1.4 seconds. That’s all it took sophomore Erwin Neira and his team, Talon Racing, to win third place in the F1 in Schools regional contest at Circuit of the Americas. Their race car reached the finished line in 1.4 seconds making it the fastest race car in Texas.
“We were the only team to place out of Austin,” Neira said. “We also had the fastest time.”
The cars are made out of blocks of balsa wood and have carbon dioxide cartridges attached to the back to start them.
“We made the model to resemble an F1 car,” Neira said. “The carbon dioxide explodes and gives the car its push.”
Talon Racing won third place in state, where they race the car and present the car’s pit display, and will go on to compete at the national competition May 9th.
“We will do the same thing as regionals, race against other cars and present our car,” Neira said. “We will be competing against the top three from each state.”
The team will be focusing on improving their presentation of the car, which they feel was their weakest part of the competition.
“Our car was the fastest but our presentation was what bumped us down to third,” Neira said. “We did not practice and kind of just winged it. We focused on the car mostly, instead of the presentation.”
Talon Racing member, freshman Ethan Smith, believes that they have a chance to move past nationals and compete at internationals.
“I think we can win at nationals and go to internationals,” Smith said. “We have to improve on our presentation and tweak the car a little bit. The fastest car in the country finished under a second.”
Freshman James Garcia, another member of Talon Racing, is proud of what the team has accomplished and believes they can compete at the national level.
“We definitely have a chance but we have to improve on a lot,” Garcia said. “But for a first time team, we did really good.”
