Formula Hybrid Recap (5/3-5/6/2010)

If you did not come out to the 2010 Formula Hyrbid Event at New Hampshire Motor Speedway this week, you missed a lot of fun, as well as a great TANNING opportunity! I look like I spent about 15 hours in a tanning salon, and it was FREE, and they FED us!

FSAE Hybrid 2010 was a great success, with over 25 teams signed up, including teams from Russia, and a very professional team from the Polytechnic Institute of Turin, Italy! They had the most professional and well-constructed SAE car I think I've ever seen, as well as being FAST, reliable and it had great handling. It even SOUNDED like an Italian Sports Car!

On the local shores, the Wisconsin, University of California-Davis and Texas A&M team all proved a formidable match for the Italian squad. The Texas A&M car, with the P-47 nose-art design, had a louder more American-Muscle sound to its engine. It definitely had the edge in straight-line speed, while the Italians' car seemed to have a slight edge in handling. The final endurance race event pitted the two teams against each other, on the track together at same time, American Muscle against Italian Finesse.

There were several teams running "Hybrid in Progress" class, which means they were entirely electric-power, with no internal combustion engine in their vehicles for any purposes at all, charging or direct-power to the wheels. The Florisa State University car won that competition easily, being the only HIP car to complete the entire 23 kilometer course on a single charge, and with no mishaps whatsoever. Many at the event agreed that their design was the surprise success of the event.

Most inspiring was the team from MADI State Technical Institute, from Russia! They have attended a few Formula Hybrid events here with us, and have never had a running vehicle. To the applause of ALL the teams in attendance, the MADI team completed all their safety checks and were able, at the end of the day, to get their car out on the endurance course to complete a handful of laps in their vehicle.

The teamwork and support displayed by the teams between the groups was inspiring. Each team donated members to work for the NER members manning corners for shagging cones and flagging stations. Equipment was freely passed around as needed. The New England Region even donated a generator for use for a day to a team who needed to recharge their car, and EVERYONE turned out to watch and cheer the Russian team in their events.

The New England Region Solo group was a co-sponsor of this event, and under the leadership of Davd Hyman, the SAE representative from NER, we were responsible for all the Dynamic Events, including the Braking and Acceleration Tests, Solo Course, and Endurance course racing. NER Members David Hyman, Paul Krysiak, Paul Zahornasky, Bob Lang, Michael Fairbank, Howard Roundy, Wiley Cox and Chang-Ho Kim were in attendance throughout the week, filling in to run various key aspects of the dynamic events for all the teams. Sandy Macpherson, an experience Flagger from NHMS, joined us in running several corner stations during the week, and procured us all the flags we needed for the Endurance events (Blue passing flags? There's something you don't see at a normal Solo event, but we needed them here!) Jennifer Schelly was on-hand as a design judge for the competing vehicles. We even had some assistance from FSAE Hybrid members who have raced with NER before, including Alex Chan from the Tufts University Team, who manned a radio on a corner during the Autocross portion of the event. Without the hard work of all these volunteers, these dynamic events would not have run as smoothly as they did.

The final event of the week was the endurance event, which was again on a course laid out by our own Paul Zahornasky on the NASCAR and race track portions of Nascar Corners 3 and 4 at NHMS. Designing a course for FSAE cars, some with inexperienced drivers, is challenging for the combined need to keep everyone safe, while providing an exciting track to drive, as well as not providing any particular kind of car with advantage. As he always does, Paul provided a great course for the drivers, with some sections that were higher speed, as well as some "bus-stop" sections to get the speeds down and see how they handled at lower speeds.

With up to four cars on-course at once, on a 1/2 mile course, and with some cars running under internal combustion power while others ran on pure electric power, we had to provide three "passing zones" on the track, where flaggers would blue-flag the slower car into a special passing area to the side of the course to hold until the faster car had passed in a safe fashion. As the flag man for passing zone #1, I can definitely say this is an exciting place to be! Race control was trusting in the flaggers to judge the car safety and distance as well as closing speed, and with cars changing from Gas to Electric and back again within a single lap, car speeds could vary widely from lap to lap!

The Wisconsin car ran a VERY fast first stint with their first driver, but it seems that the first driver used up all the fuel! The second stint was done purely on electric power, and only running laps 15 seconds slower per lap, still impressive!

At the end of all the events, it was the flawless Endurance event (in the rain!) for the Italian Team that pushed them to a final score in the whole week of just THREE POINTS over the Texas A&M team (out of 1000 available) for first place at the Formula Hybrid Event! Congratulations to Politecnico de Torino for their win, and for all the competitors for just getting their vehicles, and

If you want more information on the Formula Hybrid event, please see the website at http://www.formula-hybrid.org/competition.php.

-Wiley Cox