Members of the Solar Car Club displaying their car during the Fall Kick Off at Rutgers Business School-New Brunswick.
Business student feels the thrill of getting club's solar car on the race track
When he learned about the Rutgers Solar Car Club two years ago, Aarush Vaid immediately saw the potential of getting hands-on experience running a business.
His work securing sponsorships, budgeting and planning paid off this summer when Vaid and other club members traveled to Minnesota to enter the club’s car in the Electrek Formula Sun Grand Prix.
“It was simultaneously the best and worst part of my summer,” Vaid said as he recounted both the stress and the thrill of seeing the solar-powered car race around the track for the first time in the club’s history.
Vaid, a senior marketing and finance major at Rutgers Business School who became club president in the spring, took a week off from his summer internship at Texas Instruments in Dallas and drove to Brainerd International Raceway. Other club members made similar treks from internships in different parts of the country.
There was no guarantee they would even get the car on the track. And it wasn’t until the third day, that the club’s car was given the thumbs up. “There were so many times we thought this was not going to happen,” Vaid said.
Of the 39 teams that showed up for the race, only 30 were allowed onto the track, Vaid said. He and other members watched from 20 feet away as the car raced for four hours.
The solar car team is composed largely of engineering students with a core group of business school students like Vaid who have managed sponsorship relations, operated a $50,000 budget, and coordinated the logistics of getting the club’s car and 20-member race team to the grand prix.
“We apply all of the concepts that we learn in class,” Vaid said. He and other students who form the club’s business team, including Rutgers Business School students Sidharth Banigandlapati and Jonathan Sinyavsky, handle “what needs to get done for the team to succeed.”
“I never expected to be president of this club,” Vaid said. “It’s the closest thing you can get to working in an actual business.”
-Susan Todd
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