Doug Fraser Awarded 2010 Carroll Smith Mentor's Cup

CONTACT: Catharine Lamm
1-603-646-3943

Doug Fraser, Research Engineer and Director of Formula Hybrid, was awarded the 2010 Carroll Smith Mentor's Cup by Formula SAE® and the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA). The highest award that can be earned by any Formula SAE® advisor, the Carroll Smith Mentor's Cup recognizes extraordinary levels of personal time and expertise given to engineering education, and the ability to serve as an exceptional role model for students.

Doug Fraser

Below is an excerpt of the award ceremony speech:

Speech given at FSAE® Competition

Dr. Bob Woods
May 15, 2010

Carroll Smith was a trained engineer, Navy pilot, racecar driver, and author. He authored six books on racecar engineering and most of you have read them or certainly should.

For ten years he served as chief design judge for FSAE® and raised it to one of the most prestigious events at the competition. In Australia, he started wearing a slash hat that became his trademark, and now all of the chief design judges wear an Australian hat in his honor and memory. He died at his home in California during the time of the 2003 FSAE® competition.

Carroll Smith

Carroll was very free to share his knowledge and wanted everyone to learn. He was the consummate mentor. Being the chief design judge was a perfect opportunity for him to mentor these developing engineers. It is this quality that inspired the Sports Car Club of America to institute the Carroll Smith Mentors Cup in his honor.

The recipient of this award is a person that has shown long-term commitment of mentoring to FSAE® students. With this award goes a check for $1500 from the SCCA Foundation, a beautifully engraved keeper cup, and his name on the perpetual cup kept at SCCA headquarters.

This year's recipient began his automotive career in 1968 as manager of the engine shop at Autodynamics, Inc., then the largest manufacturer of race cars in the US.

At about the same time he received a patent for a device that links the shifter of a racing motorcycle to the ignition system in order to allow faster shifts. Many Formula SAE® teams still use this technique.

While at Autodynamics he had the good fortune to work with Carroll Smith on the Dodge Challenger Trans-Am race program.

In 1971 he started his own company, building racing engines for people like Skip Barber, Pat Bedard, Reeves Callaway, David Loring and Bruce MacInnes, collecting five National championships along the way.

He joined Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth in 1982 and in 1987 initiated the Solar-Powered Race Car project. He advised the Dartmouth Solar Racing Team right up until the students discovered Formula SAE® in 1995. He then advised the Dartmouth Formula Racing team for another 12 years. He has been involved in many alternative transportation projects and is the founder of Dartmouth's Formula Hybrid International Competition.

He is a registered Professional Engineer, an instrument-rated private pilot, and still races a 1966 Jaguar E-type.

This year's awardee of the Carroll Smith Mentors Cup is Doug Fraser of Dartmouth. This award should have been given last week at the Formula Hybrid event. Doug is not present here today, but I have him on the phone right now and he has heard that he is being recognized for his excellent performance with this extremely significant role of mentoring our next generation of engineers. Thank you.