PCEC News
Racing Beyond Borders; GVSU Laker Racing Team hosts Brazilian Formula SAE Team
June 17, 2024
The Grand Valley State University (GVSU) Laker Racing Team hosted a Brazilian Formula SAE Team this spring semester. The Mauá Team of 23 students from the Instituto Mauá de Tecnologia (IMT), a private university in Brazil, arrived on April 25th to compete in the Formula SAE Competition at Michigan International Speedway (MIS). The team was accompanied by their Faculty Advisor Willian Kurilov de Moraes.
The GVSU Laker Racing Team, led by Faculty Advisor Nicholas Baine, hosted the Mauá team in Kennedy and Keller buildings, providing them access to equipment enabling them to prepare and make adjustments to their car before the MIS competition. The GVSU team shadowed and assisted them with the preparations; the team’s car arrived in a crate and needed to be assembled here and then disassembled to be shipped back when they left on May 13th.
In the weeks leading up to the competition the Mauá and GVSU Laker Racing Team tested their cars together in the downtown Watson parking lot and in Allendale’s parking lot D. During the competition the Mauá Team did extremely well placing 7th overall and 1st in Design which are major accomplishments given that the MIS competition was an international competition with 115 teams attending.
Multiple social events were hosted between the two teams including a cookout hosted by Grand Valley's Dr. Reffeor. Thank you to GVSU Lab Technician Jared Begeron for providing immense support and spending countless hours helping the Mauá team.
The GVSU Laker Racing Team will be competing at the Oakland Grand Prix at Oakland University at the end of June 2024, and will be competing in the Formula SAE Competition at Michigan International Speedway (MIS) in 2025.