I wish. I'd say the best chance of getting in a car is if it's one that you helped build. But from what I hear, that, is even difficult these days.

There's all kinds of safety issues that have been brought up recently that make it very difficult even for the current team members to drive.

 

Well just sign up up for a few classes so he'll be eligilbe. It seems that they removed the 5 yr driver eligibility restriction and a certain team showed up with a certain SCCA national champion and took a certain 1st in autocross.

 

Kind of defeats the whole purpose of the competition when you start getting people who aren't fulltime undergrad students to drive and design the car for you. Once you've graduated it doesn't really matter how you placed, it is how much you learned and how you have applied it that counts.

 

The 1st rule in racing: Use every loophole you can find (or afford).

 

They had created a rule about 7 yrs ago to basically make a certain driver ineligible and it turns out that this year the rule was removed. One team took advantage of this change (I can't blame them for that) but I was baffled by the fact that the eligibility rule was removed. The whole purpose was to outlaw "ringers" so to keep the competition relatively fair.

 

Ringers were well known several years ago. I met several "champion" karters from various countries competing at competition.

But back on topic, RPI came in 9th place! Very impressed with our boys (and girl lol). They made design semi finals with 11th place, 7th place in presentation, and best of all Second place in acceleration! We had many Alumni show up (i wish i was able to have been there), including GE, GM and Honda engineers. The Honda engineer trailered up one of Honda's 2007 Club race cars that he races with the "factory team."

So far from the pictures i've seen and heard from friends there, the quality overall is continuing to get better and better! Quality of composites went from really good to awesome! Lots of great winged cars, lots of great telemetry and advanced suspension systems. Here is a good photo gallery:

http://www.evilengineering.com/galle...T07/?g2_page=9

Here is a kinda bad shot of our car, we used to have a good looking car, but the last 4 years its looked like ***, but unique

 

Man that looks a lot like some of the A Mod cars that used to run... I'd love to drive it. I weight 140 or so which also helps in those things...

Sign me up for classes at RPI in hartford, I'm not a ringer I have a 4 year degree from RPI as proof that I'm just another knurd with thick glasses and a pocket protector. I saw Frank Zappa and Freddy Mercury perform at RPI (I guess that dates me as they are long gone).

 

2 year member of the McGill University team (2003/2004) that is starting up another team at a local college as part of our tech program (long story as to why I'm not at Univ). I was down there for the dynamic events to show some of the other guys what the comp is all about. We were originally shooting for 2009, but we've gotten suggestions to shoot for 2008 and then we could consider doing Cali in '09.

Congrats to all the enduro finishers... I've been there and know how tough it is. As always, the most spectacular DNF must be awarded, and this year it went to Michigan State. I felt sorry for them as they were setting consistent times, then started having problems on the last lap of enduro and then have something finally pop, dump oil and flare up with only 100 yards left to go.

 

Detroit sucks, it rains at competition every year. The only cool thing was getting to spend some time in GM's machine shops. Go to Cali, bring sunblock.

 

um... it didn't rain this year... ok, it didn't warrant rain tires, but the wind did require a sweatshirt.

Top 10 Overall:
1- University of Wisconsin - Madison
2- University of Western Australia
3- Graz University of Technology
4- University of Cincinnati
5- University of Toronto
6- University of Florida
7- Rochester Institute of Technology
8- University of Toledo
9- Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst
10- University of Kansas - Lawrence

 

Really? The ground was wet and people were bundled up holding umbrellas in the pictures I saw.

 

It's somewhat ironic but last year we passed MSU with about 5 laps to go then on the last lap about half way thru our engine went boom. This year MSU had the same fate with the blown engine. Know the feeling...its so dissappointing to make it that far and have such a catastrophic failure.

 

It rained on and off on Wednesday and was as miserable as usual, but it held off for the dynamic events and was nice and sunny for Friday and overcast on Saturday. The only problem was how windy it got. Made it feel much colder than it really was.

 

Yea, they are a blast to drive, but nothing like Shifter karts. Even a stock 80cc shifterkart would dominate competition in regards to laptime...but thats pretty much expected.