RIT hosts 100 international collegiate racing teams for Baja SAE Rochester June 6–9

One hundred collegiate racecar teams from around the world will converge on Rochester Institute of Technology for Baja SAE Rochester, one of the Society of Automotive Engineers major events, taking place June 6-9.

Teams from universities in the United States as well as Canada, India, Mexico, Brazil and Venezuela will compete for the Mike Schmidt Iron Team Trophy, an award given to the overall season champion. More than 1,300 student-engineers, who designed and built off-road vehicles, are expected for the event that will consist of hill and rock climbs, acceleration and maneuverability challenges and a four-hour endurance race.

Ryan Hurley RIT’s Baja race team opened its 2019 season on April 11 placing fourth overall among 100 international teams competing at the first SAE Baja competition at Tennessee Tech University. Overall results of the competition includes: third place in sales, design and suspension, seventh in cost, 14th in acceleration and 18th in the endurance race.

“The Rochester race is known to be one of the top college design series events. It happens every three years here, and it’s a blast,” said Martin Gordon, event organizer and faculty adviser for RIT Baja. He also serves as professor of mechanical and manufacturing engineering technology in RIT’s College of Engineering Technology.

RIT entered the 2019 season as defending champions. In 2018, after three strong finishes at national competitions, the team was presented with the Schmidt Award, first given in 2001, and awarded for a team’s perseverance, engineering excellence and by earning the highest cumulative point score at all the North American Baja SAE events in a single competition season.

Following up the championship will be a challenge as RIT faces competition from consistently powerful teams from Cornell University and the Universities of Michigan – Ann Arbor, Oregon and Nebraska. Additionally, competitors from Canada including Ecole de Technologie Superieure (Quebec) and Venezuela’s Universidad Simon Bolivar have all been past event and season champions.

“These are historically strong teams, but we are also seeing newer teams challenging more at competitions over the past few years,” said Christopher Mehalakes, RIT Baja team manager and a fifth-year mechanical engineering technology student from Laurel, N.Y. “We love seeing that, and it’s what we all want in these competitions.”

Several of those newer teams have been supported by RIT Racing, which has retained its long-standing reputation for being both highly competitive and supportive, providing tools, equipment and encouragement to other teams.

“It’s definitely a big part of the experience and invaluable because we like to be involved, to enjoy the events and the competitions. I think this is something that is engrained with our team dynamic,” said Mehalakes, who has been with the team since he started at the university in 2014. He’s held several leadership positions, serving on the aerodynamics and composites groups before being elected as team manager. The experience contributed to co-ops at several companies, including Honda, where he will work after graduation in May.

About Baja competitions

Baja SAE events are held across the country at different universities and motor cross venues. This is the seventh time RIT has hosted an event; the last time was in 2016. RIT Racing has competed in Baja SAE competitions for more than 25 years, winning both national and international events.

SAE Baja consists of competitions that simulate real-world engineering design projects in which engineering students design and build off-road vehicles that will survive the severe punishment of rough terrain—hill and rock climbs—acceleration and maneuverability challenges and a four-hour endurance race. The object of the competition is to provide SAE student members with a challenging project that involves the design, planning and manufacturing tasks found when introducing a new product to the consumer industrial market.

Many of the teams, including RIT, build the car—from its systems to its chassis—in campus machine, manufacturing and 3D print labs. Improved system designs are often part of class and team projects where work is developed and tested on campus before being added to competition vehicles. Events during the competition highlight different steps of that development process and provide real-world experiences for team members.

During the opening sales presentations, taking place at the start of the competition on Thursday, June 6, student teams report to “executives” of a hypothetical manufacturing company to persuade them to purchase the team’s Baja SAE vehicle design and put it into production. Technical inspections, design judging and dynamic brake inspections take place on Friday, June 7, at the Gordon Field House at RIT. Events resume on Saturday, June 8, at Hogback Hill Motorcross Track in Palmyra, N.Y., and include the hill climb, acceleration, suspension and traction competitions, as well as land maneuverability challenges. The event concludes on Sunday, June 9, with the four-hour endurance race.

The competition is free and open to the general public that can observe the teams during the design competition from the stands at the RIT Field House. At Hogback Hill, although parking is limited, there are opportunities to see the events from the stands.

Note: To volunteer, contact Baja Rochester event organizers through its online portal: www.bajasae.net. All shifts are for a full day, and sales and design judges must have related experience.

A video from the 2016 Event is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epEUC23oZ0Y.