Engineering students gear up for motorsport spotlight


DMU Racing was been selected from more than 300 applicants to display their car at a high-octane motorsport event.

Roadkill_inset

Fans of Roadkill, a popular US automotive internet show with more than five million YouTube subscribers, met the show’s presenters at an event hosted by Northampton-based EBC Brakes, the world’s leading high-performance brake specialists.

Sponsored by Caterpillar and built by a dedicated team of engineering students at De Montfort University Leicester, the DMU Racing car notched-up its best-ever placing at the international Formula Student showdown at Silverstone this year.

As one of 96 cars on show at the event, DMU’s has a veneer wooden dashboard, similar to a 1970s British sports car, and its air intake was 3D-printed before being reinforced in carbon fibre.

The event featured performances by freestyle stunt rider Lee Bowers, and a ‘meet and greet’ with Roadkill presenters David Freiburger and Steve Dulcich, as well as competition prizes.

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Alexander Sowter, DMU’s Formula Student Team Leader, said: “As big fans of both Roadkill and EBC Brakes, we were absolutely blown away to be taking part in the event. I submitted our application on a whim, so I wasn’t expecting this at all to be honest.

“We use EBC Brakes on all of our current and previous Formula Student cars, so we’re really hoping to strengthen our relationship with the company.”

With hundreds of motorsport enthusiasts attending the event, it was a significant platform for DMU students to showcase their work and gain valuable industry insight.

The 21-year-old Mechanical Engineering student from Derby added: “It was a great opportunity for us to meet experts from the motorsport industries and check out the other exhibitions too, from established muscle cars to restored vintage ones.

“I’m particularly enjoyed chatting to younger visitors who were interested in seeing how they can get involved in motorsport during university. We showed them our design, how we evaluated and manufactured it, and talked to them about studying engineering at DMU.”

Posted on Wednesday 15 November 2017

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