June 8, 2023
By Emma Ryan | Photos courtesy of Savoy Automobile Museum

When Georgia Tech Motorsports (GTMS) began work on their vehicle for the 2019 Formula SAE Michigan competition, they had no idea that it would be three years until the car made it to the event. Car 70 faced a number of obstacles — the pandemic in 2020, an unexpected crash in 2021 — that meant it wouldn’t compete until 2022, where it placed 23rd. 

“Car 70 is a story of redemption and revival,” said Eli Kuperman, the president of GTMS and a fourth-year business major. “Just like 70 persevered to make it to the competition, our team pushed through tough times to make it to where it is today. We learned from the shortcomings of 70 to build Car 82, our 2023 vehicle, which finished seventh — our best finish since 2004. We owe the success of 82 to everything we learned from 70.”

Car 70 is one of five automobiles currently on display at the Savoy Automobile Museum in Cartersville, about 45 miles northwest of Atlanta. 

“GTSCC is ground zero for fostering engineering innovation amongst hundreds of students,” said Tom Shinall, the director of development at the Savoy. “We want visitors to be wowed by the talents and skills of these student engineers. They are the future of the industry, and this exhibition can help give us an indication of where the automotive industry is headed.”

The exhibit showcases five of the seven teams that make up the Georgia Tech Student Competition Center (GTSCC): GTMS, Georgia Tech Off-Road, Wreck Racing, HyTech Racing, and GT Solar Racing. Their vehicles are displayed alongside exhibits of Porsches, British roadsters, and the all-American pickup truck — all part of the Savoy’s mission to connect visitors with the beauty and history of the automobile.

“These competition vehicles all started as ideas in the heads of students, so to watch them come to life and now be displayed in a museum is truly an honor,” Kuperman said. “Dedicated students put thousands of man-hours into these vehicles, and it feels like they’re a part of us. It is humbling to see them held in such high regard.”
 

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All of the GTSCC teams are student-run and -led, giving students hands-on experience with designing, engineering, and testing a vehicle from start to finish, as well as managing people, projects, and deadlines. 

“The teams in the SCC provide an experience like no other,” said Alex Repp, a fourth-year biomedical engineering student who is the president of SCC and the driver controls engineer for GTMS. “It’s a way to realize the engineering processes and methods taught in class in a tangible way and to learn concepts that may be untapped in class but are essential to success in engineering and motorsports.”

Anna Lisner, the president of GT Off-Road, agreed: “You learn best by doing, and that’s why these competitive engineering teams are so valuable. It’s one thing to learn theory in class and something else entirely to apply that knowledge to a physical project.”

GT Off-Road races a single-seat off-roading vehicle at the Baja SAE competition every year, where it faces challenges such as several-foot drops and a four-hour endurance race. The OR-7 Resilience, currently displayed at the Savoy, was the team’s 2022 vehicle and finished 7th at the Baja SAE Tennessee competition. 

“Throughout the year, we were faced with roadblocks that set us back, and it wasn’t easy to make up that lost time,” said Lisner, a fourth-year mechanical engineering student. “The team put so many hours into putting the vehicle together, and the fact that it did so well in competition just makes me so proud.”

The Wreck Racing team faces different kinds of challenges: The team’s vehicle must cost less than $2,000 to be eligible for the Grassroots Motorsports $2000 Challenge at the Gainesville National Raceway. The tight budget forces the team to push the limits of their ingenuity, including sourcing materials from dumpsters, junkyards, and the Internet to keep costs as low as possible. The team’s exhibit car, a 2001 Chevrolet S10 Xtreme, placed second in its final 2022 competition. 

Like Repp and Lisner, Wreck Racing president and third-year mechanical engineering student Kyle Socha finds the hands-on experience he gained from the team to be invaluable. 

“Every student should join a team like Wreck Racing, where they can apply the knowledge gained in the classroom to a real-life problem,” he said. “With each car and competition, we learn from our mistakes and successes and apply them to the next build cycle. Seeing the changes we make improve our performance is very rewarding.”