Engineering a 14,000-Foot Dream
A team of driven engineering and business students at DU is turning a bold idea into reality: building a race car to take on one of the highest, wildest courses in professional motorsports.
By Jordyn Reiland
At 14,000 feet, there is no margin for error. The air is thin, the winding road is narrow, and the 12.4-mile course up Colorado’s famed Pikes Peak demands precision at every turn.
For a group of students at the University of Denver, that’s exactly the challenge they have signed up for. Members of the DU Time Attack Racing club are designing and building a race car from the ground up—with plans to enter one of the most iconic and technically demanding motorsports events in the world: the Broadmoor Pikes Peak International Hill Climb.
Also known as the Race to the Clouds, the 109-year-old event takes place each June, drawing competitors from around the world to navigate 156 turns as they climb 4,270 feet—from a starting elevation of 9,390 feet to the 14,115-foot summit of America’s Mountain.
Time Attack Racing was founded by lifelong car enthusiast Remington Stagg, a mechanical engineering junior who originally came to DU to study finance.
The idea took shape during his first year on campus in 2023, when he enrolled in introductory courses in both engineering and business. Those classes sparked a bigger question: What if students from different academic backgrounds could come together to tackle something truly ambitious?
“There are a lot of brilliant minds on both sides of campus, between the engineering school and the business school,” Stagg says, “but they never really get the chance to collaborate.”
He first considered starting a club through Formula Student, an existing nationwide program in which university students build and race small, formula-style cars. But he wanted to go bigger.
That’s when the idea of racing up Pike’s Peak was born.
“It gives us a phenomenal opportunity to show what DU students are capable of and show what we can do—all while doing it on a scale that no one else has done before,” Stagg says.
No other university has entered the Pikes Peak Hill Climb, making DU’s team the first in the nation to take on this challenge.
Building speed—and a team
Stagg spent the first year as president of the club laying the groundwork: recruiting students, getting university approval, and assembling a leadership team that now includes seven fellow students and faculty advisor Rachel Horenstein, a teaching assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
From the beginning, student response to the club exceeded expectations. At their first DU involvement fair in fall 2024, they spoke with more than 100 students and signed up 50 interested members.
When they held their first meeting, Stagg says, “I was scared out of my mind. There’s a room full of 30 people looking at me. I started to pitch my idea, and I saw everyone just get this massive smiles on their faces. And I thought, this is actually possible.”
The club, which now has 60 active members, has come a long way since. On the engineering side, they secured garage space in the Metallurgy Building, where they meet weekly, and purchased a Mercedes 190 to use as their base car. Through a partnership with Haltech, a company that sells parts for competition vehicles, they obtained an electronic control unit—the brain of the car that manages all its systems.
The engineering students are organized into subgroups, including aerodynamics, chassis, suspension, data acquisition, and powertrain. They started to build the car’s roll cage and engine this spring and are preparing for full-steam-ahead building when they return to campus in the fall.
The business students, led by club vice president Soledad Rodriguez, a third-year real estate and construction management major, handle the marketing, media, fundraising, and project management for the team. They have secured numerous donors and sponsors, including their title sponsor, Mercedes-Benz of Denver. They have also built a website and coordinated events with sponsors and partners.
A major feather in the team’s cap was securing as their driver DU alumnus Matthew Butson (MS ’24), a professional race car driver they reached out to after seeing a story about him in the University of Denver Magazine.
“I saw that article and immediately found his Instagram and sent him a DM,” says Stagg. On a Zoom call with Butson in the summer of 2024, he spent two hours talking through the plan and, “At the end, I said, ‘We kind of need a driver. Are you interested?’ and he’s like, ‘Sure. Why not?’”
Partnering with Butson was critical to the process, Stagg says, because race cars are built to the driver. “The driver has to be comfortable in the car. Does he want a stiff end, a stiff front? How does he want the car to feel, with the suspension and braking? We get his input of all of this.”
The team’s first major deadline comes in late November, when applications open for the 2026 race. To be considered, teams must submit detailed photos showing the car’s construction progress and confirm the participation of a professional driver.
The Time Attack Racing Club has grown significantly since its founding.
The Time Attack Racing Club has grown significantly since its founding.
As soon as the Mercedes 190 was in their garage, the Time Attack Racing Club started stripping it down.
As soon as the Mercedes 190 was in their garage, the Time Attack Racing Club started stripping it down.
The team is rebuilding the car from the ground up to take on the Broadmoor Pikes Peak International Hill Climb.
The team is rebuilding the car from the ground up to take on the Broadmoor Pikes Peak International Hill Climb.
A rendering shows what the car will look like when the team completes their work.
A rendering shows what the car will look like when the team completes their work.
A game-changing experience
While Stagg brought the idea to life, he credits students like Matt Carter for helping turn it into something real.
Carter is Time Attack’s chief engineer. He leads the electronics and data acquisition team, which is responsible for wiring the harness—the car’s central nervous system—and installing data collection sensors around the vehicle.
Carter is one of the most experienced members of the team, having spent several years working in auto-body shops before coming to DU. In 2018, he bought and rebuilt an old Mustang, teaching himself how to design and build performance vehicles.
When the pandemic hit, Carter stepped away from school altogether and kept working with cars. But eventually, he decided to return—with a renewed sense of direction. He enrolled at DU as a mechanical engineering major, determined to build on his practical experience with formal technical knowledge.
Carter sees the Time Attack Racing experience as a game changer—not just for himself and his teammates but also for future DU students.
“This is the kind of program that really changes someone’s mind when they’re deciding what school they’re going to go to,” Carter says. “I’m hopeful we can turn this club into a key part of the engineering school. Anything I can do to make that happen is my No. 1 priority for this team.”
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