A small team at the University of Nevada, Reno that not many know about houses handmade
gas powered creations by all its members. The Nevada Wolfpack Racing Team, the University of Nevada, Renos gas powered off road
baja race team, consists of 20 members. Vice President and Chief Engineer, Frankie Attard,
shares both insight on the team and his own personal projects.
The question is: What does Wolfpack Racing do? The members construct a gas powered buggy
to compete nationally against other universities or international teams.
“We construct the entire car ourselves, meaning designing and putting it together, and can
partake in races around the country against some international teams,” Attard said. “Our
competitions are nationally, we just recently went to Rochester, New York for our latest
competition in June, but most of the time we stay here in Reno we have done trips as groups to
go out and drive the cars at Johnson Valley or Moon Rocks.”
The team’s racing buggy that Attard and many others are in the process of making for their
upcoming competition. Photo by Gianna LongAttard has been a part of this club for 2 years now, and achieved the role of Chief Engineer
simply by raising his hand at a meeting one day.
Having made many projects for not only the team, but himself, he can be said to thoroughly
enjoy engineering.
“I have two go karts that I am very proud of, my blue one and then the other one. The blue kart
is from my senior year of high school capstone project, which is creating something to apply the
knowledge I have learned over the four years of high school,” Chief Engineer Attard said. “I
started it in January 2020 and finished mid March 2020, but the other go kart I had started last
winter in 2021, and finished a week later. They both are my favorite projects I have completed.”
Frankie Attard worked on the other one of his two go karts, getting the materials for this one
around winter of 2021. Photo by Gianna Long
With many projects, ranging from go karts, power wheels, Jeeps, a quad, and the buggy for the
team; it takes time and patience to complete each project. Especially with the constraints and
restrictions placed against the buggy in order to compete with it, it takes a long time to get it up
to standard.
“My power wheels, which are little kid battery operated cars, I put 79CCs Harbor Freight
Predator Engines onto them because I thought it would be a fun project to complete and see
how fast I can get the cars to move,” Attard said. “They are still in the process of being
completed but I got them last semester in January of this year.”Anyone with an interest in building the buggies or in engineering can come out to competitions
and watch the work in action.
“People find them interesting, I got someone to join the club because I had showed him my go
kart. We were outside and I had the kart straight piped and he had stuck around until 3 that
morning.” Attard said.
Being a small group that not many people know about, the friendships created from this team
have been long lasting and make it worth it for all the members involved. Members currently are
content with the amount of people on the team, but they wish to gain more publicity and plan on
advertising more. Planning on taking part in more school wide activities, and advertising with
flyers this team has goals of reaching a bigger audience.
The racing team’s next competition will take place in early June in Portland, Oregon.