The University of Indianapolis can start its engine for the UIndy Racing registered student organization. The RSO is led and done by students to investigate and do types of racing events on campus and off campus, according to Associate Professor of Engineering and Faculty Adviser for UIndy Racing Paul Talaga.
UIndy Racing was originally established in 2020, according to junior mechanical engineering major and President of UIndy Racing Jordan Ankney. Though the RSO was created in 2020, Talaga said that last year students who were at the time seniors conducted their senior capstone projects around racing and picked up the club again before pausing to complete their coursework. Those who picked the club back up included students who were not seniors last year but are now running the RSO.
Though it is not the first year for the club, this school year is the first time for UIndy Racing that events have been planned and advertised, Ankney said. The RSO had its first event on Oct. 21 where UIndy students and employees as well as those outside of campus were able to pay to show their cars in the parking lot of Martin Hall.
“Nothing was really ever done with it much until now,” Ankney said. “For a while, it was just a bunch of people meeting up to play on a racing simulator. So this, I guess, is its official year where stuff is happening.”
The RSO plans to continue interacting with the community outside of the university as with events like its last car show, the organization was able to engage with more people besides those within the UIndy campus, according to Ankney. Students who might be interested in racing or cars but who might not be interested in necessarily showing a car are able to still attend the car shows and participate in activities.
“The plan is for us to continue with engagement outside of the university, but also the car show had a lot more outside engagement than with students,” Ankney said. “And there’s a lot of students on campus I know would love to show their car, but some of them didn’t find out about it in time. So hopefully, we can find a good balance of engaging with the community, but we’re also engaging with other students, and even students that may not want to show a car and may just want to come look at cars or do some fun activities during the car show.”
UIndy Racing is looking to expand its membership as well, Ankney said. The club is open to those who are not just engineering majors and is looking to branch out to other kinds of racing as well as sponsorship opportunities.
“We’d love to have more people involved in just engineering, especially business, other related or other and other majors, other than engineering,” Ankney said. “So we can also kind of expand what all UIndy racing is about, more than just building go-karts and racing.”
According to Ankney, students have expressed interest in quadcopter racing as well as other activities like boat racing that the club would like to dive into. UIndy Racing meets on Wednesdays at 5:30 p.m. in the fabrication space at the R.B. Annis Engineering Building.
