The Fastest Final Exam on Earth

"Grades are very important, but they're not everything," says Alba Colon, an FSAE volunteer whose day job is Nascar Nextel Cup program manager with General Motors Racing (in other words, she's got a say in what's going on underneath Jimmie Johnson as he's rounding Talladega at 180 miles an hour). Colon, recruited by GM several years ago as a student and team leader for the University of Puerto Rico, now cruises the event for talent. "[Formula SAE is] one of the few projects where you have the opportunity to apply everything that you've learned," she says. "But at the same time, you develop other skills that pretty much aren't taught in school. How do you react when you have a bad situation? What decisions do you make? It helps us see if this person has what is necessary to work at the company."

It's hard to imagine that the U.S. Air Force Academy, a Christian college and the Venezuelan national university teams have anything in common, but when it comes down to it, the competitors all share an uncommon fellowship.

"Ask me anything about politics you want," offers Carlos Herrera, the affable faculty adviser for Venezuela's UNEXPO technical university. I try to think of a sophisticated political question that draws parallel lines between these student engineers in sharply creased pit-crew shirts and the rift between Venezuela and the U.S. But it doesn't come. I'd much rather talk about the team's approach to aerodynamics-and so, really, would Herrera. Because here, everyone's a citizen of the United States of Autofreak. Just like the guys from, say, the University of Wisconsin-Madison or Austria's Graz University of Technology, they grew up playing with cars, watching racing on TV, and wrenching some clapped-out import they got in exchange for a summer's work. And they're all quick with a spark plug or a USB cable or a box of Shake 'N Bake if anyone needs it. The only thing left or right about what they're doing here relates to the varied geometries of the cars' steering linkages.

Another thing they all have in common is ingenuity, and a superhuman ability to get things done. The team from Cedarville University, a small Baptist college in southwestern Ohio, set out for Romeo in a two-tone 1976 Superior RV, the kind typically found rusting away in someone's backyard. They arrived in five hours, propelled by its original 440-cubic-inch Chrysler V8, restored to working order by team members and faculty adviser Jay Kinsinger. This team is the very picture of skill and optimism. Hitched to the rear is the team's box trailer for its car and mobile repair shop. On its side, "Zeek," as the RV is known, wears a patch of missing paint that looks suspiciously like a thumbs-up sign-a fitting logo for the contagious enthusiasm with which these guys do everything. They give me a tour of their creaky yet retro-chic mobile home. A rolling shrine to the mid-1970s, Zeek has become a makeshift tour bus and conference room, sleeping six amid dark wood and flashy draperies. In the dash is an original eight-track tape player, complete with period-correct tapes Kinsinger bought at a flea market. The road music stocked for this outing includes Cat Stevens's Greatest Hits, Billy Joel's The Strangerand Styx's The Grand Illusion.

As of Saturday's endurance/fuel-economy event, it became apparent that a well-funded team from a university with its own particle accelerator had a better shot at glory than did a scratched-together entry from a small college that's strapped for cash (surprise, surprise). Michigan State's green-and-white racer, for instance, had been tearing up the endurance course. But whether here or in the pros, there's no sure thing in racing, and as the finish line drew near, technical gremlins ambushed the car. With 100 meters to go, a puff of smoke and a plume of pumpkin-orange flame shot from the engine, sending ground crews rushing to alert the oblivious driver. The incident knocked MSU out of the running for a top-10 spot (they earned the Hard-Luck Award at the FSAE closing ceremony). Likewise, engine trouble sidelined Helsinki Polytechnic, whose sleek racer-equal parts Indy car and
space pod-was aiming to improve on last year's fifth-place finish.

Then there was tiny, scrappy Cooper Union, a first-time entrant from New York City that barely had a right to be on the tarmac, much less contend for the podium. Hanging around their rented box truck in T-shirts and shorts, the team could have been the scruffy opening act at a community-center battle of the bands. After all, the entire student body of the art, architecture and engineering school is about the size of a single department at a Big Ten competitor.