May 26, 1999
The team of KU students, all future mechanical engineers, competed in the Formula SAE® competition, an annual event organized by the Society of Automotive Engineers in which engineering students conceive, design and build small formula-style racing cars. The competition draws entries from the United States, Canada, Mexico, Great Britain and Puerto Rico.
"We've taken a giant leap toward being one of the top 10 teams," said co-captain Brandt Pyles, Honolulu, Hawaii, senior. Pyles and Jennifer Kamp, Lenexa senior, led the team of 17 students through the past nine months spent on the car. The team's creation, a single-seat red racer that sits mere inches off the ground, has a 500 cc Honda engine that produces 115 hp at 9,000 rpm and runs on 100 octane gasoline. The car's top speed is 130 mph, and it can accelerate from 0 to 90 mph in five seconds. The chassis is made of carbon fiber monocoque, an extremely lightweight but strong material that helps keep the car's weight below 515 pounds.
The race car is known as formula-style because the competition challenges students to develop a formula for an automotive design that can be duplicated inexpensively. According to competition rules, the KU team's race car would have a production cost less than $8,500 per car if 1,000 cars were made. The intended market is the weekend non-professional autocross racer.
The competition lasts three days during which the cars are judged and scored in 10 events in three categories: static inspection, solo performance trials and high performance endurance - four hours of high-speed laps with breaks only to change drivers.
"We thought all along we had a great opportunity to do well in endurance, but the university has never finished that event," Pyles said. "The team was under a lot of stress, and everyone was counting every lap. When we finished that event, we all started jumping up and down." Fully two-thirds of the entries in the 1999 competition did not finish the endurance event.
Drivers for the KU team were Phillip Brown, Overland Park junior; Andrew Fairchild, Las Vegas senior; John Gallon, Fredonia junior; Scott Haskins, Derby senior; Andy Hineman, Dighton senior; Jared Lard, Edgerton junior; and Mike Schragg, Wichita senior.
KU team sponsors were Don Gyorog, Don and Betsy Hineman, Jacobsen Farms Inc., Mark Johnson, James Kamp, Joel and Mara Keen, Koch Industries Inc., Brad and Kelly Lambert, Marley Cooling Tower, O.J. McDonald Jr., John and Lucinda Pyles, Richard L. Rajewski, Gary and Linda Sanford, Dennis Shen, James Straight, Craig Walker, and Lawrence businesses Red Ink Racing Ltd., East 23rd Body Shop and Full Bright Maintenance Inc.
Faculty sponsor of the KU team is Robert Sorem, assistant professor of mechanical engineering.
Team members, their hometowns, class rank and parents' names and addresses (if available) follow.