2001 was an ambitious year for the Redback team, an all-new car with literally no team-made parts being carried over from the previous car. The chassis was a monocoque built from aluminium honeycomb. Whilst a very light and stiff material, the team faced many challenges associated with mounting ancillary equipment to the panels.
2001 saw Aluminium being used throughout most of the car, the suspension arms consisting of elliptical sections whilst tube was used for the pushrods. Other innovations on the RB2001 included Kevlar flex-discs instead of CV joints in the drivetrain, the use of programmable traction control and a custom, lightweight Torsen diff. Serious design work resulted in the RB2001 weighing 260kg, a reduction in weight of nearly thirty percent.
The challenges of building such a radical new car took its price on the team. The slow
initial progress of the design group resulted in a team-imposed management re-shuffle
in September. Dejan Ninic was appointed the new team leader and this late injection of
new energy helped the team to finish the RB2001 earlier in the year than the RB2000.
The team arrived at Holden’s Lang Lang proving ground on the Mornington Peninsula
with great expectations.
An adequate performance in the static events was a good start to the weekend and was
followed by a solid result in the Skidpad. The Acceleration event provided the
opposition with a taste of the potential of the RB2001. Second place came despite the
shifter mechanism malfunctioning and the car being stuck in second gear for the last
half of the distance.
Saturday afternoon saw the team’s best performance to date by placing second in the
Autocross by a mere 0.009s. It was later found that the rear tyres were only inflated to
half their design pressure so the speed of the car was never in doubt.
Second again in Enduro on Sunday with first place in Economy placed the team second overall in the local competition. This successful follow-up to the victory the year before firmly established the reputation of the UNSW Team.
Written by Tim White
Tuesday, 07 March 2006
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 08 March 2006 )