11/18/25 - 11/24/25: ESF Submitted / End of Quarter Update / Operations Lead Highlight!

[Anton Walvoord]

Northwestern Formula Racing

@nufsae | northwesternformularacing.com

Fall Newsletter - 11.24.2025

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ESF Submitted:

Hello Formula! We are happy to say that this year we've submitted ESF 19 days ahead of the deadline! ESF is due right in the middle of our finals, and so our leadership planned ahead and worked late into the night last week to make sure we had everything ready and submitted before our Thanksgiving break.



This year we intend to be very competitive for all portions of the events. This means we are allocating extra focus to make sure we have all document submissions ready ahead of time so they get the attention and time they need to score highly. We recognize that these forms can make the difference between placements at competition, so we are putting our all into getting every single point possible.

Our next deadline will be for the Sponsorship Proposal Request, due December 22nd! Our Operations team is actively working to have this request ready.

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End of Quarter Update:

The end of the quarter is nearly upon us! Today marks the beginning of Northwestern's Thanksgiving break. With that in mind, I thought it would be appropriate to give a little update on our status broadly.

In the week after we return from the break, we will run a gauntlet of design reviews. We intend to have all drive critical designs finalized before winter break, and all stock and components purchased before we leave. This will allow us to focus entirely on manufacturing when we return for the Winter quarter.



A number of projects have already begun manufacturing this quarter. Notably, we have created the molds for our bodywork, begun iterating on steering wheel designs, are currently awaiting our frame tubes from a sponsor, and almost all of our drive critical PCBs have been soldered and are beginning testing.

One unfortunate update is that we are currently facing a supply chain issue with our battery cells. A Molicel factory fire has put severe delays on all major battery suppliers and this includes the Tesla cell sponsorship which we received. We are working around this by preparing our enclosures and all associated parts beforehand, so we are ready to assemble and bond cells as soon as they become available.

Overall, our team has done a lot of great work this quarter. We are very excited to be concluding the design portion of the year and moving into manufacturing. I'm very happy with what we've accomplished, and our leadership will continue to push the team through the end of the quarter and into the next!

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Operations Lead Highlight!

Our final exec highlight for the quarter! Operations lead John Raftus!



John is a Junior from Toronto, Canada, studying Applied Mathematics and Economics. He joined NFR's accumulator team during his sophomore year and is leading the team's operations this year. When not working on Formula, you can find John playing golf, eating food, or watching a movie.

John helps manage our sponsor relations, social media presence, and is working on this year's business presentation focused on the suspension system! Our team has a rapidly developing engineering program, and John is hard at work pushing our business section to grow alongside!

With <3 from NFR