Dirt Midget Suspension
Problem statement
A growing racing division at both regional and national levels, dirt midget racing works as a steppingstone to other forms of motorsport such as sprint car racing, TransAm & Grand Touring style cars, and spec racing. Dirt midget racing is highly competitive at all levels — teams are often secretive about the handling adjustments, setups, shocks, and tires they use to gain an edge. Due to this secrecy, finding reliable, data-driven information on how changes impact vehicle performance is challenging. In addition, racing on dirt, the track state is often decaying, influencing car handling characteristics. Our client, Fusion Engineering, believes that a dynamic multi-body simulation of a dirt midget will give them an upper hand against their racing competition, providing them with a numerical and visual source for resultant handling changes to the racecar before it ever goes out on the track. Additionally, Fusion will be able to supply historical setup data that has previously led to success, enabling us to analyze how individual adjustments influenced the vehicle’s handling on various track states. By doing so, they hope to strategically adjust their setup throughout a race night and outperform their competition. Siemens Mechanical Engineer, Matthew Furman, has proven the use case for dynamic simulation of dirt race cars in the form of a late model, where he is competitive in a family-owned car against the highest funded teams in the nation [1]. Our team’s dynamic simulation will be a one-of-a-kind asset to Fusion Engineering in increasing their on-track speed.
Team members
Miles Quandt – facilitator
Joey Thomas – communicator
Aaron Speed – accountant
Jake Herman – admin
Ryan Dahlgren
Client
Fusion Engineering
Miles’ Employer