IHRA: Championship-winning team offers students hands-on training

Larsen Motorsports, a two-time IHRA world champion, has joined forces with Florida Tech, known for its expertise in aerospace and aviation, and Valspar Automotive, a leader in refinishing technology, to provide students with hands-on training in Larsen's new 30,000-square foot facility in Palm Bay, Florida.

The partnership helps grow and promote STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) core curriculums, which are taught to Florida Tech students in the classroom and then put to use at Larsen Motorsports.

"It's a partnership of business and education at its best," said Chris Larsen, LMS president. "We're so proud of this relationship, and what it's doing for these future engineers is immeasurable. We pay for every nut and bolt in our facility, and we couldn't do this without the help of Valspar Automotive and other affiliates and partners."

Chris and his wife, jet car racer Elaine Larsen, co-founders of LMS, grew up in Michigan, immersed in auto manufacturing. They witnessed the decline of U.S. companies and the reduction of engineers with real skill sets.

The Larsens now employ 15 to 20 Florida Tech student interns to provide them with practical skill sets. In the Valspar Automotive Composite Lab, students use U.S. Chemical & Plastics composites and Matrix Automotive Finishes coatings to build components from full-size funny car bodies to the nose cones and inlets of jet dragsters.

"The students take projects from concept to design to production and into operation," said Chris Larsen. "They do all of the CAD modeling, complete computer simulations, lay up prototype parts, make the mold to do a production run of the parts and then actually make the parts that run on the racecars."

Both Florida Tech and Matrix Automotive Finishes, a Valspar Automotive brand, are LMS sponsors, and each has a branded jet dragster that's raced all across the country. The Florida Tech car, which is piloted by two-time IHRA Jet Dragster World Champion Elaine Larsen, was recently featured on an episode of CNBC's "Jay Leno's Garage."