If it hadn’t been for its muffler, a Bruin-built racing car that corners faster than a Porsche might have won the NASCAR Clash at the Los Angeles Coliseum in February. A 9-foot-long blue rocket, the car was so, so close to that checkered flag. Instead, for want of a widget, the muffler came loose — allowing those crosstown rivals from the University of Southern California to take the race.
It was frustrating, but it was also a good (and a learning) experience, says Noah Truong ’23, managing director at Bruin Formula Racing, part of Bruin Racing. The team is now retooling the car’s motorbike engine and upgrading its chassis to ensure that next time, things stay intact.
If you didn’t know UCLA has a student club that not only builds cars but also spins them around campus, you’re probably not alone. Since the 1990s, Bruin Racing, the umbrella campus organization divided into four “teams” that build and race various zippy vehicles, has brought together students and faculty advisers to design and manufacture three testbed cars a year: a Formula for speed, the Baja for off-roading endurance, and a Supermileage for fuel efficiency.
Hosted within the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, Bruin Racing raises more than $100,000 a year, largely from outside donors. The funds are used in honing the members’ engineering and coding skills before they test their wacky racers out in the Antelope Valley, north of Los Angeles.
This year, following a pandemic suspension, the club has been flush with talent — and innovative thinking. “We have philosophers, English majors and future lawyers in our workshops — more than 300 members, many more than as before COVID-19, all bringing fresh perspectives,” says Dominik Bahm ’23, Bruin Racing’s director. “Interest surged as people got out of their homes wanting to build things. And for some, of course, there is the chance to drive — and hear that engine sound.”
Claudia Adelman ’23 is president of the club’s gas-powered “Supermileage” challenge, which aims to create fuel-efficient vehicles that also combat climate change. The group’s latest prototype, a boxy-looking beast, has been put through its paces on the top level of parking structure 9 and had its brakes slammed on a 20% incline near Perloff Hall. The team even took it to Indianapolis to complete a 40-minute course at the city’s famed Motor Speedway track, on 100 milliliters (3.3 fluid ounces) of gasoline.
Between test runs and contests, the club’s cars can take a beating.
The Baja endures bruising trials through water and desert, and it’s veered through rocky rides in Tennessee and Kansas. “I didn’t realize how important the neck brace is,” says Baja’s technical director, Emma Gloyer ’23. “You feel every bump in the road — but that’s the experience we all signed up for.”
A Supermileage Prototype Test Run
Read more from UCLA Magazine’s Summer 2023 issue.
