CU-student race team rebounds from disaster to place 9th at SAE contest

Cornell's Formula SAE race car during competition in May in Pontiac, Mich. FSAE team

By William Marler '04

A team of Cornell undergraduates and graduates recovered from near catastrophe just over a week before the annual, five-day International Formula SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) collegiate design and motorsports competition at Pontiac, Mich., to place ninth overall out of 140 entries. The competition ended May 18.

The Cornell team also won several first-place titles in subsidiary events, returning with $4,250 in prizes and a burning aspiration to redeem the champion status they'd earned in the past two years.

In the 20-year history of the competition, no school has ever won the competition three years in a row. The '02-'03 Big Red team was reaching for the record when disaster struck: The Cornell car lost control on a test run on campus, went into a 100-foot skid and stopped on impact with a concrete curb. The damage to the 477-pound formula-style race car was considerable -- a 250-hour repair job, which included a mangled adjustable pedal bay, 12 bent and contorted steel frame tubes, a cracked engine mount, bent suspension members and a ruptured fuel tank. After investing nine intense months in design and fabrication, the team looked on in shock as their car was hauled back to its garage only nine days before it was supposed to leave for competition.

There had been better days in the General Motors auto lab in the basement of Upson Hall. But the team rallied behind its car, affectionately named ARG03 after mechanical and aerospace engineering professor Albert R. George, the team's adviser for 16 years. Emergency meetings were called, with George bringing a calming presence.

Alumni who maintain ties with the team backed up the students with food, drink, encouragement and emotional support. Amazingly, the worst wreck in Cornell racing history was repaired in four days.

But the team had lost precious time that would otherwise have been spent carefully recording chassis setup, fine tuning the car and ironing out reliability problems, leaving knowledge gaps that would prove to be crucial to success. However, spirits were once again high; the car was repaired and there was optimism that the defending champions would win again.

Four days later, in Pontiac, cars from around the world were pulling into the parking lot of the Silverdome football stadium. Among the 140 institutions represented was the University of Wollongong, winner of the Formula SAE competition held earlier in the year in Australia, and which was destined to emerge as champion at Pontiac. Also present were dozens of schools from Canada, South America, Japan and the United Kingdom.

The goal of the competition is to conceive, design, fabricate and compete with small formula-style racing cars, which are judged in static and dynamic events. Static events include a breakdown and presentation of the cost of the car, a business presentation that focuses on the marketability and manufacturability of the car, a safety check and an overall engineering design review. Dynamic events are an acceleration run, a one-lap, seat-of-the-pants autocross race, a two-driver, 40-lap endurance race and a constant-radius turn skid-pad event. A '70s-style "muscle" car might dominate in acceleration but would get crushed in the other three dynamic events. A car with no power that can turn on the head of a pin also would lose. A winning car has to have perfect balance.

It was during the dynamic events that the Cornell racing team fully understood the effects of the crash and the loss of testing time. The ARG03 was getting decent marks on the static events, having qualified with only four other cars for final engineering design judging, and capturing a school record high score of seventh place for business presentation. It had fared well in acceleration, claiming third place, but spun out twice in autocross for 33rd. And it didn't dominate as was hoped in skid-pad, earning eighth place. The scoring setbacks placed the ARG03 30th overall, with the following day's endurance trial looming critically -- a win there could mean a trophy. To the frustration of the team, that was not to be. Either a fuel-delivery or a computer problem caused frequent stalls throughout the race, and though able to finish (typically fewer than half of the cars that qualify for the endurance event finish) Cornell placed only 14th, giving the team a final overall placing of ninth.

Led by senior economics major Mark "Junk" Juncosa, senior operations research major Chris "Pineapple" Rohrback and senior mechanical engineering major Yuki Ishida, the FSAE team did claim a second in engineering design and won several of the specific systems-related sub-contests. These were a first place and a $1,500 purse for the Robert Bosch Corp. Engine Management System Award for acceleration and fuel economy to electrical engineering graduate students Adnan Albakri, Derek Brader, and Dominik Utama, junior Santi Udomkesmalee, freshman Dia Beshara and senior Chris Rohrback; a first place and $1,250 accolade for the Visteon Powertrain Cooling System Award to junior Matthew Fritch and senior Yuki Ishida; and a first place and $500 prize for the Dynojet Research Highest Horsepower Award.

Preparation for the competition spans both fall and spring semesters at Cornell, with an emphasis on research and design in the fall and fabrication in the spring. The Cornell project, which cost more than $20,000, was sponsored by alumni and companies including General Motors, Hunter Industries, Heller Industries and Boeing. Brad Anton, associate professor of chemical engineering, also was an adviser. The Cornell Formula SAE web site is at http://fsae.mae.cornell.edu.