At about the same time, Shawn Buckley began his work in 1969 at the University of California, Berkeley on undercar aerodynamics sponsored by Colin Chapman, founder of Formula One Lotus. Buckley had previously designed the first high wing used in an IndyCar, Jerry Eisert's "Bat Car" of the 1966 Indianapolis 500. By proper shaping of the car's underside, the air speed there could be increased, lowering the pressure and pulling the car down onto the track. His test vehicles had a Venturi-like channel beneath the cars sealed by flexible side skirts that separated the channel from above-car aerodynamics. He investigated how flow separation on the undersurface channel could be influenced by boundary layer suction and divergence parameters of the underbody surface. Later, as a mechanical engineering professor at MIT, Buckley worked with Lotus developing the Lotus 78.