Three students from Salina including Ben Grauerholz, Charlie Slothower, and Mary Stevens are part of the K-State’s motor sports Formula SAE design team that cracked the top three at Formula SAE in Michigan.

In any endeavor, continual improvements become more difficult as results improve over time. Kansas State University’s Powercat Motorsports knows this well.

Coming into 2026, the Formula SAE design team in the Carl R. Ice College of Engineering had posted an improved score and finish in each of the last four years at Formula SAE Michigan, the organization’s largest and most important international competition of the year. In 2025, the club jumped up six spots to take fourth place.

The trend of constant improvement continued into a fifth year, with the club cracking the top three at Formula SAE Michigan in late May, once again resetting the mark for the best competition finish in club history. The strong finish was also a special moment for club president Tyler Carlgren, senior in mechanical engineering, Leawood.

“Being able to provide this passionate group of people with the tools needed to execute the most successful competition performance in team history makes me extremely proud,” he said. “From where I started with the team — still getting on our feet after Covid — to this point is such an impressive jump.”

The K-State team finished in third place overall out of 130 teams behind Universidad Politecnica de Valencia, which also won in 2025, and the University of Purdue. The club scored well in nearly every category but was paced by another strong driving performance in the endurance race, finishing third. The club also took fifth place in autocross, which provided a good starting point for the endurance race, avoiding track moisture from early-morning rain.

It was the final year of competition for the team’s two drivers, Carter Cygan, senior in mechanical engineering, Spring Hill, and Will Fulkerson, senior in electrical engineering, Salina. The two have been driving together for three years and that extra familiarity has helped the club become one of the top teams in the country.

“With the multiple years of experience and increased testing time this year along with the best car we have ever built, we had high hopes,” Carlgren said. “Seeing other teams get towed off the track while we are going around is a reminder that any failure could put us in the same situation. Carter and Will were able to execute on the biggest stage and put down a really solid time, which, paired with only hitting one set of cones and no off-course penalties, led us to finish third in endurance.”

Cygan said the hard work all year long was worth it.

“I’m super proud of the team and all the work everyone has put in over the years to get to this point,” he said. “In the moment, I was super pumped, and it was a fantastic way to end my FSAE career.”

With year after year of improvements in the shop and on the track, the team has discussed what it will take to keep its momentum into next year as a new group of students carries the torch.

“It is going to take our team continuing to stay hungry and pushing for more,” Carlgren said. “We have been able to make a car that successfully passed the rules and consistently finishes endurance, so now we are focusing on how to get the most performance out of the car. It’s about identifying where our design can be improved and focusing our effort on making improvements that don’t negatively affect other components.”

Hosein Baboly, teaching associate professor, and Kevin Wanklyn, teaching associate professor, both from the Alan Levin Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, serve as faculty advisors to the team.

In addition to Carlgren, Cygan and Fulkerson, competing members of the 2026 Powercat Motorsports team at Michigan International Speedway include:

Lawson Hall, senior in mechanical engineering, Fort Scott; Carlos Loubriel, freshman in mechanical engineering, Kansas City; Teah Calini, sophomore in mechanical engineering, Reese Hirschler, sophomore in mechanical engineering, and PJ Migliazzo, junior in mechanical engineering, all from Leawood; Taisen Hendershot, sophomore in mechanical engineering, Maize; Cody Noland, sophomore in mechanical engineering, and Brady Shanklin, sophomore in mechanical engineering, both from Manhattan; Madi Horton, senior in news and sports media, Newton; Thomas Harp, 2026 graduate in biochemistry, Osawatomie; Payton Lee, graduate student in mechanical engineering, Ottawa; Ben Grauerholz, junior in mechanical engineering, Charlie Slothower, senior in mechanical engineering, and Mary Stevens, junior in interior architecture, all from Salina; Alayna Dill, senior in electrical engineering, Shawnee; Hank Schreiner, sophomore in industrial engineering, Spring Hill; Austin Menge, senior in mechanical engineering, Topeka; and Louis Evans, senior in mechanical engineering, and Holden Sailer, sophomore in mechanical engineering, both from Wichita.

From out of state: Tyler Weber, senior in mechanical engineering, Kansas City, Missouri; and Brendan Stillie, sophomore in electrical engineering, Frisco, Texas.