The K-State Formula Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) team, also known as Powercat Motorsports, hosted Formula Wheat on Oct. 24-25. It was a two-day competition that forced teams to put their 2026 challengers to the test across four events, all in preparation for the national competition in Michigan.
The first edition took place in 2023, when eight teams competed, and Powercat Motorsports won the inaugural race over Iowa State. The next year, they repeated that success with back-to-back overall wins in 2024, but missed the podium in 2025 as Nebraska took first in Endurance and first Overall.
“Formula Wheat has three goals: one is to give the team another competition to practice for Michigan, get new team members involved and build relationships with the other teams,” Tyler Carlgren, president of Powercat Motorsports, said.
Hot off their best-ever result at Formula SAE Michigan, Powercat Motorsports looked to return to the top step of the podium at their home competition. This year the team brought two cars — one was last year’s car, “Sphinx,” and the other was the 2026 challenger, “Calico.”
This year, a record ten teams competed, and many others brought a second car to run. One major newcomer to Formula Wheat this year was Oklahoma’s Sooner Racing, making their first appearance.
Four events took place over the weekend. Saturday’s slate had teams competing in Accel and Skidpad in the morning, then running Autocross in the afternoon.
Junior PJ Migliazzo drove for Powercat Motorsports this past weekend and competed in all four events in both “Calico” and “Sphinx.” He helped bring the team third place in Accel driving “Calico” with a second run time of 4.252. He followed it up with a 5.053-second average on Skidpad. Then closed out the day driving “Sphinx” and put up a 41.854-second run that was good enough for 4th place.
“Driving the cars again this year was another memory to never forget,” Migliazzo said. “It was crazy and overwhelming at times, but it was totally worth it.”
Powercat Motorsports ended day one with “Calico” scoring third in Acceleration and first in both Skidpad and Autocross. That put them in first place after day one, with a decent lead over Nebraska’s Husker Motorsports.
Sunday brought the competition’s final event, Endurance. For K-State, “Calico” dominated, posting a total time of 18:29.1 split between the two senior drivers, Louis Evans and Will Fulkerson. Meanwhile, the sister car for the weekend, Sphinex, Migliazzo and teammate Holden Sailer overcame adversity to snag a third-place finish with a 21:15.
At the end of day two, Powercat Motorsports’ first car, “Calico,” brought home first place overall, scoring 548.66 points, 187 points ahead of second-place Missouri.
“Overall, it was an amazing weekend, and to top it off by winning 1st overall in Calico was awesome,” Migliazzo said. “It definitely wouldn’t have been possible without the rest of the Powercat Motorsports team, especially without Will Fulkerson, Louis Evans, Alayna Dill, Charlie Slothower and Holden Sailer.”
This is the team’s first competition, but they have one goal: qualify for Formula SAE Michigan on May 12-15, 2027.
