This  year, Wisconsin  Racing  once  again made  the  trip  to  the Hockenheimring  in Hockenheim, Germany for the Formula Student Germany competition.  Formula Student Germany is the most prestigious event  in  the Formula SAE/Student  series. The best  teams  in  the world  come  to  this event and the competition in Germany is more intense than anywhere else.  The last time we visited that competition was back in 2007 with a championship car fresh off  a win at FSAE Michigan.  This year, we went  to Germany with more  to prove, having finished  14th  in Michigan  in May. Over the  summer  testing, we were able  to  solve  the  shifting  issues  that kept us  from performing  in Michigan and then continued to refine our vehicle.  We didn’t make any major changes to the car, and we were becoming very happy with its performance.  Much of the focus this summer was on completing the necessary steps to ship the car to Germany, which was much more complex than traveling  to Michigan.  The  car  left  in mid  July  for Stuttgart, where we would do  some  testing before competition at Universität Stuttgart. The teams from Madison and Stuttgart first became friends in Germany in 2007 and have been helping each other since then.

On  the  Monday  before  competition,  we  drove  at  Stuttgart’s  usual  testing  location  with  the team from DHBW Stuttgart (a work/study university there in Stuttgart).  We were thankful for this opportunity to test, because it allowed us to find and fix a few small problems on the car that arose during the shipping process.  We also took this opportunity to break in a set of tires and make sure all of the drivers were comfortable with the car.  This is especially helpful, because there is so little time for testing and repairs once the event starts.

Competition   began   with   a   very   nerve-racking,   2   hour   technical    inspection.   We had a  few problems to " x, mostly because of the slightly different rules used for Formula Student Germany, but we eventually passed. Next, we made our way through the tilt, noise and brake tests without any issues.  The static events came and passed, with a sixth place in cost and 9th in the prestigious design event.  We were overall very pleased with our performance in these events and anxious to see how the car would perform on track.

Saturday marked the first of two days of intense competition as the engines fired to life and the teams and drivers all strive to get the  fastest times  in the skidpad, acceleration, and autocross events.  Our strategy was to use 2 of our 4 available runs on the skidpad and acceleration early to ensure we have a decent time in the books, and then getting our last runs in towards the end when the tracks become faster.  Our first runs were respectable, and ended up being our fastest since our  strategy didn’t work out because of a delay caused by oil on the  track. Undeterred, we headed  to  the  important and exciting autocross event held  in  the afternoon.   The  car and team didn’t perform as well as hoped, but our 25th place was good enough to seed us into the fast group of cars for the all important endurance event held on Sunday afternoon.  Endurance started out extremely well, with the Wisconsin car setting the fastest pace seen by any car up to that point in the event.  It was to be short-lived, because a muffler failure on the 6th lap caused us to be disqualified for smoke coming out of the car despite its impressive pace at that point.

Heartbroken, the failure in endurance means that we had to come home from Germany empty handed.

Once the car returns to Madison, we will be investigating the failure and determining what we can do to prevent a similar problem from returning in the future.  We have also already begun work on our next challenger, the 211.  Our team has identified the areas that need improvement and we are very excited about the concept we have come up with that we think will return Wisconsin Racing to the top.  Our most important change will be to once again paint the car black, because clearly the red paint is bad luck!  Our average finishing position with black paint is 5.4, while with red it dropped all the way to 23, so the simplest way to improve the performance should be to change the color!

A final note, we are making a strong effort to improve timely communication with our sponsors.  We have now created a Twitter account (username:  WisconsinRacing) and Facebook page (page name: Wisconsin Racing) for the team.  Please begin to follow us on these social media platforms.  Also, keep on the lookout for a completely renovated website that should be online this fall.  As always, please visit the multimedia page on the website and view the latest photos of the 210.

Thank you for your continuous support.