Bob Jones racing team has big plans in 2017
Patriot Racing leads are shown Adam Bastien, Blake Young, Ben Runyan, Jacob Hasenyager, Jared Harris (Photo Contributed/ Kris Kasprzak)
MADISON- 2017 will be a big year for the Bob Jones Racing Team as they plan their trip to the Indianapolis 500 in May.
Students constructed a go-cart sized electric car powered with a 1/3 horsepower engine and two 12 VDC batteries supplied by Greenpower. The students build, drive, and maintain the car to Indy 500 Greenpower specifications.
The Bob Jones Racing Team won the recent Jaguar Classic International Race held at Jemison High School in Huntsville on a 1-mile course built around the school including a 24-foot hill. The car averaged a lap speed of 24 mph and pitted 2 times.
Blake Young, a sophomore at Bob Jones is the driver and one of the builders. Adam Bastien works electronics, Ben Runyan programming, Jacob Hasenyager project manager, and Jared Harris mechanical engineering lead.
“I want to be a professional Indy car or F1 driver,” Young said. “I want to race on the Indy 500 race course to learn better driving skills like how to pass and take corners.”
Harris, another sophomore, said he gave up football to concentrate on engineering and his role as mechanical lead on the team.
“As I got into Greenpower I have chosen engineering as a career path. I make sure the car is built right, on time, and is race ready. I had no knowledge of engineering until I joined Patriot Racing.”
The entire team numbers 15 students, teacher Jessye Gains and technical advisor Kris Kasperzak.
Kasprzak, whose daughter Elizabeth is the alternate driver, is the team’s engineering adviser. He is a mechanical engineer for Siemens.
“We applied and won the right to go to the Indy 500 (in May 2017) to race in the Greenpower series,” Kasprzak said. “The kids did an application video so we’re starting to get funding and get the car ready. All the teams will be assigned an F1 team to learn about racing, learn about the business, how to tune the car, and get driving experience.”
The Bob Jones team will be one of 33 race teams to compete on the Indy 500 course the Wednesday before the big race. They have set up a go fund me account to help defray the costs of the trip. The link is https://www.gofundme.com/PatriotRacing.
Students have installed a data logger to determine the optimum gear ratio’s to maximize speed.
Kasperzak said that Patriot Racing practices driving on the running track behind Bob Jones and sets up a figure 8 in the parking lot to get the drivers use to taking turns. James Clemens parking lots are used to set up a road course. They also use the new Jemison High School lot.
At the Jaguar Classic race 10 high school racing teams entered cars; Huntsville, Wetumpka, James Clemens, Mae Jemison, Grissom, Sparkman, New Century Technical, and Walker County High.
Patriot Racing: Road to Indy video can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL4YNGWSijk&t=31s
