Shifting Gears: How a dedicated team of students built a world-class race car

It was my penultimate year at University, and I was looking to gain some work experience. I worked mainly on the marketing side (e.g. website maintenance, newsletters, video collages, etc.), but was also involved in some component fabrication and QA + compliance.

It was my University's first entry into the competition. The core team has tried to raise funding for the previous year's competition unsuccessfully. They did finally secured some funding from the University, but still had to raise quite an amount to cover the $50k needed to build / complete the car. We raised some cash for operating expenses from BBQ sizzles, raffles, etc. The bulk of the car was built from in-kind sponsorships (e.g. free / heavily discounted materials, free fabrication services, free use of CNC machines, etc.).

We managed to get a car together in the last-minute, and flew over to Adelaide to the Mitsubishi testing grounds for the competition. Unfortunately, our car didn't finish on the endurance stage. If only we had another week, we could be spending that time tuning the engine management system for fuel efficiency :)

However, it was quite impressive to see what the other University teams had achieved. University of Western Australia in particular, fielded a formula SAE based on a carbon-fibre monocoque chassis whereas others built the standard alumunium / alloy spaceframe. From what I've heard at the time, they've managed to invent a chemical curing process for carbon-fibre composite, instead of the normal vacuum oven process. From my recollection, they took first place that year.

One thing that struck me just now, we went to the local Go-Kart track in O'Connor (Perth) for some driver training and selection. The guys at the track kept a hall of fame with the name and age of the drivers. I was 0.23 seconds off from our team's fastest driver, but apparently the record is held by some kid, faster by almost a whole two seconds from our fastest driver. I should've remembered the name, but I'd like to think it was Daniel Ricciardo, reassuring myself that my Go-Karting skills isn't all that bad after all :)