NYU Motorsports, a Vertically Integrated Project of engineers, creators and entrepreneurs based at the Tandon School of Engineering, transforms motor racing into full-fledged business ventures. NYU Motorsports builds race cars to compete in off-road and formula races held by the Society of Automotive Engineers International against other American and international universities.
The motorsports club consists of several operations such as suspension and steering to enhance vehicle performances, frame and ergonomics for safety and comfort and business and outreach to secure funding.
Since 2016, NYU Motorsports has been a strong contender at BajaSAE, an off-road race held by SAE International to test terrainability and water resistance of student designs. The club historically makes it past the first round and competes with around 40 of the top teams for the championship.
This coming May, NYU Motorsports will be competing in the BajaSAE race in Williamsport, Pennsylvania with new carbon composite and steel upgrades to its car. The club is also forming a business pitch for the case competition segment as well as leveraging sponsors and recruiting drivers and crew.
Here’s a behind-the-scenes of one of NYU’s most complex clubs and the intricate steps its students take to prepare for the upcoming competition season.
Engineering
NYU Motorsports analyzes existing car parts to improve their performance from previous races. The team will recycle the chassis from last year’s BajaSAE in Oregon and upgrade its drivetrain and body for better drive.
“We’re redesigning all of it to be more efficient, which includes remanufacturing the gearbox, training the transfer case, incorporating a new front differential and more,” drivetrain lead Mubeen Zainul said.
The team’s drivetrain starts with a 10-horsepower internal combustion engine — following the engine regulations by BajaSAE. The organizer caps the power of the engine but allows competitors to design the drivetrain that delivers the engine power to the tires.
“Your choice of distributing that power to the tires is where teams can get creative,” Ufuk Akpinar, one of the club’s design leads, said. “This car has a four-wheel drive system, and we have a gearbox that we develop in-house which sends power to all four wheels.”
A four-wheel drive system, which allows the engine to directly power both the front and back tires, yields better handling for the driver and more traction with the ground — both of which are crucial for off-road racing.
While improving the drivetrain — which includes the motor, gearbox and differentials — makes the car go faster, the suspension is what keeps the car steady on bumpy terrains. The team designs intricate shock-absorbing mechanisms with springs and dampers to ensure a smoother ride.
“Suspension is basically the heart of the car and the car’s contact patch,” Akpinar said. “You start from suspension and build up because it’s how the car corners, turns, jumps and takes bumps. So if your suspension design is not great, even if you have the rest of the car built brilliantly, it won’t work well.”
Once the design is nearly complete, the team makes the trek to Northeast Off-Road Adventures in Ellenville, New York every semester for test runs.
“Since NYU doesn’t have a racetrack nearby, it’s actually pretty hard for us to get testing days in,” BajaSAE design lead Maria Jose Valbuena Mendoza said. “So we have to make sure our design is really good before renting a truck to go all the way there.”
One of the least talked about but critical parts of engineering a car is electronics. Electronics optimize data collection of lap times, temperatures and GPS coordinates, allowing the team to communicate with the driver and monitor vehicle behavior.
“For the past two years, we’ve used a deck system, which sends data to a web server, and then we can see what’s going on during a race,” BajaSAE electronics lead Arthur Barbosa said. “We also need a little LCD screen for the driver so he or she can see the car’s position on the map of the racetrack, along with how long each lap took on the field.”
Business
NYU Motorsports also takes pride as a team of real-world problem solvers. Alongside races, SAE competitions host the Business Presentation segment, a scenario-based challenge for students to pitch their designs to aftermarket manufacturers.
For BajaSAE in Williamsport, teams will tackle real-world issues such as the production shortage in semiconductors — a chemical component that allows electronics to conduct electrical currents — in the U.S., dealing with a less-than-easy case to be made for cars’ safety and stability controls. Teams will present their findings to the SAE Board of Directors, a panel of vice presidents from prestigious investment and engineering firms.
“The beauty of motorsports is that it tackles a bunch of different facets in different industries,” business lead Dylan Thompson said. “You’re not just developing hard engineering skills, but also investment banking and private equity skills because we teach a lot of financial modeling to students.”
To strengthen NYU Motorsports’ business expertise, the club is hosting a speaker series this semester with investment bankers specializing in the automotive industry so students can learn more about the business behind building cars.
“We don’t want this club to just be a motorsports team, but also one of professional development as well,” Thompson said.
Finance
Although NYU Motorsports’s BajaSAE and FormulaSAE teams initially operated as two separate Vertical Integrated Projects at Tandon, NYU merged the teams due to funding cuts. “The merger set an unprecedented financial strain on the club, slashing our administrative funding in half,” commercial lead Melina Peimanidis said.
While the BajaSAE car requires $50,000 to $60,000 in funding, FormulaSAE will require roughly four times that of BajaSAE. This marks the club’s ambitious introduction to FormulaSAE, an SAE International competition that challenges students to design a small formula-style racing car.
To reach the goal, the finance team is focused on raising capital from corporate sponsors such as Hendrick Motorsports and Oracle Red Bull Racing. Whether it’s by cold emailing organizations or scheduling in-person meetings with investors, NYU Motorsports is determined to fund its construction of a FormulaSAE car.
Although formerly known as NYU Tandon Motorsports, NYU Motorsports is no longer just a Tandon club. With a membership of almost 80 people and still looking to expand, there’s a place in the club for any student who shares a resilient love for motorsports.
“A lot of people might assume that we’re just engineering majors, but we have people from Tisch, Steinhardt, CAS, Stern, you name it,” finance lead Jay Shah said. “We’ve opened up to all different majors because NYU’s diversity is what makes us incredibly strong.”
Contact Andrea Lui at [email protected]
