Racing team engineers third national title

Dec 16, 2004

The University of Wollongong's UOW Racing team has won its third Australasian Formula SAE-A title in four years - adding extra celebrations to the Faculty of Engineering graduation ceremony on Thursday afternoon (16 December).

Formula SAE-A is a competition for the next generation of engineers between universities in Australia and New Zealand whose engineering students design and build racing cars for a series of competitions based on design, engineering, presentation, endurance, economy and - most importantly - performance.

UOW Racing won the first Australasian title it contested in 2001 and successfully defended the crown in 2002. Last year it became the first overseas team to win the United States Formula SAE competition in Detroit, before returning home to take a new car into second place among the Australasian teams in the 2003 competition.

However, this month UOW Racing's new BlueScope Steel Racer took Wollongong back to the top when it scored a resounding win in the 2004 Australasian championship, held at Werribee in Victoria from December 2-5.

“This was a really sweet victory,” said team manager Michael Schilling. “Last year we were expected to win and didn't. This year no-one expected us to win, and we did.

“We went to Werrribee with a new car thinking that we'd be happy to finish in the top five, but once we got there we realised that our car was right up there and we decided to really go for it.”

Six of the team members are graduating this week, and the Faculty of Engineering organised a special team presentation to coincide with the Faculty's graduation ceremony. The graduates are Rohana Kennedy (Wollongong), Warwick Benyon (Kiama), David Sergeant (Revesby) and Shayne Gill (Cessnock) who studied Mechanical Engineering, Evan Brown (Mt Warrigal) who studied Mechatronics and team manager Michael Schilling who studied Electrical Engineering.

Michael said the victory was the perfect conclusion to their years at University and their involvement with UOW Racing. “It's great to go out on a high,” he said.

The car surged to the lead in the three-day competition on the back of victories in the autocross and endurance events, and a second place and two thirds in the other sections.

The team beat a record field of 22 Australian teams, as well as three teams from US universities and one from New Zealand. Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) finished second with the University of Western Australia third.

Faculty of Engineering Dean Professor Chris Cook congratulated the team on its victory.

“Wollongong's outstanding success over the four years of this competition is a tribute to the strength of our broad-based Engineering degrees and to the fantastic rapport between the students and the Faculty's academic and technical staff,” Professor Cook said. “This great sense of teamwork allows us to consistently beat much bigger Universities.”

Professor Cook said the students also raised their own sponsorship, and had learned valuable marketing and public relations skills while developing their engineering expertise.