Tiger Racing

The workshop is quiet, and Thumper is in pieces, but as Lance Brumfield slowly circles the skeletal frame of the custom racecar, he can feel the roar of the engine, the blur of tires spinning, the thrust of pistons pumping. He can see this machine tearing across the line.

This month the 22-year-old LSU senior and Catholic High School alum will lead Tiger Racing, a team of 15 mechanical engineering students and the car they’ve designed, into a three-day, seven-event competition against more than 120 universities the world over, each arriving with their own scaled-down Formula-style racer. Fans have nicknamed the event “The Mini Indy,” and with so many teams descending on Michigan International Speedway for the SAE Formula championship, things are guaranteed to get intense.

“You can look down a line 150 yards long and see nothing but cars, and you’ve got a dozen rows like that,” Brumfield says of the massive competition. After static events like cost analysis and a design critique, the competition culminates with an autocross “slalom” course and the brutal 22-kilometer endurance race.

Powered by a hefty Red Bull sponsorship, a team from Germany arrived early last year, put their car through inspection, then sat outside a fold-out trailer and drank tea to intimidate opposing designers and drivers. “You can certainly tell who’s funded and whose schools really back them,” Brumfield says. “There are other teams that have a lot more money to spend on this, on some gorgeous cars. And in a competition like this, the more money you have, typically, the better you do.” For some Australian, Chinese and Japanese schools, the Michigan International Speedway is viewed more like Tiger Stadium.

The recession has been one of Tiger Racing’s adversaries, too. For Thumper, the team raised about $20,000 in sponsorship cash, just half of what they pulled in last season. Once again Brumfield’s crew will have to do more for less. “It’s one of those projects where you’d like to see the underdog do well with less resources,” he says.

One of Brumfield’s weapons is the custom composite fuel cell he introduced to the team last year. The cell is stronger and lighter than a traditional fuel tank, and in racing, lighter and faster is a beautiful thing.

Last year’s car failed the sound test, so this time all of Thumper’s systems have been put through approximations of the battery of tests it will face in Detroit. Most were highly calibrated and scientific. One was simply dropping a large piece of metal onto it to determine durability.

“From now until the race we’ll be trying to blow it up, basically,” said lead designer Russell Garehan, who spoke with 225 during the early testing phase of the vehicle. A couple of years ago, Garehan was the first underclassman to have major input on the design of the racecar. Now a senior, he is one of the team’s most experienced members. He may even be one of this year’s drivers. One student cannot drive in every event, says Brumfield, but the members with the best times on the test track will be behind the wheel in Detroit. And for the main event, the endurance race, there’s a chance Brumfield might take the wheel himself.

The SAE Formula championship runs May 13-16. LSU Graduation is May 15. “Some guys are going the first two days, then flying back in time to walk Friday morning,” Brumfield says before pausing. “I’ll be staying the whole time.”

This comes as no surprise. The team captain has put about 600 hours of work into the car. But he’s not alone. Team members often work weekends and stay late at the shop. Taking a few days off for Mardi Gras was a big deal, but understandable, Brumfield says. Since last year the team has spent roughly 5,000 man-hours on Thumper. That’s a lot of muscle behind one miniature car.

“We figured it out,” Brumfield says. “That’s enough time to walk to Michigan and back.”