Throughout his four years at UF, Jonathan Nunez has devoted countless hours to Gator Motorsports, the UF Society of Automotive Engineers Formula Team.
The 22-year-old team co-captain gained hands-on experience building racecars for the team’s annual trip to the Formula SAE Competition in Michigan, where about 125 college teams from the U.S. and internationally meet for a week of competition in May.
This year, the UF team had its best finish in recent history.
Nunez and the Gator Motorsports team returned to Gainesville from the competition Monday with a third-place trophy in tow and a sense of pride among the more than 25 members who traveled to Michigan for the competition.
This marks the third straight year the team has posted a top-10 finish at the event, placing ninth in 2014 and 10th in 2013. UF finished 19th in the field in 2012.
“This is the culmination of four years of development, not just one,” said Nunez, who just graduated from UF in May with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering.
The competition consists of eight categories — including cost, presentation design and efficiency, among others — that result in a composite score of 1,000. UF posted an 844.8 overall score and was the only team to post a perfect score in the acceleration category.
Michael Braddock, a UF senior lecturer in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the Gator Motorsports faculty adviser, wrote in an email that the team works year-round for the annual competition and just making it to the competition is a feat of its own.
“Any SAE team that achieves their project goals, regardless of their competition ranking, deserves a tremendous amount of respect and accolade due to the challenges inherent in the project,” Braddock said.
Benjamin Boulch, one of the team’s drivers and a co-captain for next year, said there is a sense of adrenaline when driving the formula car similar to riding a roller coaster.
“It’s very different from an average sedan or even a sports car,” the UF mechanical engineering junior said. “You’re sitting on the ground and the forces you’re experiencing are much greater than anything you’ve experienced.”
Barely 24 hours after the group returned from its best finish at the event, about two dozen members worked inside the group’s shop on Gale Lemerand Drive on Tuesday afternoon, already making preliminary plans for next year’s car.
After three top-10 finishes, the team is ready for its fourth.
“It’s literally from the time we get back from competition to the next competition,” Boulch said. “It’s an entire cycle.”
