Aztec Electric Racing and Aztec Racing - Formula SAE compete at 2nd Annual SoCal Shootout Race

On Saturday October 14th, the SDSU Aztec Electric Racing (AER) and the SDSU Aztec Racing - Formula SAE teams competed in the 2nd annual SoCal Shootout race at Adams Motorsports Park in Riverside, CA. A total of 12 Formula Society of Automotive Engineers (FSAE) teams from local universities came together for this two-day time-trial race event. The SDSU Aztec Racing team Aztec Racing was able to perform much-needed validation and driver training, logging over 50 laps over the course of the two-day event. At this event our SDSU AER team made history as it was the club's very first race since its conception in 2016! AER was the only electric vehicle team present at the race, however there were members from the electric race teams at CSU Northridge and UC Riverside, who took great interest in the SDSU AER vehicle. While practicing at the track on Friday, various electrical and thermal issues arose on the SDSU vehicle which had to be resolved by the end of the day. On the following day, which was the main race day, and with very little sleep, and many hours of hard work, the AER vehicle returned to the race track. With SDSU Mechanical Engineering senior Ian Brown at the wheel, the SDSU race car crossed the finish line and with that the team's morale absolutely skyrocketed as they realized that they had just completed the first race in the history of the club! From the initial designs in the very first year of the team, the SDSU AER team has designed, rebuilt, and improved their vehicle every year. In the latest iteration, the heart of the vehicle is a new accumulator that is the product of SDSU's senior design captsone program and is integral to providing the power to push our vehicle into the future of electric racing at SDSU. AER's experience this weekend was a huge reminder that success is not possible without passion, collaboration, and the willingness to fail without ever losing enthusiasm. Their victory was exciting not because of the award, but because it confirmed our hundreds of hours of hard work, research, documentation, and testing it took to build the vehicle SDSU has today.