Racecar engineering schools

Im in my 2nd year of college well on my way to a bachelors in mechanical engineering, but ive been thinking of specializing in automotive engineering particulary having to do with racecars. anyway i was wondering if any of you know or went to an engineering school with such specialized majors. thanks ahead of time.

ernie

Find a school that has a team that competes in the Formula SAE racing series or start your own group at your school. This will give you lots of good practical experience as well as contacts.

I remember hearing that University of Central Florida going to offer a Racing Engineering Degree. Also heard Panoz was thinking of starting a racing engineering school at his Sebring track.

k thanx guys ill check in that florida school but yeah ive already heard about the sae competitions if i dont transfer out this summer me a few kids are gonna start a team for the 2004 comp.

RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) has an SAE Formula team (which wins a lot of the time, they just won in Australia this year) and a specialized M.E. program for automotive engineering.
Here are a few links with some info:
http://www2.rit.edu/meche/ This is the ME main page
http://www2.rit.edu/meche/program.php?id=1&page=3 This page describes the automotive program
http://www.rit.edu/~formula/rit_sae.html this is the Formula SAE racing site for RIT

Ernie, I am a Junior Mechanical Engineer at louisiana tech university, and i noticed the question that you put on this forum. That exactly explains what i want to do, but i dont know how to get started. If you get this message please e-mail me back some info that you may have. or if you of anything that i can do to find out some info. e-mail is J_24g_racing@yahoo.com

THanks
Jeremy

FSAE. Definately the way to go. Best way to learn and get hands on with a real race car. The one at my alma mater was started by just four guys.

I work with a racing company now, and I owe it all to my experience with FSAE. I checked into colleges with racing degrees, and there arent really any in the US. They do have quite a few in England (Cranfield, Brooklands), but they might be difficult to get into. IF you did want to go to the UK, be sure to get in touch with the MIA (www.the-mia.com) they're helpful folks.

Maybe it is not possible for me to get in with nascar, but its worth a try. I will have a bs degree in mechanical engineering in about a year. Would anyone know if there is a way that i may beable to continue my knowledge to be hired by nascar or by a nascar team. Is there some type of school that a ME can go to to be an engineer for nascar.

Thanks Jeremy

Thanks for the info, it its greatly appreciated.

found this offer by UTI

http://www.collegeanduniversity.net/custom/uti.cfm?AffID=11&CollegeID=280&ProgramID=0&RequestIDList=&redirAfterLastRequest=&PrefillFields=0&bookmark=

also check out Autosport magazine. they have job offers and links, you might be able to land an internship or something

I was a student of UTI's regular automotive program and if their nascar tech program is as good as the rest of their extra courses it can only help. The only problem i think is that you have to do a full year at UTI, which might actually be helpful in your situation. One place you should not go is Ferris Sate University (MI). They tricked me into thinking they had a good program here. It Sucks, now i'm stuck freezing my ass off in the great white north.

These guys tricked me too, this is another old a-s thread. I am so gullible.

BJM, What is your Major. What kind of curriculum does uti/nti have. Is it Engineering type study (Calculus and Cad programs) Or more of a technical as far as they teach you how to work on something and you work on it? How did you get "stuck" what is wrong with the school you are attending.

Thanks

UTI was a great technical school. they had courses from engines to electrical to underbody. They also have a diesel and heavy equipment programs. One of the really good things about the school is their connections with manufacturers like BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Volkswagon, Volvo, Porsche. I think the school really offers excellent training and if you bust your butt and have good grades you can get accepted to one of the above manufacturers programs. I didn't realy want to turn a wrench for the next twenty years so i dedcided to go for an actual degree.
I found out about the automotive engineering degree (B/S) and decided to check it out. I heard some good things and liked what I saw so i went for it. Ferris Stateoffers a two year automotive technicle degree (Associates of Applied Science) and then you can continue on into the AET program. As i found out at the end of my first year here, this is not an accredited engineering course. There is no cad and no calc, not really to much engineering. There is an option for a Quality Science Certicficate, which is statistical control, but that is the only good thing about the program.
I have had some basic physics and math up to trig, also some material science.
Oh Snap got to go to class

(continued)

But they also put in a lot of other required crap like Industrial/organizational psychology and OSHA law. things that should not be in an engineering curriculm. There are also some other classes that sounded like they were going to be good like Automotive materials, this ended up being a basic fuels and lubes class that i had already had all the info in tech school. This should not have been a 400 level course. add on top of the fact that it was taught by a stuttering moron and you begin to see my frustration with the program. The only really good required courses that i have taken were Airflow (310) and Dyno (320). these were both very informative and challenging courses and were well taught by a good proffessor.

I'm hungry

If you want to work for a top team in racing, doesn't matter if it's F1 to WRC, become a specialist in some racecar related area of engineering. FSAE may be fun, but they usually don't care about it since they doesn't want hobby racers. What they do want is people that have excellent skills in certain areas, it may be aerodynamics, composites, CAD/CAM/CAE and so on. If this means that they need to take people from the aerospace industry it doesn't matter.

Does anyone realize this thread is almost 3 years old?

Somebody picked it back up and i didn't notice till after i posted. I think they should just lock out stuff after a year. But it is a good point that You have to specialize in a certain area and be a master at it to get on a top team, that and Formula SAE is not practical.