IUPUI New Motorsports Program Making Fast Moves

The IUPUI motorsports program offers students like Lynsey Tilton specialized training to reach their career goals. Tilton, an IUPUI engineering and technology major who started motorsports competition at age 4, is shown inspecting her No. 18 midget car before a recent race in Kokomo.

INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis auto-racing program is off to a great start:

• About two dozen students have enrolled in the motorsports engineering certificate program scheduled to begin in August.
• Five IUPUI engineering and technology students have significant summer internships in the racing industry.
• Two student-built race cars bearing the IUPUI logo and Jaguars spirit mark – including one built in partnership with Panther Racing mark – are expected to hit the tracks within the next year.

“We are looking good right now and surprising a lot of people,” Peter Hylton, director of the IUPUI motorsports program, said of the university’s high-speed accomplishments in getting the program up and running.

IUPUI is the first university in the state of Indiana to offer a certificate program in motorsports. The Motorsports Engineering Technology Certificate curriculum offers a solid basis in mechanical engineering technology with special motorsports-related courses. The 26-credit certificate can be earned as part of a mechanical engineering technology bachelor’s or associate degree or earned separately. Lab projects are geared toward motorsports competition.

The internships available through the motorsports program, part of the Purdue School of Engineering & Technology at IUPUI, will give IUPUI graduates an “edge” in the race for future employment.

“Motorsports is a sophisticated industry, generating billions of dollars in revenue,” said IUPUI Chancellor Charles R. Bantz. “It needs highly skilled and talented people from accountants to mechanics to marketing professionals. Internships provide students the opportunity to experience the industry and to apply their studies everyday.”

For example, in partnership with IUPUI, Panther Racing, which placed eighth in the 2006 Indy 500, will return to the Indy Pro Series with a single-car, student-run team for the 2007 IPS season. The partnership will involve students from engineering, as well as liberal arts, business and other academic areas.

“This is going to be an amazing opportunity for IUPUI students to participate in one of the highest levels of motorsports,” Panther co-owner John Barnes said in the press statement issued prior to a July 2 press conference in Kansas announcing the partnership.

“These students aren’t going to be standing around watching; they’re going to be the ones building the race cars. We feel like this is going to be unlike any other internship a college or university can offer. These students are going to be qualified to work in our profession the minute they graduate from IUPUI.”

Very few universities offer students training opportunities specific to motorsports, said Hylton. The director, a licensed race car driver, is supervising the enthusiastic E & T students who are designing and building a second car, a MG that will run in amateur competition by next spring.

IUPUI is strategically situated for taking the inside position with its motorsports program.

Why?

“Location, location, location,” Hylton said. Only Charlotte, S.C., home to NASCAR racing, rivals Indianapolis in terms of its connections to the racing industry.

IUPUI, an urban research campus of more than 29,000 students, is located just four miles east of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, site of the Indy 500 race. The Speedway also hosts the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard, and has hosted several Formula One races. The Indianapolis area is also home to numerous racing industry vendors and support operations.

These connections are drawing students such as Lynsey Tilton, a 19-year-old California native and midget car racer. Tilton, who starts her second year in the IUPUI engineering program this fall, began racing motorcycles at age 4. Tilton said she choose IUPUI because of the quality of its engineering program and the opportunities available for her to continue racing.

“With the motorsports program that IUPUI is now offering, I will be able to relate the information I am learning to my own racing which will make me a better driver,” Tilton said. “The more knowledge I have that relates to motorsports, (the more) it will help me when I go out into the engineering field in motorsports. I know a lot of teams look at that and I believe that IUPUI will help me accomplish my goals for a career in motorsports.”