Friday began with scrutineering at 8.30am, a check to ensure the car is safe and meets the rules. A few minor things initially stopped us from passing but this was quickly resolved. The drivers were given a treat at their morning briefing with a speech from Nick Percat, the 2011 Bathurst Champion.

After scurtineering, the car was taken to the design event, which went very well as the judges seemed very pleased with our car. Next, the car was placed onto the tilt-table for the tilt test – to ensure no fluids and liquids are leaking out of the car but tilting the car at certain angles. The car passed with no hiccups and we were off to the cost event, although the event was slightly different to previous years, the event went very well as the judges failed to find fault in our report.

Upon returning to the pits, the car was wheeled off to its final test before it can compete in the dynamic events – the noise and brake test. We flew through the braking test but was 3db over the 110db limit. As the team worked towards quieting the exhaust, Chitvan, Sylvie and Jonathan went off to the Business Presentation event. The presentation went off without a hitch within the allocated time and upon their return, the car passed the noise test at 108db. The car is now able to compete in the dynamic events in the following days.

We then proceeded to take the car back to accommodation to improve engine start-up by working on the engine mapping.

Today started by taking the car back to scrutineering, as required if the car was taken off the competition premises. We started by putting Kurt in the M11 and going out for the skidpad event followed by the acceleration with Lachlan. Unfortunately the car was understeering on the skidpad event so we were not able to achieve a time as good as we’d have liked. We finished off the morning by having Kayla complete our remaining runs in the skidpad and acceleration events. We placed 12^th in the skidpad event and 20th in the acceleration event, as our single cylinder engine failed to match the power output of the four cylinder engines used by other teams.

The autocross event started in the afternoon after lunch. The number of competitive lap times set early on into the first session showed the level of competition amongst the cars for this year. In the first session, Brendon and Malcolm did some good laps in around the 1 minute range with the best being Malcolm’s 59.3s. In the second session, Malcolm managed to squeeze us into 5^th place with a very fast lap at 57.2s. This puts us behind UWA, Monash, ECU and RMIT. The track started to get wet towards the end of the second session with light showers, ending the autocross event for the few teams remaining.

The results of the static events that occurred the day before were also announced throughout the day. Business presentation was announced first and we were over the moon to have achieved first place and scoring the maximum of 50 points. The next was the design events which we were chosen as one of four finalists (the others being Monash, RMIT and Edith Cowan University). Jonathan, Lachlan, Kayla and Dave returned from the design event finals not long ago and we will find out the results tomorrow. The last event to have its results announced was the cost event which we placed 8^th with 72 points (out of 100).

The car is currently at the competition venue while we all rest and prepare for the endurance event tomorrow. With 400 points up for grabs and widely known for the number of teams that fail to complete the event, it is the biggest and most important event at the FSAE-A competition. We look to be in a good position to complete this event and hope to place in the top 10 overall.

Results so far:

Business Presentation: 1^st place

Cost: 8^th place

Acceleration: 20^th place

Skidpad: 12^th place

Autocross: 5^th place

Design event: Into the finals