Teams

P.I.N.K.

Garage Headquarters: Sweet Briar, VA

Driver: Maxine Emerich

Mechanics: Katelyn James, Kate Montemurro, Jessie Waitt, MaryAnn Haslow-Hall, Lauren Schwartz, Dr. Scott Pierce

Nuts and Bolts:

The members of Team P.I.N.K. have a lot in common. They all attend Sweet Briar College, and since Sweet Briar is a school for women, it goes without saying that they’re all female. They all love eating cheesy fries and wearing fabulous shoes. And (they’ll be the first to admit) they’re all dead sexy. So while spending their summer doing research on a much-too-quiet campus, it was only natural that these energetic gals bonded over the same crazy extracurricular activity: building a stiletto soapbox racer.

“Soapbox provided an opportunity for students from many disciplines to apply their knowledge and work together on one project,” says Maxine Emerich, an engineering major who is the team’s captain. “Our school colors are pink and green, and P.I.N.K. stands for Pretty, Intelligent, and Now Kicking.” The teammates, who also include Katelyn James, Lauren Schwartz, Jessie Waitt, MaryAnn Haslow-Hall, and Kate Montemurro, are building their car in the Sweet Briar engineering lab, with additional right-brained help from their team advisor, Dr. Scott Pierce. Having allowed plenty of time for construction and testing, the group feels that their biggest challenge won’t be the race itself: it’ll be transporting an extremely large, vibrantly pink stiletto three hundred miles from Virginia to Philadelphia. If they can find enough cheesy fries to fuel them along the way, they just might make it.