The smell of fuel and exhaust shouldn’t be too bad this week at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, even as more than 500 students in 32 teams from across the United States and Canada meet to zip their racecars around the 1.6-mile course.
In this competition, all of the cars – which racers designed and built themselves – are either hybrid or electric vehicles. Most of them don’t use any gas at all.
“The majority of teams this year are competing with high-performance electric-only vehicles, which is considered to be the future of the automobile industry,” said Mike Chapman, director of the Formula Hybrid + Electric event, which is run by the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth.
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The competition, now in its 18th year, will feature 28 electric vehicles and four hybrid vehicles built by undergraduate and graduate engineering students. Organizers said the vehicles will be judged on their design, acceleration, handling, and endurance, as well as how well the competitors optimized for energy efficiency and sustainability of the materials used.
Aside from collaborating with their peers, this technical competition offers an opportunity for students to get noticed by car manufacturers and high-tech companies. This year, the multi-day agenda includes more networking opportunities, a virtual career fair, receptions, and more.
Joe McInnis, a senior at Dartmouth who serves as captain of the Dartmouth Formula Racing team, said the most challenging part of the competition has been “rolling with the punches” as students with a variety of different experience levels collaborate to learn best practices in engineering.
“There are lows when something doesn’t go as planned,” McInnis said, “but even the smallest success can instantly make it all worth it.”
This year’s event runs from Monday, April 29, through Thursday, May 2, and it’s free to stop by and watch. (Organizers said the best day for outside spectators to visit will be Wednesday, May 1, when the autocross and acceleration events will run from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., and about 300 middle and school students will visit for guided tours and talks with the teams.)
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David McGrath, general manager of the New Hampshire Motor Speedway, said it has been “amazing” to watch the student competitors in action.
“They’re true professionals at work,” McGrath said, “just like the NASCAR teams who will be here working on their race cars in a couple months.”
This story first appeared in Globe NH | Morning Report, our free newsletter focused on the news you need to know about New Hampshire, including great coverage from the Boston Globe and links to interesting articles from other places. If you’d like to receive it via e-mail Monday through Friday, you can sign up here.
Steven Porter can be reached at steven.porter@globe.com. Follow him @reporterporter.