By this time tonight the Formula Miners have made it back to Rolla, unpacked and stowed their gear, started laundry, and are getting some much-needed rest.
S&T Racing put on a tremendous show at the Michigan International Speedway, "thrashing" the #8 car around the endurance race course according to one blown-away observer. That race fan couldn't get over what a great car the this team had put together because the car appeared to come through all that abuse in fine shape, and with a little work will be ready for next month's FSAE wrap-up event in California. The Miners just missed rallying to third place in the final standings, which after D. J. Quint's tremendous driving performance was a very real possibility.
Based on the raw scores S&T would have claimed 4th place, besting last year's standings by four places, and matching the team's all-time high-water mark set in 2004. Unfortunately, they were assessed a last-minute penalty for an inadvertent rules violation that bounced the Miners back two places, finishing 6th out of about 105 teams. Team Leader Aaron Young tells us "there was a communication mix-up at the start of the endurance race, and we ran out of the proscribed race order". Aaron went on to to describe some chaos among the half-dozen or so teams at the race start, but he said the "fault was ours" and he didn't have any gripe with race officials. It may well have been in the rush to change to racing "slicks" while #8 was just minutes before hitting the track that the four-man support crew (the maximum allowed in the "hot" pits) might have been distracted and lost focus.
The two-minute penalty, a huge fine in a 22km race, had nothing to do with the car's on-track performance, and running out of order didn't give the Miners an advantage; if anything it meant that the track was even more damp (and risky) when they raced.
Other cars were moving around them at the time, but Aaron wasn't having anything to do with excuses. He said that at least they topped last year's break-out performance by two places, and now they have to focus on June's season-ending race in California.
The crew felt pretty low after their racing tour de force, because they were dropped two slots on an administrative ruling, not because of racing or design performance. But that belies the real purpose of the event. As an SAE officlal told the team early this year, Formula SAE is not really about building race cars (yeah, that does seem blasphemous). This veteran judge said the real purpose is to master project and system management, and that includes every aspect of the team's actions. On-site judges might seem extremely picky about applying the rules, and while a team may feel slighted on occasion the educational purpose of these programs is to teach attention to detail, so to overlook a rule violation, however inadvertent or harmless to other teams, would not be proper. That lesson will certainly hit home and you can bet that no Miner SAE team will ever let that happen again.
Despite the setback, S&T Racing is in a great position to wrap up the year in an even better position than last year's ninth-place world ranking. They won the VIR FSAE event and will be an odds-on favorite to be on the podium in California next month.
Lastly, if you think the crew had an "Oh S***!" moment when they heard the penalty news,think of this University of Florida 
driver who looked over his shoulder and saw S&T's intimidating #8 about to crawl up his tailpipe.
Congratulations to The Miners on a job well done. The home team is screaming for 'ya. Keep up the good work, don't let certain things get you down. Just learn from them.
Rock on people!!!