SAE Update - September 2021 - 24

MEMBER NEWS
DOSSIER: Mike O'Neil of
Essex Parts Services, Inc
head down, determination gave
me the confidence to push it
harder, I picked the riders off one
by one, and after ten laps I was
in front and won the race.
Afterwards, they were pulling me
onto the podium and the
announcer was asking me what it
was like to be national champion.
I had no idea what he was talking
about. I just made the trip to visit
some friends and wanted to
catch a race along the way. But, I
am very happy to be able to
wear that feather in my cap!
On the more serious side, I
have had the opportunity to
work successfully in the top
levels of several forms of
motorsports. Many of those
relationships developed beyond
professional to personal. There
are many good stories there and
great satisfaction in that.
In what way is SAE helpful to
you?
There is the usual networking,
information database,
established standards to which
one can design, etc. But, more
important to me is the
framework SAE provides through
which I can give back to a
program that helped me to
pursue my dreams. SAE has
made it easy to work with the
24 September 2021
" The racers often refer to the surface of Daytona's ¼ " mile dirt oval as
'moon dust.' Its high concentration of crushed sea shells creates an unusual
white powder. Shown is O'Neil on his highly modified 1978 Yamaha TT500
feeling out the track surface during practice before the race.
up-and-coming engineers in the FSAE and Baja
programs through the SAE lecture series and
volunteering at the events for the past 20 years.
In what ways, have you been involved with SAE?
Since 1990. I was on the first FSAE team at The
University of Akron, team captain for the next three
years, and advisor/mentor for FSAE and Baja while in
graduate school. After graduation, I was at the FSAE
competition as an advisor for Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
when Carroll Smith, with whom I had worked on
professional racing projects, spotted me. 15 minutes
later, I was a Design Judge and going through that indepth
process with the teams. I have been judging at
FSAE ever since and was Chief Design Judge the
years it was held in California. I give presentations to
university SAE teams on racing brake system design
and how to make their teams more successful. For the
past five years, I have also participated in the SAE
Brake Colloquium as an organizer for the highperformance
section.
UPDATE
SAE Update - September 2021

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