SCCA’s membership grew this weekend with a fresh crop of college students participating in the Formula SAE Lincoln event, June 17 – 20. Each of the 1,087 participants, from across North America, were given an SCCA membership of their own at the event staffed and hosted by SCCA members and friends.

A lot has changed since the first FSAE event took place in 1981, when only four teams attended that initial event in Austin, Texas. This year, 90 teams (67 in the internal combustion category, and 17 electric powered) attended the Lincoln event.

The event ran well throughout the four days with weather averaging in the 80s with a breeze – and only a two hour delay for a Midwestern storm on Thursday that brought competitors and volunteers closer together, literally, under shelter.

The concept behind Formula SAE is that a fictional manufacturing company has contracted a design team to develop a small Formula-style race car. The prototype race car is to be evaluated for its potential as a production item. The target marketing group for the race car is the non-professional weekend autocross racer. Each student team designs, builds and tests a prototype based on a series of rules whose purpose is both to ensure onsite event operations and promote clever problem solving.

Formula SAE promotes careers and excellence in engineering as it encompasses all aspects of the automotive industry including research, design, manufacturing, testing, developing, marketing, management and finances. Formula SAE takes students out of the classroom and allows them to apply textbook theories to real work experiences.

Autocross plays a major role in the competition, with many schools electing to return each year to the Tire Rack Solo Nationals presented by Garmin VIRB at the same location.

Skidpad winners-IC:

                1^st Michigan State University

                2^nd University of Washington

                3^rd San Jose State University

Autocross winners-IC:

                1st San Jose State University

                2nd Texas A & M University

                3rd University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Endurance winners-IC:

                1^st San Jose State University

                2^nd University of Kansas

                3^rd Western University

The University of Pennsylvania won both the Autocross and Endurance portions of the EV competition.

Overall Winners – IC:

                1^st San Jose State University

                2^nd Western University

                3^rd University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Overall Winners-EV:

                1^st University of Pennsylvania

                2^nd University of Kansas

                3^rd Polytechnic University of Montreal

Complete preliminary results can be viewed here.

Photo: San Jose State University Spartan Racing Team