News Story

From the Racetrack to the Airwaves

The Terps Racing Formula SAE car.

Just one week after a successful showing in the Formula SAE East competition, Terps Racing will be featured on NBC 4 on Tuesday in a segment on Roy McCauley, a Maryland and Terps Racing alum.

McCauley, who worked on the Terps Racing team as a student in 1992, served as crew chief for Ryan Newman when Newman won the 2008 Daytona 500. NBC 4 sports correspondent Lindsay Czarniak and a cameraman from the station arrived at the Terps Racing lab to film part of a segment about McCauley.

After gathering information for a story she said she has planned for nearly a year now, Czarniak said Newman’s Daytona win gave her a strong time element for her story on McCauley and, by extension, the Terps Racing team. She said the segment will probably air on Tuesday, May 6.

"I do NASCAR coverage on the side for TNT, so I knew Roy and I knew about the Maryland tie-in," Czarniak said. "We were going to do the story before, and then his driver won the Daytona 500."

The timing worked out perfectly for Terps Racing, which finished fifth overall at the Formula SAE East competition at Virginia International Raceway April 23-26.

With the cameras rolling, team sponsor Gregory Schultz, team president Mark Bellingham and the rest of the racers showed off the Terps' Formula car, which Bellingham said reached a speed of 55 mph in 2.9 seconds at VIR to place 1st overall in the acceleration event.

"At speeds under 100 mph, it's faster than a Corvette or a Lamborghini," Schultz said.

As part of the segment, Czarniak filmed the team working on both its Fomula and Baja cars. Czarniak also filmed the car McCauley worked on in 1992, which the team still had in its shop.

To learn more about Terps Racing, visit their website at http://www.terpsracing.umd.edu/.

View the NBC4 story online.

May 5, 2008