These kids know about the pit stops in life.
Members of Dartmouth Formula Racing, a student group at Thayer School of Engineering have been designing, building and racing small formula-style cars each year for the last five years.
Time, hard work and the engineering skills of about 30 students drove this year's DFR car " nicknamed "F2" " to a 12th place finish overall at the national Formula SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) competition for students held last month in Pontiac, MI.
The competition " sponsored by the SAE and the "Big Three" automobile makers " attracts over 100 entries from schools across the country and is the location of a lot of recruiting by the sponsoring companies.
"[Their performance] was extremely good, especially considering [Thayer] is a small engineering school," said DFR advisor and Thayer Research Engineer Doug Fraser.
Fraser said many of the other groups competing in the race have much bigger teams and come from schools with entire departments dedicated to automotive engineering.
In fact, although DFR is recognized as a Dartmouth student organization, the group receives no funding from the school and must conduct fundraising on their own in order to build their car.
DFR raised more than $60,000 last year from a variety of sponsors, who were commemorated by stickers affixed to the dark green bodywork of F2, just like those on a professional race car.
And the F2 is no less a serious, professional-style speed machine in other respects.
The eight-foot, 512 pound car designed this year has a six speed gearbox, sequential fuel injection, a rear-mounted Yamaha engine with an augmented compression ratio, and a lightweight aluminum honeycomb underbody.
Perhaps even more impressive is the car's electronic package, which allows for wireless tuning of the car based on data acquired on 16 different channels. There is also a video camera mounted over the driver's head that broadcasts an image to the pit crew.
When the existing electronic package is combined with a Global Positioning System tracker, DFR will be able to perform "track mapping" on the car, producing a highly detailed profile of their car's performance.
In order to produce a high quality car each year, DFR begins thinking about the next competition as soon as the current one is completed.
Team co-captain Bill Gubing " who was not taking classes this term and estimated that he put in about 17 hours per day during the spring " said the time commitment for the typical team member increases over the course of the year from 10 to 15 hours per week in the fall to six hours per day in the spring.
The hard work in advance pays off for DFR, however. While other teams were pulling all-nighters in an attempt to fix last minute problems with their cars at the SAE competition, the Thayer students were having a barbecue in the parking lot, Fraser said.
Although neither Gubing nor his co-captains received academic credit for their work on F2, many of the other team members joined the team as part of their Engineering 90, 190 or 290 courses.
"It's a pretty amazing group of students ... They run the whole thing themselves, design the car themselves," Fraser said. "Generally, I just try to stay out of their way."
The process that eventually leads to the year's race car is divided into design, production and testing phases which take place roughly during the fall, winter and spring, respectively.
Taking the car all the way through the process is important training for a career in engineering, Gubing said. "Having that experience has been pretty valuable."
Fraser agreed, saying the competition "gives them real world engineering experience ... The stuff [the students] design and build really has to work."
Different sub-teams are responsible for the different car systems, with the focus being on the car's frame, suspension, engine and electronics.
Kirsten Stadler, the group's other co-captain, said coordinating the work of the various systems teams can be difficult at times, but that learning to work with larger groups is one of the educational aspects of the competition.
"We have about one crisis per week," Stadler said.
At the Formula SAE competition, cars are judged on a variety of characteristics, including design, endurance, handling and cost, as well as a sales presentation the group makes.
Despite some rather rainy weather, DFR came in seventh in the endurance race, and second in both the cost and engine management categories, which final accomplishment earned them a $1,000 award from the Bosch Corporation.
According to Stadler, many cars do not make it through the endurance race. F2 was in fact one of only about 30 cars to successfully complete all events.
Dartmouth's team has actually finished the competition every time it has entered, something about which both Stadler and Gubing expressed pride.
"It may be a perfect design, but if you can't get it around the track and handle it well, then forget it," Stadler said.
Gubing, one of the team's drivers, said his time at the wheel was a thrilling experience. "It was so intense," he said, adding that when he completed his half of the endurance race, 12 laps, he wanted to start all over again.
For those interested in viewing the product of DFR's hard work, the last year's car is displayed in the main entrance to the Thayer school.
