Welcome

Welcome to the home of Academy Racing. The 2011 season was a great year overall, but unfortunately the team did not achieve its potential at the FSAE-A competition. In 2012, the team is designing and building a completely new car, WS12. To keep up to date with the car development, as well as the team check out the latest newsletter within the newsletter section or maybe look at Academy Racing in action within the media section. We hope that you check the website regularly to follow the process of the 2012 Academy Racing team.

Our Sponsors for 2012. Thankyou, for without your support our project would not be possible.

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News & Announcements

2012 Australian Grand Prix

Submitted by OCDT Matthew Crook 21 April 2012

The Academy Racing Team for 2012 has hit the ground running with our first team outing being the QANTAS Australian Grand Prix. The team was part of the Defence presence in Melbourne and displayed there for four days.

During the event they fielded questions about Formula SAE, university studies at UNSW and military life at ADFA. The team was able to interact with a large number of people from the public over the four days, many talking at length. Children and adults alike enjoyed the Kodak moments and sitting in the car.

The team also got the opportunity to experience the Grand Prix widely. We visited the F1 paddock on numerous occasions and enjoyed the hospitality of Caterham F1 during an extensive tour. In addition the team was also privileged enough to visit the Bottle-O V8 pit and talk to some scrutineers for both F1 and V8 Supercars and observe them at work.

Of course the build up over the four days to Sunday afternoon's race was also a memorable and exciting experience. Overall the trip to the Grand Prix was a great success with lots of positive feedback and much learning.

Driver testing

Submitted by OFFCDT Daniel O'Brien 20 October 2011

Academy Racing held a driver testing session on 21 October 2011 in order to assist in deciding on who the future drivers will be in the team, for both the competition this year and for the next two years.

The driving began promptly at 12 with an intro to the course and an inspection of the car, including a warm up and demonstration by the team captain, Alistair Weir. Drivers took turns to each go through the assessment process which included having to complete an emergency egress in under 5 seconds and come to a skidding halt. Once completed the driver then drove in a figure 8 pattern and showed off what they were made of - all of which was completed in time for the next driver to begin every half hour. Aside from the drivers stalling the car and a few minor issues with the car still to be ironed out, the car worked well over the day without too many faults.

Formula Student UK Trip

Submitted by OFFCDT Brodie Kilkenny 05 August 2011

After 3 weeks in the UK, the Academy Racing team is now back in Australia gearing up for the new university semester, the FSAE competition in Melbourne in December and starting production of next year's car, WS12. However, it's also now time to reflect on the past few weeks. The team arrived at 30th Signal Regiment in Bramcote, Warwickshire on Saturday, 2nd July; the team's host for the proceeding two weeks with the car arriving on the Monday. Those two weeks were to be very busy for the team as they gave a the car a thorough check over after the flight, followed by testing and tuning as well as some practice for the drivers, PLTOFF Paul Gardner, OFFCDT Piotr Gluchowski, OCDT Ben Bonnell and the team captain, PLTOFF Alistair Weir. This period of testing proved to be very beneficial as the team ironed out the few remaining bugs in the car, giving them a solid starting point for the competition at the famous Silverstone raceway.

However, the team couldn't fill in all the spare time at Bramcote working on the car so they were lucky enough to organise some tours of Cranfield University's precision engineering lab, composites lab, crash test facility and the Lucky Strike Formula 1 car. An exciting day for the team and after seeing that they were using the same processes that Academy Racing have been using for developing F1 parts, it was unanimously voted that the teams workshop is in fact, an F1 development facility.

The team also had the chance to walk around the Silverstone pits as the F1 teams were preparing for the Grand Prix, a tour Prodrive, World Rally Team and Minardi Formula 1 team workshop where they met the Australian owner Paul Stoddart. As PLTOFF Gardner's 21st birthday was only a few days away, he was lucky enough to ride in one of the F1's with Paul Stoddart at the wheel - an exciting experience for everyone.

As the competition began, the car was looking very solid but as it is with racing, the weather played havoc with the Australian team throughout the weekend. Regardless, out of 100 different teams from around the world, Academy Racing placed 6th in design, a huge achievement for the team as we were in the company of some very highly regarded teams and placing in the top 20 for skid pad and sprint (equivalent to the Australian competition's autocross). Despite the car not finishing the endurance event due to an engine failure, the team still placed in the top 3rd of the competition - overall an excellent result for the team's first overseas competition.

The team also made a good impression and turned a lot of heads with the car's beam axle suspension, unique to the FSUK 2011 competition as well as learning a great deal both from the other teams, and the judges. The team now plans to take what they have learnt from this competition and use it in Melbourne, putting themselves in a very competitive position for the competition as well as further developing WS12.

A huge thanks goes out to our sponsors and supporters as without them, the trip would not have been possible.