PSU racing team getting up to speed

Heading into the Formula SAE competition at the Virginia International Raceway a few weeks back, Pittsburg State University racing team members wanted to show improvements over the previous year.

That’s when, after purchasing an old car on the Internet, racing team members built their first racecar, a 647-pound monster they tagged “the tank.” Entering the car into its first competition last summer, the team came in 47th in a competition at Fontana, Calif.

This year, knowing a bit more about the competition, team members fashioned a much lighter, and more aerodynamic car weighing just 485 pounds. The difference in the weight, and in the design, showed, with the team placing 13th.

“When you take a look at all of the teams there, it was a very prestigious event,” said Larry Williamson, racing team adviser. “Some of the people around the competition said, for a second year car, that it was awesome. Some of these teams, like KU and Missouri-Rolla have been doing this since the late 1980s.”

And the team did it while fighting a budget, which Mark Jones said was one of the hardest parts.

“Even now, we’re still looking for more sponsors, more businesses to help out,” said the associate professor. “Say the team gets $1,000. There are so many choices that they have to make.

“It’s more than just the technical side, or the automotive side,” Jones said. “They really have to weigh the economic tradeoff and see how to best utilize the funds they get.”

One way the students combated the challenge was by working together. Certain pieces were made with the help of other parts of the college of technology, while Pitt State’s business school lent the team a few marketing majors to help with the car’s presentation.

“We had to try and market this to a ficticious target, the amateur autocrosser,” said Kim Welch, marketing student. “So we saw it as somebody just hitting retirement age, with some money to play around with, and we really took it from there.”

In terms of the actual car, team captain Travis Budenbender said the team earned credit for making it as accessible as possible. That means that not only was the car versatile enough for several different drivers, but also that any repairs were a quick wrench jerk away.

“That was something we really wanted to work on,” Budenbender said.

Even the engine is just a tweak or two away from quick work. The design not only caught the eye of the judges, it also received attention from Racecar Engineering, a magazine out of Mooresville, N.C., which is writing a piece about “simplistic designs.”

And the improvements aren’t finished yet. Aaron Pope, a likely co-captain next year, and some other juniors are taking the car back to Fontana in the near future.

“There are some things that we want to look at,” Pope said. “We want to try to decrease the weight and make a few design modifications. They’ve done a great job to get it to this point. Now, we’ll be talking to them to find out what changes they would have made and how we can better the car.”

Pope said the next step will be to finish all of the competitions, something he said would likely put the PSU team in the competition’s top 10. Only six teams finished all of the events in Virginia, with only seven of the teams clearing the Endurance-Economy competition.

Williamson said the small step of taking the juniors to the California competition could pay huge dividends in 2009.

“Last year, we didn’t really have that at all,” Williamson said. “We had guys who were figuring out what to do at the actual competition. Now, these guys will come back and they will know about the competition. They’ll build the frame over the summer so that when the fall comes, it’s clear sailing. And that’s how you build a program.”

Members of the team include Travis Budenbender, Eric Herbers, Eric Richardson, Jared Jeffries, Kim Welch and Chelsey Thiolet (Marketing), and Yao-Chun “Chris” Yang.