MIT MechE Students Return

Last year there were a lot of questions about the little Formula One race car ripping around the back lot at Cable Airport. Thanks to their welcome here, they were able to work for two days getting their car ready to compete in an international FSAE student design competition held at Fontana’s Auto Club Speedway. Last year they placed 8th out of 80 cars. One claim to fame is accelerating from 0 to 60 mph in 3.4 seconds with 1.5 horizontal g-force out the gate.

The MechE students are the ‘MIT Motorsports Team’ from Boston.

It took two years to get the last car to competition, this year...only one year! The team has to start out with a business plan; solicit funds to pay for it; design it; build it, and race it!!!!! There are many parts to the competition they are judged on: the design, cost, the engineering, fuel burn, reliability and the racing itself. The Motorsports team designs and constructs every precision part  and aspect of the vehicle except the engine itself.  Get this bit of trivia: the subsystems include dynamics, fluids, thermodynamics, microelectronics, power electronics, ergonomics and controls. Wanna give it a try?

This year’s Formula SAE West competition took place from June 15th to June 19th. Formula SAE is an international collegiate competition that gives students a taste of what real engineering is like.

MIT Motorsports hit the road a week early to get to California in time for testing and vehicle development. The team spent three days at Cable Airport racing, tuning, shooting photos with bi-planes, and putting the final touches on their MY11 competition vehicle. When Wednesday rolled around, the team was well prepared for battle.

The Formula SAE competition consists of scrutineering, three static presentation events, and four dynamic racing events. MIT had its best finishes to date in the cost event (4th place) and the 22-km endurance race (6th place). Overall, the team took home a trophy for 9th place in a field of 80 teams.

The team’s success was undoubtedly a result of the practice time at Cable Airport. The teams would like to extend a special thanks to Chuck Barnett for sharing tarmac,  Robert Paisley for sharing tools, and Chris Real for bringing a box of mufflers to tame the beast. It is well known that race cars are simply airplanes with upside down wings, which makes Cable Airport feel like MIT Motorsport’s 2nd home.                           MIT Team Member Keith Durand

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