Who the hell is Jersey Tom?

My name's Tom, originally from the glorious Garden State - New Jersey. I spent from 2003 to 2007 at the University of Colorado at Boulder in Mechanical Engineering. At some point in 2004 I thought it would be fun to join the Formula SAE team, and then followed a very long three years. For those of you not familiar, while you're already trying to crank out an engineering degree in 4 years, you spend 20-70 hours a week and a good bit of cash out of your own pocket building a small open wheeler powered by a sportbike motor. You blow off class and homework and GPA building a vehicle which in all probability will fall apart at competition. But its fun, and when you do drive it the first time it's borderline better than sex. Definitely better than sex with a hooker. Plus there's no STDs, errant children, or awkward mornings and phone calls. Other than "Hey hotshot, still think you can machine those uprights in a day? Ours just snapped."


On the 2005 team I mostly wrenched on crap. Since I was working in a machine shop at the time and had some experience there, I got to do a bit of fabrication for the car. Wound up spending a good bit of time getting to know the ins and outs of the chassis, and went to competition. Tough break for our can-do-it-all team captain, problem in enduro and a low finish (after the 2004 team's best-place 23rd).


As a junior on the 2006 team I decided to get more involved and did a design-related independent study. The previous upright design took one or two guys about a week each to CNC machine on campus. Having them outsourced took a couple days each and $1500 for a pair. I thought this was ridiculous. I designed a new, modular upright with "DFM at all costs" as a goal. Pulled some weight out and reduced to fabrication time to probably 3 hours each. There were some wheel bearing "issues" and a lot of joint stiffness compliance, but it just barely held through competition and we held a school-best 22nd place finish.

2007 rolled around and I found myself as one of the co-captains. We started with a budget of -$5000 (that is a negative sign) and 9 senior design members, down from 11 in '06 and 13 in '05. Once again I designed the wheel assembly, and once again had compliance issues. I also CNC machined the vast majority of complex parts on the car, welded the frame, and did some of the DAQ wiring. This had been 3 people's work a few years previous. Bad decision. Needless to say I was pretty busy and did a pretty poor job as a project manager. Got the car done, got to competition, but had a driveshaft "issue" in enduro. Still, I learned a lot, and the judges liked some of the tire data work I had done.

Afterwards I traded in beautiful, sunny, no-humidity Boulder, CO for grey, rainy Akron, OH. Why? Great question. I'm still not sure that was a wise decision. But in any event I'm here, working as a tire/vehicle dynamics engineer, and I feel like building another racecar. Which brings me to my next topic...