I must acknowledge and apologize to all my friends I never said farewells to. Instead of spending the last of my Cardiff time climbing with CUMC or cycling with CUCT, I was sweating my time away in the paddock. I wish I could have spent more time playing, adventuring, and drinking with ya’ll, but alas duty called.
Formula Student is a global group wherein University students design, build, and race a single seater race car. Ours was named Gwyneth, an aluminum honeycomb chassis holding a 675 Triumph triple engine, all packaged in a glorious aero package. While Max and I worked a bit on all parts of the car (fitting, sanding, etc.) we were both primarily focused on creating Luca’s incredible aero package. Since Winter Break, we were pulling long shifts in the composites lab cutting and laying up carbon until the dark hours of the night. We’d spend our days, even through revision season, trimming, drilling, tapping, and fitting. And it all payed off, because below you will see our beautiful carbon baby, full of ALL the down forces.
Photo credit to this, and most every picture here to James Lansdowne
Wednesday: It’s was a sad morning, because I had really come to love Cardiff. It’s surrounded by beautiful lanes that (once you are finally out of the city) are great to cycle. Bute park shelters many soft Earth single-track running trails, as well as bountiful hammocking spots. There’s two pump tracks for when I felt like working on skills, and a stunning bay to cycle around! But today was my last morning here, thus the house was packed away in a chaos of dust and spider webs. By midday we were leaving for the Silverstone circuit, Max’s Panda 100 fully loaded. It’s a nice drive through country roads, excitement for the weekend ahead building with each mile. We arrive, get our Formula Student passes, and head in to set up the paddock! After the paddock is prepares, Goffy, Cason and I pop over to Tesco’s for a food run, preparing to feed our 20+ person crew.
First night of camp relaxation
Thursday: Thursday was statics! This was a day for testing all the non-dynamic portions of the car. The team members of specific expertise were question intensively on design and costing of all components of the car, Max and I standing by for any questions on aero package costing. It all went well, albeit stressful! Once that was over, Goffy and Willis headed off to give their business presentations whilse the car was moved to scrutineering. Scrutineering is an annoying but neccessary part of the competition where they check the car for overall safety, bolt tightness, firewall, etc. It’s a painstaking process requiring on-sight fixing, and generally trying to not talk back to their selective pickiness. This process took the majority of our day, but it was unprecedented speediness thanks to the new Triumph engine instead of the Aprilia! The car finished the day having passed Tech and Chassis, and weighed in at 210kg.
The pro team preparing for answering design and cost stuff
Friday: Up early, as per usual, and off to finish scrutineering! Today was more interesting- we could finally turn the car on! By 10AM we had passed all parts of scrutineering bar driver egress, even passing noise and brake on the first try! This happiness was balanced with a rather large annoyance- our large camp pavilion had buckled and fallen down. Fear not, for this is a camp of engineers after all! Once some civil engineers had been consulted, the tent was erected once more, half the size but stronger than ever! Next to its body the daily sandwich haul was made again- 40+ sandwiches off to feed the hungry engineers of the paddock.
By early afternoon we were on the test circuit, with Max, Dewi, and Luca all having a chance to work on their launches, slaloms, and overall car handling on the world’s tiniest race circuit. Confident with the car’s performace (but not confident with teammates ability to put wheel’s on), we did a quick bolt check and retired to the camp for the evening.
All of scrutineering passed!
Pushing Max around the track- there are certain zones you cannot run the engine
Trackside snuggling with Max post-practice
The devastation of our camp…. thanks wind
Saturday: The first day of dynamic competitions! After a quick but thorough bolt check of the car, Cason was out on the track for the acceleration event. Acceleration is a 75m straight, where teams compete for the quickest 75m time. The team was on point, highly alert and ready to run to fetch items, check leaks, and do anything that was needed. After acceleration we rushed over to skid pad while it was dry. Skid pad is a figure-eight course just wide enough for a car, the drivers do two loops of each ‘circle’ before moving to the next. Each driver has two tries to get their best time in the ‘8’. Cason went first on the drier course, then Max on the wetter one. Apart from a minor cone-sliced-in-two-by-our-wings incident, both drivers did amazingly and placed us easily in the top five. With the car warm and hearts high, we rushed back across Silverstone to catch the warm tarmac for our second run of Accel. Much to our annoyance, however, a team’s rad core had exploded, leaving a wet patch along the track. Unphased, Max hopped in and slayed at the accel event. We did so well that we qualified for the Shootout- the top six teams competing against each other! We did well, coming in 5/6 for the first time ever, with the most complex and specced aero package. Already elated at our shootout performance, we headed off to do Sprint, where a driver does two laps of a 1KM course, with the best time being taken. Luca went out first, ducking and diving through every tight turn. We watched the fast event from a small hillside, seeing 75% of the track. Soon after Luca, Dewi was out on the track, setting the fastest clean lap time of the event! We went back to camp for a quick dinner, then headed off to the award ceremony at 7:45PM. Already happy with our success, the team was taken aback to win both an Exxon Mobile Innovation award for Luca’s aero exhaust silencer system, but also a Jaguar Land Rover award as well! We were absolutely elated, and floated back to camp on a cloud of happiness. Once back, it was time for the annual Cardiff Racing awards! Lee had set up the chairs in a circle, everyone attentive to Goffy and Lee as they presented awards. All of them were well deserved, and I was truly honored to receive an appreciation award from Lee alongside the fourth years. I know I was only in Cardiff Racing for a year, but I am truly honored to have made an impact. I’ll charish the Aprilia piston trophy forever, especially since it was engraved by everyone there!
Final bolt checks before acceleration (see, small people come in handy!)
Moving Max to Accel- check ‘dem Hot Zone passes for the Hot people
On the lineup for the Shootout
Accepting the Jaguar Land-Rover award
Team celebration picture with Exxon Mobile representatives!
Camp shenanigans- and Robbie being a cutie
Lee’s Aprilia trophies with the kool kats
Sunday: Today was the big one: Endurance. Each driver does 11 1km laps around a circuit, goes through a 3min max driver change, then the next driver is off! We prepped the drivers as best we could, set them up with the 4th year pit crew, and then the rest of us wandered over to the grassy hill. Sitting there relaxing in the sun was one of my favorite memories. I bantered with the guys, snuggled on Angie’s lap, and cheered on the banister with Max. We saw true sportsmanlike behavior from Birmingham as we each cheered the other team, neck-and-neck for first place. We lost count of laps, only planning on cheering each of our cars with each turn. We laughed about how both of our cars were overheating and discussed our drivers’ abilities, all to the song of screaming engines. at the end of it all… Birmingham had us beat by one second, but we didn’t care, we FINISHED the endurance! And second! Happy, hungry, and overjoyed at our success a few of us wandered back to camp to start on dinner (and get celebratory booze). Sipping gin and tonics I cleaned up camp and played dinner-plate frisbee, and Max lit Willis’s BBQ on fire (and took a bit too long to think about taking it outside), and as smart engineery people Alex Cason decided to put it out with a beer (DOH!) and general tipsy shenanigans occurred. Once we realized how late it was, we hightailed it to the final awards ceremony!
Walking there we all thought we got second place, and were incredibly happy with that accomplishment. It was a wonderful ceremony, with drinking games and general restlessness as the results: it was a toss-up, anyone’s game! We got a random Bosch brake award that surprised us all, an award for being first in sprint, and then the big, big tension started as they announced the top three. All teams were on edge as the second place team was called… Birmingham or Cardiff….Birmingham or Cardiff…. BIRMINGHAM! Tears and screams and cheers rang the hall as Cardiff gave them a standing ovation to the stands. And then…. us. Our name, being announced as first. For the first time ever for Cardiff Racing, for the first time EVER for a UK team, Cardiff Racing had won FS UK! We screamed. We cried. We hugged and hair ruffled and lost ourselves in torrential waves of joy and surprise and release of all trepidation. In a bouncing and chaotic mass we moved to the back of the hall, posed for a picture, then the congratulations began. In a blurr of emotion hugs, tears and long embraces were passed between Cardiff and Birmingham. I shared a long, much wanted kiss with Max as “CAARRDDIIFF” was cheered by all, echoing thought the vast canvas hall. We stumbled out, cheecks painful from smiling, voices already hoarse from cheering and laughing. It was a magical evening, worth every carbon splinter. Worth every late night and early morning. Worth everything.
The rest of the night was a bit more of a blurr. I know it involved gin, whisky, cider, and dangerous cocktails and tequila provided by Birmingham racing. After leaning the ways of Flunkiball (sp?) I wandered over to the Birmingham camp to partake in their celebrations, and was welcomed as friend and ally. Initially the first Cardiff Racing member there, by the wee hours of the morning I stood aside Alex Goff, us both adorned with glowsticks marshalling a Cardiff vs. Birmingham game of Flunkiball. I swapped shirts with a Birmingham member, enjoyed a spliff in a field with new friends, and generally socialized my way across camp. Even until late in the night the far cries of “CAARRDDIIFF” acted to lift all our spirits and make us even more merry.
Finally, physically exhausted and happily tipsy I gave into the cold winds and rain, and retired to the tent. Max had wonderfully laid out pajamas (probably so he didn’t end up with a damp Meghan in his bag), so warm and happy, I drifted off as gracefully as a dumptruck crashing through arctic ice.
Driver change on Sunday’s endurance (Photo credit Robin Gwilliam)
Posing with one of the other Triumph teams!
Max’s BBQ incident…
A solid haul for a usually underdog group, no?
I loved by time in Formula Student. I’ve made friends who show me the wonder engineering can achieve. Luca, Alex Goff, Alex Cason, Roberto, Angie, Arwyn, Dewi, James L., James Willis, and everyone else who made the dream car a reality, thank you. I hope we meet again in the future and swap tales of our engineering glory. I hope you all stay mischievous, partake in shenanigans, and never forget the success you all worked so hard for over the years. Live long and prosper, friends.
Until next time.
