Last year, the Supermileage team entered the Electric Karting Series. Just recently, they received the results of the competition and found out they won first place. The EKS is one of the World Karting Association Series. It is an electric kart racing series comprised of a Regional, State and World kart racing event. This series is also part of the Purdue evGrandPrix, which now fulfills the new Learn and Demonstrate Employability Skills graduation requirement. As a result, it is not only a fun experience, but will also help the students who are involved graduate high school.
At each event, a grand prix-style race is held in which high school teams compete against each other to see who can finish the race the fastest in an electric powered go-kart. The Supermileage team competed against schools all over Indiana and Ohio. In the near future, the competition will be set up similarly to the college series. The country will be broken up into seven regions, where there will be local, state, regional, and world competitions, making it an international event.
“We generally attend six events per year, three races and three test and tune practices, which also have a mini race at the end of the day. We get to talk with professional racers and get advice from them as we attend these events,” said Supermileage sponsor Jason Goodman.
Teams who compete earn points from the place they get in the race. The placement is a point total calculated from where a team places in the race. It is similar to the point system NASCAR would use. The closer a team places to first in the race, the more points they gain. The club went to Marion County on May 15 to compete in Regional.
“I find it being a great achievement for the team to go to a new event and return victorious. Overall, I was happy to see the way the team worked together and were ready to fix problems as they came along on our journey. There was no one person that made the win happen. Without every one of us working together, we most likely wouldn’t have been as successful,” said Supermileage President Jacob McDonald.
The winning team can use “#1” on their kart as their designated number, which is important to them because it’s an achievement that can be displayed. With this experience, the team learned electricity and electronics, how to program a device, how to collect data and interpret it, interviewing and presentation skills, how a real race tram operates and how to set up, work on and drive a race car. They plan on continuing to participate in EKS. Next year, Goodman will be having a class called Computers In Design and Production. He plans to integrate the racing kart into the class.
“It takes an entire team to be successful. You don’t have to be a race car driver, and you don’t have to be a mechanic to be successful on this team. Just like in any sport, each team member has spot and a job that has to be completed for the entire team to be successful,” said Goodman.
Story by Angie Ceja
