AAE PhD Student, Jaime Ocampo, Crew Chief of Purdue Grand Prix 2nd Place Team

A tradition was born amidst the roar of lawnmower engines at Purdue University on May 17, 1958. The Purdue Grand Prix was born after a dream inspired by a few enthusiastic students' late night bull session became a reality. The students wanted a way for engineering students at Purdue to exercise their skills, knowledge, and enthusiasm. Since its beginning, Grand Prix has matured into a successful and well-run organization that concentrates its fundraising efforts to provide scholarships to students. The Foundation centers on its motto of "students helping students."

Each team's kart is built from scratch at the average cost of $5,000. The money is partially raised from a team sponsor such as local businesses, housing units, or private individuals. All karts race with a Yamaha KT-100 engine.

Known as "The Greatest Spectacle in College Racing," the Grand Prix race consists of 33 drivers and teams that participate in the 160-lap or 50 mile race each spring.

AAE student Jaime A. Ocampo was the crew chief for the Shell sponsored Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) Team driven by Ronny Nelkenbaum, which finished 2nd and claimed the pole position during qualifying. The crew chief position is in charge of the kart and leads the crew members getting the kart ready for the race and make sure everything is working well and taking care of repairs, etc. The driver tells the crew chief what he feels is good and bad and the crew chief organizes the car such that the problems are minimized. During the race, he keeps communication with the driver and gives him an outside perspective, telling him where his competitors are, where the accidents are.

The whole team put in a lot of effort and did really well, only being beaten by IUPUI's top team, the champions from last year. The team received three trophies: 2nd place, pole position, and most laps leading (89/160).