Motorsports zooms into new era – The Lafayette

The motorsports team finished 12th out of 27 teams at the Formula Hybrid + Electric competition. (Photo courtesy of Max Warnock ’25)

For the first time in its four-year history, the Lafayette College motorsports team successfully engineered a running electric car to compete in the Formula Hybrid + Electric Competition last week.

“The team’s about two things: building an electric race car, but mainly building just a great learning experience,” said senior Max Warnock, the club’s president. “We’ve had a great learning experience for years now, but we finally did the second task of actually getting a running car.”

Lafayette placed 12 out of 27 teams in the electrical category. Only the top 12 of these electrical teams engineered a functional car. Separately, four other teams participated in the competition’s hybrid category.

Nine members of the motorsports club attended the competition, which ran at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway the week of April 28 and featured teams from the United States and Canada.

“It’s been four years of sort of selling the dream, and finally, okay, there it is,” Warnock said. “And finally proof that we’re moving in the right direction and that the team’s growing as a whole.”

“I feel great,” said junior Ben Franco, the leader of the club’s electromechanical subteam. “It was extremely exciting to see the car on the track, to see it moving.”

While the team said the car ran sporadically during the week before the competition, it finally got it working consistently while in line for an inspection.

“Everyone just started applauding when that happened,” said sophomore Mary Romashchenko, the club’s vice president. “It was a very happy moment.”

Warnock said Lafayette’s team worked from the time the competition’s workshops opened at 6:30 a.m. until they closed at 11 p.m.

The teams must pass five technical inspections: a preliminary electrical inspection, a full mechanical inspection, a full electrical inspection, a tilt test in which the car is tilted 60 degrees to assess its stability and a brake test.

“That was the first time we had ever driven the car on the ground,” Warnock said about the brake test.

The judging panel consisted of volunteer engineers from companies such as Tesla and Keystone Engineering Group, many being alumni from competing schools. The judges evaluated teams in static events, looking at the car’s construction, and in dynamic events, evaluating its acceleration and endurance.

“It’s so great to be able to be in the same space with them and get to talk to them and learn what the industry is like, get their advice,” Romashchenko said of the judges.

“The teams all really help each other out and work well together,” Warnock said. “It really helps with learning.”

The team members said they plan to make improvements before next year’s competition.

“Now that we’ve achieved the base goal of the car works, now we need to focus on efficiency,” said Franco, who will be the president of the club in the fall. “Next year is going to be all about optimization. The car is very heavy. It’s not very fast.”

“The judges are looking for innovations and changes every year,” he continued.