SPEEDWAY, Ind. (WISH) — Purdue University and Dallara IndyCar Factory are joining together on the country’s only accredited motorsports engineering program.

The program will be fully housed in the Italian race team’s building on Main Street in Speedway, a short distance from Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the site for Sunday’s Indianapolis 500.

In classrooms and lab facilities, students can get hands-on experience in motorsports innovation. The company’s U.S. branch has seven full-time engineers and five of them are Purdue graduates.

The school says this partnership will strengthen motorsports.

Purdue President Mung Chiang said Thursday during a news conference, “We’re going to dominate in terms of motorsports programs in the country. It’s the right time it’s the right place. It’s May in Indianapolis.”

Purdue also announced Thursday the creation of a new sports engineering research center. It will be called the Ray Ewry Sports Engineering Center. It will also be housed at Dallara.

“Think about all the e-sports and excitement with virtual reality,” Chiang said. “Think about the big data, AI (artificial intelligence) for training, that’s all going to be happening here, too.”

The Italian race car manufacturer hopes to drive innovation with this partnership.

Stefano Deponti, the Dallara CEO, said, “Start an education from a stem level from elementary school and then try to spread out the passion of racing and motorsports to these kids that go to school since the beginning, they will eventually go to learn engineering school.”