Louisville Midnight Mayhem's Sundown Showdown

As announced previously, Louisville Midnight Mayhem X will be the first Midnight Mayhem to incorporate events across two days.  Saturday, October 13, will be the traditional Midnight Mayhem event full of dynamic events and an endurance race while Friday, October 12, is going to be a new style of event that is, to our knowledge, unique to Louisville Midnight Mayhem!

It was previously announced that Friday would include a Test and Tune then short Heat Races that would feature a small number of cars on track for a sprint style race.  Well, this has changed for a couple of reasons.  First of all, you as teams have shown incredible enthusiasm for the Friday night event.  We were anticipating at most to have around 40 cars Friday night; instead, we have nearly 100!  This led to a restructuring of Friday altogether since we now have to finish setting up the site and get all of your cars through Tech Inspections on Friday so that you can participate in the Sundown Showdown.  The other major factor in our decision to deviate a bit from our original announcement is to get you as teams interacting with one another and meeting other people from other teams.  For many of us organizers, our Baja SAE experience changed significantly for the better when we started talking to and hanging out with other teams at competition.  Think about it, there are three times a year that you have the opportunity to get together with people equally as crazy as you are.  Three times a year that you are around people who totally understand the countless all nighters, the last second cramming for tests because the car has to get to competition, and the inexplicable desire to continually improve on your car year after year.  We want Midnight Mayhem to foster those new connections and friendships.  So with that being said, Louisville Midnight Mayhem's Sundown Showdown is going to be a team event.  "But we already race as a team?"  Yes, each of you bring your team from your school but, the Sundown Showdown is going to be mixing you up with other schools. 

The Sundown Showdown is going to be a RELAY RACE.

The Teams

When Tech Inspection closes on Friday your cars will be randomly placed onto one of up to twenty "teams."  There will be 5 cars per team and each car will be from a different university.  We will ensure that there are no "dream teams."  We want this to be a fun and fair event for everyone.  

The Event Format 

As mentioned this is going to be a relay race similar to a relay race you would run in a Track & Field event.  One car from each team will complete 2 laps around the track as fast as possible.  On completion of lap 2 the driver will enter the fuel pits, pull in to the designated area for his/her team, turn off the car, get out, and "pass the baton" by running to start the next car for their team.  The first team to complete 10 laps (2 per car) wins the heat!

There will be up to 5 heats depending on the number of teams.  The final heat of the evening will be the Championship heat in which the winners of the previous heats will compete for the top spot!

 
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