But heading into this year's competition, team leader Marcus Beaudry is confident their new and improved high-performance race car has an edge.
"Mainly we've been working hard on getting a lighter car," he said. "We've actually managed to shave off about 50 pounds. It's kind of ironic (that the team did so well last year), since we were a lot heavier than a lot of the cars on the field."
Last year's team finished 15th overall, as well as second in fuel economy and fifth in acceleration. It was the U of A's 10th year in the competition, with students from the departments of mechanical and electrical engineering and, at times, even the School of Business. This year's team of 17 has been putting in thousands of hours in an attempt to top an already impressive record.
About 80 teams from five continents have been working under the premise that they've been hired as design engineers for a manufacturing firm that wants to mass produce a weekend autocross racer, with restrictions on engine size and intake capacity.
Vehicles are judged in a number of categories, such as design, aesthetics, marketing plan, cost analysis and performance, including acceleration, breaking, fuel economy, individual time and cornering capability.
The main source of last-minute jitters this year has been adjusting to a new control unit in the Honda CBR600 F4i engine, says Beaudry.
"We're hoping we can get the engine back in shape. We had to switch our control units, and the new one functions a little differently...But we've made a lot of progress in the last few days."
With some re-used parts and in-kind donations for heat treating, chassis-tube cutting and welding, the bill for this year's car came in at about $40,000, which is covered by a number of sponsors and the Faculty of Engineering. From scratch it would cost about $80,000 to build a similar car, says Beaudry.
Weighing in at 209 kilograms, the "ABR 09" has a body made of carbon fibre and has a steel chassis and suspension. The rest of the components are made of aluminum.
Designing the car has been "probably the single greatest learning experience of my life," said Beaudry of designing this year's car.
"You learn a lot more about how your courses relate together, and exactly how your education is going to be used."
"There's nothing that compares to it," says team member Daniel Vaandrager. "It's the most fun I've had ever. It's nice to have the thrill of fixing something that's broken."
Fans of the vehicle and local media were able to see it hit the track at Stratotech Park near Fort Saskatchewan Thursday as it ran a few test laps before making the long trek to Los Angeles in a trailer next week.
The competition takes place from June 17-20.
