Probably the most cherished experience of my life and only fitting that my first ever blog post is about it. For those who know me personally, for those who see me only through my social media, even for those who have interviewed me at various stages, it should be quite obvious that I talk about my time with Raftar Formula Racing way too often. Is that just me blowing that experience way out of proportion sub-consciously or is there something of substance underneath it all? I am writing this specific sentence after finishing the rest of the blog and I can say with certainty that it is the latter.
My first exposure to Raftar Formula Racing (RFR) was in the introductory video screened on Orientation day at IIT-Madras, my alma matter, before I even set foot on any academic building on campus. There was probably a 3-second flash of a half-naked racecar frame whooshing through a road on campus which drew my attention in the moment and then got lost in the information dump learning about all aspects of life on campus. After that, it was the introductory session about Center for Innovation (CFI) - my favorite place on campus, where I formally acquainted with the Formula Student world. I gradually moved under the CFI umbrella during my freshman year and in the following summer, me and a couple of my friends started to spend time around the RFR pits, volunteering and picking up a couple of simple things every day just to work on the car. When I think back, I can say for certain that I did not comprehend much of what I was doing at the time but it was this intrigue on how “kids” without even completing their bachelors were able to build a working race car that inspired me to become a part of that process.
Never in a million years would I have believed anyone who told me how immersed I would end up being into the RFR world, on that day in mid-October of my sophomore year when I got officially recruited into the team. By that time, through my summer experience, I was well-acquainted with most of the senior members in the team; nevertheless there was quite a lot to imbibe on the technical front as part of the suspensions module which I was a part of. The first reward during this entire journey was seeing what I was learning in my mechanical engineering classes put into action in a real-world design scenario. This was only the proverbial scratch on the surface of all the technical deep dives that occurred through my rest of the time on the team but I don't think I now see these other technical learnings as the true big rewards. All my biggest takeaways from the RFR journey are in fact outside of the technical domain.
My first taste of formula student competition was in January 2015. As preparation for that, the winter break leading up to it was quite a busy one for me since I was also part of the university tennis team for the Inter-IIT sports meet which is a whole another story on its own. What that meant to the RFR journey was several sleep-deprived nights; in fact my first ever all-nighter was at the turn of the new year, a week before the actual competition, helping out in troubleshooting some engine electricals. Little did I know that would be only one of several for similar RFR-related causes, but I am getting ahead of myself here. While I had grown quite used to putting in intense effort into my academics, that winter was the first time in my life I was having to do that outside of academics. I began to understand the value of not seeking tangible incentives as a motivation, something that I still can’t claim complete mastery of but was definitely necessary to fathom as an idea at the very least. For a pop culture reference, I am talking of an equivalent of the Dhoni captaincy mantra of “separation of process and result”. The nature of the formula student beast is quite complex - for the most part, the team’s fortunes are driven by the weakest link; given this, personal gratification on tangible/objective measures of the team or the car is near impossible at least on a day-to-day basis. Nevertheless, there still were pieces of the entire jigsaw that was wholly my responsibility and it was my dharma to get that right to the best I could without being worried about whether the adjacent pieces are being thatched up with care. Over that month, I would go on to learn fundamentals of the workings of my suspension module of the car in the process learning the design tools, many manufacturing insights as well as the modus operandi of the team. Come the competition, it went quite poorly for us overall; started with really high expectations from ourselves, the competition as well as the international judges, it is fair to say we fell well below everyone’s expectations. We failed to make any meaningful inroads into more than 1 out of the 7 scored events leaving us well short of making even the top 5. Admissibly, I was part of several smaller group conversations at the time, especially between more senior members of the team, about where and with whom the fault lied in whatever went wrong going wrong. These bore absolutely no fruit at the end of the day — like I already said: weakest link. Post competition team debrief was of course not pleasant by any means, but personally too those discussions left me quite sour in that moment. There were people in the team being lauded out for working exceptionally hard in the lead up to the competition and my name was never even raised in any part of such discussions. Maybe not today, but it was the kind of thing that 19-year old me was affected by especially with the peers who were being mentioned and knowing their work ethic very well. Anyways, the lesser the said about this the better; the people in question — the appreciator and the appreciatee — would both go on to be in the team for less than a few months and it is fair to say my relationship with either, from an RFR point of view, is nothing to write home about. For me it was time to put my head down and work even harder to see things change around the next time, both as a team and personally.
What followed was a tumultuous few months for the team after that — it was decided that the summer trip to Europe for the German competition was not on the cards given our performance in the previous few events as a team and major surgery was necessary. With that decision made, many senior members of the team did not see it “worthwhile” without the European competition on the calendar and their numbers dropped like flies. In no time, the team that was 35-strong during the previous competition was down to a group of 13 with barely 2 members with more than 6 months of prior experience left. That was a watershed moment, in my opinion, while we could have fallen to the trenches with a total disruption in continuity of the team dynamic, what happened was quite the opposite. Maybe it was the fact that the team ridded itself of memories of previous failures, or maybe it was that the team was pushed to re-consider and unlearn some of the practices and decision-making strategies from the past. Maybe both or maybe neither and something else, but looking back things did take an up-turn at that point. I can proudly say that the 9 months that followed was the birth (9 months, birth - get it?) of a new culture and those were inarguably my best times in the team.
Maybe the events of the next two years belong in another blog post…