Today Axalta (formerly DuPont) announced a partnership with my school (University of Michigan) for research and other stuff. That meant Jeff Gordon came to our shop and talked to all of the car teams that compete in Formula Hybrid, FSAE, Baja, and Solar Car. I got to talk to him for 5 whole minutes about composites…

Oppo, Im working on a thought exercise relating to the 24 hours of lemons (ya know... instead of doing school) and am wondering how much (on average) you can sell a used part of a car for. A price expressed as a percentage of a new OEM replacement part would be ideal (ie selling a used mirror would fetch 60% of a new…

Friday I bought an the Xbone Forza 6 edition. Best $400 ive ever spent. I started the career and won some races, then a new event opened up- the Daytona 300. 84 laps at night in an Audi R18 around the Daytona 24h track. I started around 1215 am and finished at 238am. It was a blast. I love how the tires actually wear…

This weekend I had the house to myself. My roommates were all out of town doing fun things that didn’t involve attending Jim Harbaugh’s first win a) in the Big House and b) as Michigan’s coach. Well I was hungry and didnt want to cook so I ordered a pizza and walked a few blocks to pick it up. The pizza was a…

I was planning on applying for the Infiniti Performance Engineering Academy this year and the deadline is May 27, 2015. What I didnt realize was that it was GMT not EST. So instead of submitting my application an hour early im 3 hours late. Lesson learned i suppose.

(CRUCIAL FRAME DATA REDACTED SO YA'LL CAN'T CHEAT!!! BUT ITS FOR FORMULA HYBRID NOT FSAE SO JOKES ON YOU THE RULES AREN'T ALL THE SAME!! :D )

As a lot of you have already heard the Upper Midwest Oppo Team are attending the Media Preview for the Chicago Auto show and while there are an awful lot of cars, the one we keep coming back to is the Ford GT.

Austin Hatch is a player on the Michigan Basketball team and has overcome unthinkable injuries and tragedy to get there. It is an incredible story and this ESPN video shows why his story is so miraculous. Ive met him a few times and he is genuinely one of the most genuine and kind people you will ever meet. It isnt…

So i just started watching episode 2 of season 22 of top gear and 5ish minutes in they "point out" that their license plates could be offensive to Australians. Whether or not you think the "controversy" was real or a bunch of balogna cooked up by the media, it is still pretty great that top gear made a joke about it.

According to this article on racer.com, good 'ol Bernie and Pirelli are talking about widening the tires used on the cars to make the races more exciting. I dont really understand how making the tires wider will make the races more exciting. How about less restrictive aero rules? How about longer races requiring teams…

Im taking the semester off at Michigan and am looking for a full time job until i go back to school in the fall. I had interviewed with a TUDOR Racing team (who will remain nameless) 2.5 months ago and was told to expect a decision by thanksgiving. Well that came and went and today I decided I had had enough waiting…

Good evening Opponauts!! Welcome to this week's edition of the Oppo Ebay Challenge. This week: find the combination of sportscar, hot-hatch, and sedan for $136,000 or less that cost the highest amount of money/second which would mean you want to find the fastest cars that cost the least amount of money. Hopefully this…

Background

While doing research on my final paper on Ferrari i came across this advertisement in a 1960 issue of Sports Cars Illustrated. (which would later become Car and Driver) I think i like the 1960's Lotus 7 better than the Caterham interpretation we have now.

Im currently working on my final paper for my italian design class on Ferrari and was wondering if there was a way to access archived C&D articles so i can get some more information on older Ferrari models. I know our library has print archives of every issue of C&D but im too far away to make it there plus they cant…

(obligatory (very awesome) car picture)

So its that time of year when we college kids get to take large tests that are worth way too much of our grade on things that will not matter to us in 3 weeks. EXAMS!! The level of stress being as high as it is i relish the time i can spend relaxing for any length of time. Being a bit of a nerd (and an engineer) i…

I was walking around campus when I stumbled upon a new Colorado. There was a guy sitting in it so i didn't want to take a picture (that would have been awkward) so i sniped this pic from the chevy website. We have a fleet of older Colorado's running around campus as maintenance vehicles (as well as a bunch of rangers)…