Founded in 1981, Formula SAE has become the most prestigious collegiate engineering design event. FSAE encourages students to apply their in-class education by designing a single seater race car, and marketing it as a potential product. The design must adhere to strict regulations set by SAE. The race car must be cost efficient, compete in a variety of dynamic events, and be presented to a board of judges. FSAE promotes learning, problem solving, hands-on experience, excellence, and provides with career opportunities. Racing has great significance to our members. It develops their engineering, social and professional skills.

Each summer, the CU Boulder Racing Team travels to Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California along with 75 other teams from around the world to compete in both dynamic and static events. Dynamic events give the teams a chance to prove their car mechanically while static events give scores for design, cost, and business model. Together, the dynamic and static scores are used to decide the winner. Once a car has competed, it is ineligible to compete again, meaning the process starts all over again. This gives students the opportunities to make iterations to their designs year after year.