FEST13

Another season has come to an end and it is time to look back. This time the competition trips took us across the Atlantic Ocean again after more than three years, but we also left our mark on Europe. The saga began last autumn, when we came back from Hungary as winners. A promise was made to build Estonia's first electric formula car. We knew in advance that this would certainly take more time, effort and money, and that is why it was originally planned to divide the electric formula project over two years. But as they say, appetite comes with eating, and so it did with us. Even before the snow began to show the first signs of melting, it seemed very realistic to get the electric formula ready already for the competitions held in the summer of the same season. That is why we also registered for the competitions in Hungary and for Baltic Open in Finland. At the beginning of the season, when we officially had the right to compete with our very successful combustion formula FEST12 until August, the decision was also taken to take FEST12 to the competitions in North America.

At the end of April we packed FEST12 into a crate and sent it on its way to the USA, following about a week later ourselves. The competitions in North America were grand. The culture shock alone was considerable, as for many of us this was the first visit to the Yanks, but our success was even bigger. In tight competition we managed to secure 2nd place among more than a hundred teams. Only the Stuttgart team from Germany beat us. A triumph of Europeans over Americans.

A little over a week later the road took us north – to Canada. The Formula North competition took place, and it was just as successful – as they say: “Eternal second”. There were fewer competitors, only 26, but the competition was certainly at least as tight. According to the drivers, the lead was largely lost in the endurance event. Acceleration has usually been our bread and butter, but this time the track did not favour our big and relatively heavy car. Small and lighter machines were in the lead.

So much for that; with the North American competition trip successfully behind us, the development of FEST13 continued on home soil. The car had to be got ready for Baltic Open, held at the beginning of August. Our friends in Finland were waiting, after all. Unfortunately, completing the electric formula proved more complicated than optimistic expectations, and so it happened that FEST08, FEST10 and FEST12 travelled to the land of reindeer. FEST13 had to stay at base. Fortunately FEST12 was as good as expected, and our veterans were also fully up to their tasks. In a cheerful mood we managed to bring home the overall win with FEST12, and FEST08 and FEST10, run by the veterans, took 9th and 12th place respectively. Not as good results as the previous year, but still good work!

And now the most important thing. Very, very… and I would even say VERY narrowly, our first electric-motor formula car FEST13 was also ready for the Hungarian competition. The joy was truly indescribable. None of us thought it too much to hold the first drive at night in the underground car park of TTÜ. An electric car is quiet as the wind, but it has tremendous power. On 20 August we did the last test (probably the third in sequence for FEST13) on the Piibe highway, and from there we headed straight to Hungary.

The main goal, to be honest, was simply to test ourselves; there was no point hoping for a good result. As the car was ready so late, there was no time left for testing and all the scarce time went into getting the car finished, so this time there was no particularly good preparation for the static events either. We simply had to do our best, and that is what we did. We surprised our competitors and ourselves and successfully completed all events except the last and most important one, the endurance event. A scant two and a half laps before the end of the 36-lap distance the batteries had been destroyed by overheating and we had to park FEST13 at the side of the track. A pity! And so I think none of us knows what place we finally got in Hungary. It simply was not important.

Despite the destruction of the batteries and the fact that FEST13 did not make it to Finland at all, we still learned a lot of new things. It turned out that our electric formula is super fast even without proper setup. This means that we will devote the entire next (2013/2014) season to making sure that our electric formula, which got the nickname Justin Time in Hungary because it passed technical inspection at exactly the right time, gets enough test kilometres, is fully set up and is ready to show the competitors its tail lights. Next summer we are heading out for the win in any case!