April Fools: Hoping to Increase Enrollment, St. Lawrence Launching New Auto Racing Team Next Fall
t. Lawrence University recently sought to boost enrollment and make the SLU experience more lucrative. As a result, the administration determined through numerous studies that an auto racing team would best serve to grow the St. Lawrence experience.
At the moment, Kia, Volkswagen, Skoda and Audi have agreed with the school to supply cars for this team, with the university in talks with some other major car companies that they are hoping to persuade to supply cars as well. The cars will be utilized on the newly renovated trails along the Kip and Saddlemire trails. These trails will be fully paved to provide a rally course for student-athletes to utilize year-round. Trails and athletic fields adjacent to Newell/Augsbury will also be paved for students, community members, and visiting teams to race on.
The 5.2 mile Ronald C. Hoffman Cross Country course is part of the new racing course, and will thus also be covered in concrete and fully paved. This will be a main practicing and competing spot for the auto racing team.
The cross-country teams will also still run on the newly paved course but will have to make sure to be aware of the huge increase in traffic that the auto racing team will bring. Given that paved courses are popular for marathon racing distances, it has been reported that the Olympic committee is in talks to host the next Olympic marathon on this course, but that’s a whole other story!
The auto racing teams will have a year-round competition schedule with many home meets, as the cars will be equipped with snow plows in the winter to make sure the course is clear of snow at all times.
On parent’s weekend next fall, the school will host the auto racing team’s marquee event: 24 hours of Canton. Auto racing teams will travel from across the country and world to race for a full day around the track to find out who the best team is. This is a grueling event and an impressive feat of strength and stamina for these drivers, and it is expected to be very popular. In an interesting twist, each driver will also be required to eat one Sergi’s fatbag per hour driving, adding even more difficulty to this event. It will be exciting to see which team comes out on top. If you are interested in joining this team, just email President Kate Morris!