for tomorrow's design event.

Day 1 Afternoon Update and Photo Album

The team has arrived at MIS and set up the paddock area among notable competitors such as TU Fast (Munich), TU Graz, ETS, Stuttgart, Oregon State, and RIT. Kanagawa IT, the team we are hosting from Japan, is situated next to us in the paddock.

The car is currently in tech inspection and should be moving to weigh-in soon. Earlier this afternoon Sumeet Rai met with representatives from Joe Gibbs Racing to explain his self-written vehicle dynamics simulator as part of the team's application for the Joe Gibbs Spirit of Innovation Award.

Photo updates will be posted on this album: http://community.webshots.com/user/mracingfsae

Competition: MIS Day 1

To all MRacing alumni, family, sponsors, and supporters: we will be posting status updates on this blog as regularly as possible. We appreciate your continued support!

The first competition for the 2010 team is underway:

Car preparation has been completed and the team is departing the shop for Michigan International Speedway. Initial weigh-in is 426 lbs.