About Us

In 2025, Wyrd Foundation founder Rob Will joined a Purdue Grand Prix team through his residence hall, Earhart. What began as an opportunity to race quickly became an introduction to one of Purdue’s most unique traditions and an experience that would shape the organization to come. 

Through Grand Prix, Rob was able to live out a lifelong dream of racing while discovering the passion, community, and engineering that make the event so special. His first year, however, was far from successful. With limited mechanical and technical knowledge and a great deal still to learn, the experience exposed both the challenges of collegiate racing and the tremendous potential that existed within it. Rather than walking away from the sport, Rob saw an opportunity. He envisioned building an organization that could approach Grand Prix differently—one that combined the excitement of racing with a more professional, organized, and ambitious atmosphere while creating opportunities for students to learn, grow, and become part of something larger than themselves.

In November 2025, Rob founded the Wyrd Foundation with that vision in mind. With the generous support of its initial corporate partners, including SVP Worldwide, Zotec Partners, and Wren Lending, the organization began turning that vision into reality. During its inaugural year, the Wyrd Foundation partnered with Doug Wright Racing and fielded the two Exodus Racing karts for the Purdue Grand Prix. While the results on the track were not what the team had hoped for, the experience reinforced one of the Foundation’s most important principles: setbacks are not the end of the story. Both of the Exodus karts were ultimately taken out by accidents beyond the team’s control, but instead of allowing disappointment to define the organization, the team chose to come back better, stronger, and faster. The experience became an opportunity to reflect on what the Wyrd Foundation could become and to recognize that its potential extended far beyond the finish line of a go-kart race.

That realization led to a fundamental evolution in the Foundation’s mission. While racing and Grand Prix remain an important part of who we are, Wyrd Foundation was built to create an impact that reaches far beyond the racetrack. Today, our core values are rooted in philanthropy, opportunity, and the betterment of collegiate students and the communities around them. We believe that hands-on experiences can teach lessons that cannot always be found in a classroom—whether through engineering, competition, leadership, teamwork, business, or simply learning how to overcome failure. By bringing students, professionals, sponsors, and community members together, we aim to create opportunities that inspire people to challenge themselves and pursue ambitions that may once have seemed out of reach. What started as one student’s desire to race has grown into a community of more than 50 members and counting, supported by more than 15 corporate partners who share our belief in creating meaningful opportunities.

As the WYRD Foundation looks toward the future, we are continuing to expand both on and off the track. Our involvement in Purdue Grand Prix has grown through the adoption and merger of the Tark Racing Grand Prix team, allowing us to reach more students and create additional opportunities to compete, learn, and contribute. We are continuing to build go-karts, develop new programs, strengthen partnerships, and find new ways to serve the communities around us. But our ultimate goal is bigger than building faster karts or achieving better results. We want to build an organization that gives people the opportunity to discover what they are capable of, just as Grand Prix gave Rob that opportunity in 2025. Wyrd Foundation is still young, and there is a great deal left to accomplish. But with every student involved, every partner who believes in our mission, every kart we build, and every community we serve, we are working toward a future where competition becomes a catalyst for education, philanthropy, connection, and opportunity.