When you take off, said Freeman the team captain, your eyeballs are pushed to the back of your skull.

Freeman and 10 other members of the SIUC Formula Race Team use that memory of traveling more than 70 mph and only one and a half inches off the ground to build their dream. The car features a 600-cc Honda motorcycle engine, the largest allowed for the competition.

Spending more than 20 hours a week creating the car, the members have to design all the parts themselves and put the car together. Most of the members spend their weekends toiling, making the race car from start to finish.

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Freeman said between his classwork and completing the car, he does not have much time to socialize.

You feel the sacrifice, he said. You put in so many hours at school and the car you don’t really have time to see other people.

The team began more than three years ago when mechanical engineering students discovered a competition in Detroit. To compete, the team is required to build a car from scratch and enroll the creation in a series of seven different tests. The team has to design brakes, a chassis, a drive train and other car parts.

The car competes in seven events evaluating design, cost, acceleration, endurance and several different tests.

The team competed last year for the first time. As the second-highest scoring rookie team, they placed 46th out of 99 teams competing.

Besides constructing the car, the team also has to create a proposal for sponsors to cover the car’s $15,000 cost.

Although the team will use the same car they entered in last years competition, it will be drastically different because of numerous changes.

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Each team member builds a different part of the car, from paper sketches to the final product.

Each piece on the car is like doing a senior design project, Freeman said. The car is made up of a billion pieces. It is a big project especially for the number of guys who are doing it.

Building the car provides a unique opportunity for each member to apply what they have learned in their classes to a practical experience.

Anthony Rickert, senior in mechanical engineering from Bathalto, said he has been able to reinforce the his professor’s ideas.

You really learn the skills better, he said. It is a big step learning how to apply what you learned out of class.

For now, the team is concentrating on preparing the car for the next competition May 27 through May 30, where the challenge is not racing the car, the challenge is creating and testing out the concepts put into the car.

A lot of people think we go to a race, Freeman said. Even though it is somewhat of a race, it is more an engineering contest.

Contests aside, long hours of working together can build unique friendships.

Ben Grodjesk, a sophomore in recreation from Pekin, said along with all he has learned, the friendships he made are the best part of working as a team.

You make 10 new friends as soon you join, he said. You get to hang out with people who like some of the same things you do, and you get to learn from each other.

Despite all the time the Formula car consumes, the team stays motivated to continue spending the long hours. For Rickert, and the rest of the team, being behind the wheel is the true award.

It is a whole lot of work, Rickert said. But when you get to drive it, it is all worth it.

Factoid:For information on the SIUC Formula Racing Team, contact professor Kambiz Farhang at 435-7002.