A Need for Speed: Racing Club Inspires Student to Choose SLU

Building a car from the ground up is something that I believe would not be possible if it were not for the team of people who have contributed to the club over the years.

No one person could possibly design and build the entire car by themselves as it would be way to overwhelming and take way longer to build.

We make almost every single part of the car ourselves in Oliver Hall aside from the major components like and engine, wheels and tires.

My favorite memory as a member of the team would have to be from when we were in the home stretch as we pushed to get our car done before competition this past year.

If you ask other members of the team, they’ll agree with me when I say that, in the moment, the experience was filled with a lot of stress and frustration.

However, we were able to all contribute in the weeks building up to competition in order to finish it just in time so we could pass the main technical inspection.

And when I say we finished it just in time, I mean it.

We were still assembling our car in the pits at competition trying to put it all together in time for inspection whereas other teams showed up with cars they finished almost a month in advance.

Looking back on it, I am proud of what we accomplished as a team and while it was not easy in the moment, I can honestly say the overall experience is one of my favorite memories as a member of Parks Racing.

Last year when we were finishing up the chassis on our car, we learned that there had been a rule change regarding how the tubes were supposed to be oriented in the front of the car.

Due to that, we were forced to cut out a large portion of the tubes from the car the were already welded into place.

This set us back a couple of months as all those tubes had to be re-fabricated according to our new design, but we ultimately were able to overcome it and made it to competition in June just in time.

I am a big believer in students getting involved in extracurriculars at SLU that compliment their studies.

While I may be a little biased towards Parks Racing, I still appreciate students who commit countless hours to clubs that they are passionate about.

With respect to building the car, I would say it has components on it that are complimentary to almost any major.

It has bodywork which has aerodynamic considerations that are applicable to aerospace engineering majors. It has a chassis that has structural analysis conducted on it which applies to civil engineering majors. It has custom wiring that is a real world application of what electrical engineering majors learn, and it also has numerous moving components that is relevant to the mechanical engineering curriculum.

Not to mention that the competition we go to also has a business presentation portion, which goes to show that this club has something for everyone regardless of major.

Speaking from personal experience, there is not a part on the car that I have designed where I have not used at least some knowledge which I learned in the classroom. And I also find that building the car has me more engaged in my classes as I am always attentive to see if there is something new I can learn and then take back and apply to the car.

I see the pursuit of truth as linking theory to the real world in order to apply for one’s own application. This is essentially what every team in our annual FSAE competition does. Each team gets the same rule book, but ultimately produces vastly different vehicles as that is how each individual team has linked their own theory to the real-world production of their own car, thus pursuing their own truths.

I knew I wanted to join a club in college that built some kind of vehicle, but I never would have imagined I would be able to gain this much real-world experience while also learning new skills almost every workday.

If I had the opportunity to go back to senior year of high school and make my college decision all over again, I can confidently say I would make the same choice I did back then and come to SLU while also being a part of Parks Racing.

What I love most about the car is just being able to look at it and think how it started from nothing and now is an operational vehicle built by a group of students that can perform better than most cars on the road today.

I also love the team that I get to build the car with. The team is composed of a range of freshmen to grad students who I would say are some of my closest friends, and so being able to build the car with them just makes the experience all the better.