Teams

The Teke's

Garage Headquarters: Marietta, GA

Driver: Keaton Wheeler

Mechanics: Andrew Pankopp, Jason Klug, Stew Love, Nathan Melton

Nuts and Bolts:

“The Red Bull Soapbox Race is the best thing taking place in the city of Atlanta on August 29,” declares Keaton Wheeler. “And our racer is most definitely the one that will win.” Keaton and his teammate Jason Klug are members of the Xi-Chi chapter of the Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE) fraternity at Southern Polytechnic State University in Marietta. Joining their competitive crew will be Andrew Pankopp, an alumnus who now works as a project engineer. They’ve been spending a ridiculously large part of their summer hunkered down in Andrew’s garage, building a soapbox racer that looks like a low-rider car. “Our inspiration was all of the gangsta rides rollin’ around the ATL,” says Keaton, the team’s captain.

In this collaborative effort, each participant brings significant skills to the table: For example, while Andrew shares his engineering expertise (and that all-important garage), Jason is not only president of the Xi-Chi chapter but also an excellent go-kart mechanic. Meanwhile Keaton has valuable experience competing in the international Red Bull Paper Wings contest; his paper airplane placed twenty-third worldwide in distance, and, in fact, that’s where he met the team’s fourth member, Nathan Melton. Nathan is a talented graphic designer whose paint job and other finishing touches will make The Tekes’ rad ride a visual standout. Beyond astounding the crowd with their speed and general greatness, however, these teammates have a higher mission: recruitment. Their shout-out to all of the fine young freshmen at SPSU is simple and direct: “Rush TKE!”