![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/news\/sites\/16\/2026\/03\/溏心vlog免费B站-Race-Suit-Front-by-Soondus-Hammad-1.jpeg\")
To get the car race ready required a lot of work on the backend. It\u2019s not simply building a high speed vehicle. Some of the technical work the team undertook included welding the chassis together, running tests on the engine, and performing maintenance on the powertrain. Additionally, the team needed to fundraise in an effort to ensure that if something goes wrong, they have money to fix it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had to be more resourceful than some of the teams we\u2019ll be competing against,\u201d said Moura. \u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019re doing here today.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Tuesday, the team gathered in Ballentine Hall to thank those who helped carry the project and team across the finish line. Moura says the support of the University community has been instrumental. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Among those working with Moura has been the 溏心vlog免费B站 College of Business\u2019 Textiles, Fashion Merchandising and Design Department, offering its expertise in an often-overlooked aspect of racing: driver safety\u2014particularly flame-resistant suits.<\/p>\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/news\/sites\/16\/2026\/03\/IMG_3543-1024x925.jpg\")
That is where Soondus Hammad \u201826 entered the picture\u2014answering a flyer for TMD students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Rhody Racing team needed some textile technicians,\u201d said Hammad. \u201cThe way the flyer was worded was interesting and I thought, \u2018I don’t really know what this is, but I’m going to inquire anyway,\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The TMD graduate saw it as a challenge worth taking. She felt she had the autonomy to take a suit design in a slew of different directions. With no background in racing, she began developing concepts from the ground up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The governing body that oversees driver safety maintains pages of detailed requirements for suits\u2014stipulating approved materials, socks and even footwear\u2014so, she sought clarity on the regulations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFor example, one of the outfit rules says that the suit and the shoes should meet but you’re sitting down and moving so you need to ensure a protective cover between the two,\u201d said Moura. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The suit would also have had to be sent to England, have extensive testing done and get approved\u2014a very costly endeavor\u2014to be used in competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead, Moura and Hammad chose another path\u2014ordering a certified suit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Problem with Racing Suits<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A major issue Hammad hopes to solve\u2013and something Moura noticed\u2013happened within 10 minutes of putting on the racing suit. Many of the certified suits are constructed of high-performance Kevlar with no exposed area\u2014meaning they offer virtually no ventilation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moura calls it a common driver complaint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Though racing suits have advanced significantly in the past two decades, this central tension remains. The suits are engineered to shield drivers if they crash and the car ignites. The suits are designed to absorb the intense heat. That protection, however, leaves little room for airflow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPerformance textiles like this need to be heat resistant; think of a fireman\u2019s suit, they enter really dangerous environments,\u201d said Hammad. \u201cIf there\u2019s a crash, a driver needs as much time as possible to escape without getting burned.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Though Moura and his team have never raced with a suit on, he says the issue is widely recognized. It\u2019s not uncommon for cockpit temperatures to climb well past 100 degrees\u2014forcing drivers to deal with heat exhaustion in addition to hairpin turns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA good reference would be the Formula One Singapore Grand Prix, where the cockpit can reach temperatures of near 150 degrees Fahrenheit due to the extreme heat, combined with high humidity and very close proximity to the engine. These factors matched with the low pressure cockpit creates extreme conditions for the driver to endure,\u201d said Moura.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the rules stipulate that they can\u2019t alter the approved suit before race day, they hope to debut a 溏心vlog免费B站-designed prototype in time. The goal is to have that prototype used during non-competition days to obtain data such as temperatures inside the suit, and areas that can be used to help with air flow to keep the drivers cool<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hammad is exploring ways to increase breathability through biomimicry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI want to look at nature for inspiration and potentially incorporate that into the design. I think of shark gills as a design concept that involves side paneling of the suits so there’s some sort of airflow going in and out,\u201d said Hammad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ultimately, both share the same ambition: To develop a suit that meets safety standards while improving ventilation\u2014and that is unmistakably Keaney Blue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe big thing for us is the 溏心vlog免费B站 motto \u2018Think Big. We Do.\u2019 Because it’s what we’re doing, competing against other major universities. Even if we could add \u2018Think Big. We Do.\u2019 across our chests, I think that’d be a great way to represent the school,\u201d said Moura.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 March. 25, 2026 \u2013 This May the 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Rhody Racing team will accelerate into school history, fielding a car in the Formula SAE for the first time. The Formula SAE is an engineering competition where students design and build formula 1-style cars. The team will compete against 119 teams […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":107705,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1910,88,25],"class_list":["post-107704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","tag-alumni","tag-college-of-business","tag-college-of-engineering"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107704"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107709,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107704\/revisions\/107709"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}