Detroit: Tilt, Brake, Noise and Weight tests - Thursday

Another early start leaving the hotel at 6:15, Me, Jim, John, Ant, and Lee had been elected to get to the venue first to sort ot the car to pass scrutineering, we got to the site fairly early and began to get the car ready!
At 10am, John and Anthony disappeared to do the business presentation to the judges, shortly after they returned, the wind started to pick up as a storm came in, we we're ordered to drop or tools and proceed immediately to the nearest 'storm shelter' as there was a Tornado warning! After wasting over an hour twiddling or thumbs waiting excitidly for a tornado, nothing materialised, not even rain and the wind began to die down, so we could go back to work! After lunch the car was re-scrutineered and passed with flying colours, it was then weighed, and came in at 493 pounds (223kg), 5kg lighter than last year!
The car was then fueled and taken to the tilt table, to test for leaking fluids at high cornering forces, and also the rolling point of the car! In the UK they only do the test to 45 degress, so i was a little suprised when they kept going afterwards, not to mention a little bit frightened, it went all the way to 79 degrees!45degrees79 degrees
So we passed the test, and went on to complete the noise and brake tests; the noise test is to make sure the car runs under 110dB, so as not to create too much noise pollution, we scraped in with 109dB, then we carried straight on to the brake test, again this is a bit different from the uk event, all you have to do in the uk, is lock all four wheels at the same time, end of story! But in the US you have to lock all four wheels, come to a complete stop, and then drive off again, which in theory sounds easy, but we had a problem...
I'd been worried about the clutch pedal, it seemed really sticky, upon launching the car, I was dumping the clutch and it was slipping, and the pedal was taking ages to return, thinking the cable was just trapped under the seat, we took the seat out and messed about with the routing, this seemed to look better, but actually made no difference. The problem was the car was stalling at the end of the run, despite drilling the clutch to the floor prior to diving on the brakes, once the car had stalled, i was off the brakes trying to bump start it again! I got frustrated, after the guy at the end of the course was trying to explain to me how to use a clutch, when that wasn't the problem! I knew the only way to stop it from stalling was to heel and toe it, but there was no way i could hit the brakes with enough force and not hit the throttle with the same, so i handed over to John to do the job! After a couple of attempts, he got us through the test, so we were all ready to start competing!
We decided to change the clutch cable, and found it had got too hot, and melted the inner teflon liner, cause it to stick very badly, so we change the outer, and the pedal felt like a dream afterwards.
Next was the cost presentation, this is a static event where the cost of components and labour are evaluated against the other teams, and where 2 of us had to describe the manufacuturing process of a componet on the car; Mark explained the steering wheel very well, and Adam cleared things up on the fuse front, both claiming us top marks!
Next up was th Design presentation, where the idea is to sell the car to the judges based on new innovative designs, i think the judges were more interested in facts and figures!
Later on Anthony, Chris and I attended a drivers meeting, where the design finalists were announced, we were disappointed not to be included, especially as our arch rivals Brookes had made it in.
That night we stored the car in one of the buildings, along with Helsinki, and Oxford Brookes' cars with the fear that a possible tornado could destroy all our cars. Then we set off to Hooters, to cheer us all up, i think the waitresses sorted us out!