Since our return from FSUK, we are proud to have one móre car in our workshop. After the event in Silverstone four members of the Metropolia Motorsport team from Helsinki took their car to our workshop. This saves them a 2 day journey back to their workshop, which can now be used as valuable testing time.

Apart from our workshop, we also let the team use our testing ground near Schiphol Airport, where we can now arrange testing days together. This way, we can support each other logistically while learning how the other team approaches their testing period.

From the day of the arrival of the Helsinki team last Monday, there has been a lot of collaboration between the teams. Since we now eat, live and almost sleep together, you can really get to know each other and each other’s cars. It’s fun to see that although Helsinki has a totally different concept (a spaceframe car with 4-cylinder engine and a lot of horsepower, versus our monocoque with a single cylinder), there are many similarities. In engineering, working on the car, even the way our toolboxes are arranged. In these couple of days we already learned a lot from each other, and we are both looking forward to a great event in Hockenheim!

We are currently already back from Silverstone, but all did not go without an awkward moment preceding our trip. Last Monday night, the evening before the truck left for Silverstone, we did a final inspection of the car. Here we discovered the first mechanical failure of the year: our sprocket adapter, the aluminium part connecting the rear sprocket to the differential, had been ruptured.

This part is difficult to produce and we did not have a spare. As it was already 10 o’clock in the evening, we decided to go for two possible solutions. A new sprocket adapter was hand-milled overnight, and several companies near Delft were called in the morning to ask if they could cut the spline. Our second bet was to send 3 team members to our differential supplier, Drexler Motorsport, which is located near the 3-border point of Germany/Austria/Czech Republic.

24 hours later, both solutions had worked out. Machinefabriek Krimpen (MFK), a company specialized in designing and manufacturing drivetrain components, has cut a spline in our hand-milled sprocket adapter the morning we called them. Meanwhile, Drexler had aluminium blanks on stock with the spline already cut, and have turned and milled a new custom sprocket adapter on our request.

The new parts were taken to Silverstone on Wednesday and the entire drivetrain was re-assembled that evening. Thanks to the extraordinary help of MFK and Drexler and a good show of what team work means, we got the car ready for scrutineering just as planned and were able to compete in all dynamic events!

Yesterday was the last day of the FSUK 2010 event. On Sundays, Endurances are driven. At the beginning of the Endurance, we were 2nd overall in ranking. The weather was still a threat during the start of the Endurance. After the Alternative fuel class, the top ten of Class I started. Ravensburg was the first team to start the Endurance. After one lap, the car started to show some problems: it was unable to shift gears. After half a lap, the car broke down and the DUT Racing was virtually number 1 overall. Then it was our turn for the Endurance. Erik Schmidt was the first driver to come out. The grand stand exploded as he passes the first time. The first part of the Endurance went excellent, setting laps of 58 seconds on the scoreboard. Then the driver change was about to happen. The change was no problem, until the restarting of the engine: no response of the engine at all due to a broken starting relais. Two minutes later, DUT Racing was officially out of the race… Again, not Delft winning FSUK after 3 years of second places overall.

The sadness was enormous. But we have to look forward as FSG will start in two weeks. The team is tremendously motivated to improve on every area and eventually hoping to become champion in Germany!

Yesterday in the afternoon, the Sprint event was scheduled. Just as in the morning, the threat of rain was still present. Some good teams decided to do their laps early in the Sprint, while we decided to wait and see what happened on track. Monash started with some good laps, until Ravensburg decided to do their laps. The time set by the German/American combination was immediately the fastest of the day. That was the point that we hit the track. With a big applause from the grand stand, we set out first time, unfortunately 3 seconds slower than Ravensburg. Our second heat was better, although there was a lot of traffic on track. Therefore we got an additional lap in which we set the second best time of the day! No other team was able to improve that time.

In the evening, the Design Finals took place. Since we ended within the top 5 of Design Judging, we were invited to defend our design during the Design Finals. Could we win Design Judging for the second time in a row? Unfortunately, Ravensburg was decided as winner and DUT Racing second. A very good result, although we have to hand over the famous Carroll Smith shield to Ravensburg.

All results up until now:

Cost Judging: 5th place
Design Judging: 2nd place
Business Plan Presentation: 9th place
Acceleration: 12th place
Skid Pad: 2nd place
Sprint: 2nd place
Overall (before Endurance): 2nd place