My freshman year, I co-founded a 24 Hours of Lemons Racing Team.
Our Mission: To augment and apply Stanford’s classroom engineering education with the practical, hands-on experience of building race cars. Long term, our aim is to provide students from all walks of university life with transferable real-world engineering and project-management skills, exposure to leaders in the automotive industry, and stories for a lifetime.
What started as a casual lunchtime conversation between a few friends morphed into a 25+ member group that has numerous sponsors and external support. We have raced in 4, 16-hour races throughout California and taught tens of people how to work on cars, develop a race car, and even some how to drive a race car.
We worked in the 4th underground level of a parking garage, with basic tools and endless optimism.
I didn't even have a car to move car parts around, here is the bike of pride with an exhaust pipe.
Installing a quick release steering wheel required a custom-machined spacer.
We worked with a local shop to fabricate a rally-spec roll cage and seat mounts.
What we changed/added (or took out):
Custom rally-spec roll cage
Fire suppression system
Racing seat and 6-point harness
New brake pads, rotors, and high-temperature fluid
Removed everything heavy and superfluous
Custom gauge mounting
Kill switch
Stunning, custom livery painted by a Stanford Art Student: Gabriella Fedetto
Read, re-read, and re-read this safety checklist to make sure we would pass tech inspection
MUCH MUCH MORE
so much more to say about this experience; the leadership lessons, the late lights, the endless fun with friends...