BY HANNAH BROADBENT | the Statesman
How do you prepare for a Formula race? Engine, transmission, suspension and brakes—check. Dynamometer (dyno)—check. Collection of UMD engineers—check.
Bulldog Racing, Formula SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers), is a group of about ten engineers who spend one year building a formula racing car and another year perfecting it.
Mike Vogel and Travis Kramer are the presidents of Bulldog Racing. They spend 40 hours each week on the car. Neither of them have jobs because they say this is one.
The team designs everything themselves and manufactures the parts in the engineering building’s machine shop. The motor, rims and tires are the only things that they do not make themselves.
Most of what the team does is engineering-based fabrication and design.
“We do all the welding, cutting and making the frame and then assembling everything,” Vogel said. “We tune our own motor and we have a dyno downstairs.”
“[The dyno] is just a machine that simulates road conditions without it actually being on the road,” Kramer said.
The dyno allows them to pretend like the car is driving, then tune it, similar to a treadmill for cars.
As presidents, Kramer and Vogel get to step out of their comfort zones and engineering lairs to do something they didn’t learn in their Kinematics and Mechatronics class. That is, marketing.
“We go out into the community and get sponsors. This car costs easily $20,000 to build,” Vogel said. “We got a little over $6,500 from the school and then we get donations from Amsoil and other companies.”
After sponsorships are nailed down, the team attends one competition a year. It takes place in Michigan in May and registration itself is $2,200. The team gears up to race against 120 national and international teams.
There are five or six events the team participates in. A few of those are static events, like an autocross time trial and an endurance run lasting 24 laps testing the fuel economy of the car.
“That’s where teams run into trouble, seeing if they can last that long,” Vogel said. “Cars start on fire.”
They remember one previous car that got disqualified because the brake lights fell off.
One of their competitors is the University of Minnesota. They have around 50 people on their team and spend around $100,000 on their cars. Half of that comes from the school.
Kramer and Vogel say their team usually places somewhere in the middle of the 120 teams, which they’re okay with, considering the size of their group.
The team gets more out of Bulldog Racing than the building experience. Though the team does not get course credit for Bulldog Racing, they do get internships and jobs, saying a lot of companies come to them looking for employees.
“In the long run we do get paid for this,” Kramer said.
Last summer Kramer had an internship with Polaris and was able to return home with a trunk full of motors for the car.
The team also prides itself on their three-time championship cardboard boat race during homecoming week. They also adopt a section of highway long I-35. To contact them you can email at umdfsae@d.umn.edu or facebook Facebook.com/UMDfsae.