Formula SAE
The SCCA Foundation provides support to the next generation of young designers and engineers through its support of the Formula SAE program.
SAE International’s Collegiate Design Series (CDS) competitions take students beyond textbook theory by enabling them to design, build, and test the performance of a real vehicle and then compete with other students from around the globe in exciting and intense competitions. All CDS competitions prepare undergraduate and graduate engineering students in a variety of disciplines for future employment in mobility-related industries by challenging them with a hands-on, team engineering experience that also requires budgeting, communication, project management, and resource management skills. Students also gain valuable exposure with recruiters from leading companies in the mobility industry to help land their first engineering job after graduation.
In addition to providing event support at the two major national competitions in Detroit, MI and Lincoln, NE each year, SCCA Foundation funding provides for awards to recognize the top performing SAE teams and mentors.
Recognizing Industry Leaders
Dr. Bob Woods Cup
Named in honor of Dr. Bob Woods of the University of Texas, Arlington, recognizes the top finishing student driver in the Formula SAE competition at the Tire Rack SCCA Solo National Championships each year.
Carroll Smith Mentor’s Cup
Presented by the SCCA, The Mentor’s Cup recognizes the important role played by each faculty adviser in support of their team of dedicated students and competitors. Carroll Smith was a trained engineer, Navy pilot, and race car driver. He also authored six books on race car engineering that most of you have read, or certainly should.
For ten years he served as chief design judge for FSAE® and raised it to one of the most prestigious events at the competition. In Australia, he started wearing a slash hat that became his trademark, and now all of the chief design judges wear an Australian hat in his honor and memory. He died at his home in California during the time of the 2003 FSAE® competition.
Carroll was very free to share his knowledge and wanted everyone to learn. He was the consummate mentor. Being the chief design judge was a perfect opportunity for him to mentor these developing engineers. It is this quality that inspired the Sports Car Club of America to institute the Carroll Smith Mentors Cup in his honor. The recipient of this award is a person that has shown long-term commitment of mentoring to FSAE students. With this award goes a check for $1,500 from the SCCA Foundation, a beautifully engraved keeper cup, and his name on the perpetual cup kept at SCCA headquarters.
NEWS
2025 Carroll Smith Mentor’s Cup Award Recipient:
Professor John Fabijanic
Professor John Fabijanic, university Lecturer at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, was recently presented SCCA's Carroll Smith Mentors Cup award at the FSAE EV competition at Michigan International Speedway.
SCCA's Carroll Smith Mentors Cup recognizes "FSAE faculty advisors who, consistently and over many years, have made outstanding contributions to their programs and instill qualities of leadership, teamwork, technical skill, self-reliance, inquisitiveness, and project responsibility in their students."
The Carroll Smith Mentor’s Cup is an SCCA award created with input from SAE. This prestigious prize, first awarded in 1999, is dedicated to the late Carroll Smith. Carroll was the pre-eminent racecar engineer of his generation, serving as the engineering manager for Ford's GT40 Le Mans victories in 1966 and 1967. Carroll served as the Chief Design Judge for Formula SAE from 1993 until his passing in 2003, creating a durable tradition for the excellence of that event. The Carroll Smith Mentor’s Cup was inspired by the example set by Dr. Bob Woods at the University of Texas at Arlington, who was its first recipient.
This piece was originally published on www.fsaeonline.com.
PHOTO: Carroll Smith Mentor Cup winner Prof. John Fabijanic, at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo (left) and SCCA Foundation BOD member and FSAE liaison Raleigh Boreen (right).