Facts and Info
The original TRM (called Rose-Hulman Racing at the time) car was a new Buick Regal, donated in 1978. This is legit history at this point (My dad was only 12 in '78), so we have extremely limited information on it.2003 Letter
In 2003, TRM President Cooper Lacy recieved the folling email from Rose Alum Lee Fischer (BSME '81) about the Regal.Rose-Hulman Racing Buick Regal!
November 18, 2003
Cooper -
Check out the 1979 and 1981 editions of the Modulus (probably available in the library) for pictures of the Regal we were running back then, including pictures of the engine on the dyno, a picture of the car in action, and a pictures of the ragtag crew we had working on it. Some miscellaneous recollections:
The car had to be gutted - power seats, 8-track radio, t-tops, everything was ripped out to save weight.
We built our own narrowed rear frame with a ladder bar suspension and Koni coil-over shocks.
We narrowed a Chevy 12-bolt rear end over in the machine shop & put Strange axles in it.
The full roll cage built professionally to satisfy the school of it's safety.
We tried both 9 inch and 13 inch wide wrinkle-wall slicks on the rear - it could break the 9" loose on the 2-3 upshift.
It took 18" of boost and H&H racing gas to get our 450+ ft-lbs of torque (maxxing out the dyno).
We melted a turbo when we put a different carb on it that was jetted for emissions controls - too lean! Buick sent us a replacement turbo.
The hood was replaced with fiberglass to save weight.
We could only run a limited number of races per year due to insurance issues.
According to the '81 Modulus, our best time at that time was 13.93 seconds and 98.9 mph in the quarter mile.
I have a 35 mm slide of the car, if I can get a good scan of it I'll send it on for the heck of it.
Anyway - good luck continuing the tradition -
Lee Fischer, BSME '81