05/12/2023
By Ed Brennen
Behind the driver’s seat of the River Hawk Racing team’s Formula One-style race car are two Red Bull energy drink cans, one attached to each side of the frame. They’re not part of a corporate sponsorship deal, nor are they there should the driver need a midrace pick-me-up. Rather, the empty cans are actually cost-effective engine components.
“They’re called catch cans. If the coolant overflows, it can go into the can,” explains junior mechanical engineering major Aaron Bouchard, president of River Hawk Racing, the student club that is UMass Lowell’s chapter of SAE International (formerly the Society of Automotive Engineers).
When you’re building a race car from scratch on a strict budget to compete against 119 other schools…
