Flatrock Motorsports Park in the heart of Cumberland County will support student-led Pellissippi State Motorsports by allowing the team access to its state-of-the-art circuits, becoming the college’s home track.

The partnership includes a $5,000 sponsorship to the Pellissippi State Community College Foundation, which Pellissippi State Motorsports will use to cover the Formula SAE Michigan registration fee for its 2024 competition and to help offset some of the race car's engine and frame costs.

“Pellissippi State is committed to providing our students with experiential learning while they’re still in school so that they have an advantage whether they’re transferring to a four-year institution or going straight into the workforce after they complete their associate degree,” said Pellissippi State President L. Anthony Wise Jr. “With the addition of Flatrock Motorsports Park within an hour of Pellissippi State, our students on our Pellissippi State Motorsports team will have more access to motorsport minds, facilities and real-world experiences that will set them up for success in both developing their race car for competition and in preparing for their career.”

The Formula SAE series competitions, hosted by the Society of Automotive Engineers, challenge teams of college undergraduate and graduate students to conceive, design, fabricate, develop and compete with small, formula style vehicles.

Pellissippi State Motorsports entered its first Formula SAE competition in 2019, where the chief design judge said the team’s car was the best first-year car he had ever seen. The students learned from that experience and refined the design of their car, finishing sixth in the nation in 2021, only the team’s second competition since the 2020 event was canceled due to COVID.

Pellissippi State has been the only community college in the country in all the Formula SAE events the team has entered, competing against some of the best undergraduate and graduate engineering programs in the country and the world.