2.15.24

Family’s gift fuels the future of Wichita State’s Formula SAE team

Joey Hendrich has always loved cars. A child of the ’70s, he grew up working for his dad after school in the auto shop, learning the ins and outs of taking cars apart and putting them back together. Today, he’s able to share a similar experience with his own son, Brody, now a junior at Wichita State.

“The team may be young, but they’re brilliant – all of them,” Joey says about the team members he has mentored at select competitions. “I was able to help them brainstorm a fix when the car wouldn’t run, then they did all the work on their own. I’ve been doing this my whole life, so I could help them think about things they wouldn’t have.”

The team is a student organization focused on building and competing with Formula SAE cars. They work independently, coming up with the concept and design for the small, formula-style race cars and building them from the ground up. The WSU team launched in 2005, but Formula SAE originated decades earlier as a way for engineering students to gain practical engineering skills while bringing a complex project to life following strict guidelines. The competitions welcome hundreds of college and university teams, with some contenders joining from Mexico, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom and many other international locations.  “Most of the other university teams are actually a program within the academic school – they have instructors and budgets to help them,” Joey explains. “At WSU, these kids are really challenged. They have to read and understand the rulebooks and reach out online to learn what they don’t know – on their own.”

In addition to learning independently, the team relies on sponsorships and private gifts to finance everything from car parts to travel expenses for competitions. After selling their business last year, Joey and his wife Laurie gifted the team with $25,000 on Founders’ Day. “The team is doing a bang-up job, especially for what they have and what they know – it’s really incredible what they’re able to do,” he says. “We won’t always be able to give, but we could now, and we were glad to give it to the racing team members who needed help.”