Michelle Schraudner
Life Editor
Strapping in to a one-person Baja buggy for a four-hour endurance race or grueling rock crawl might not sound appealing to some people but that’s exactly what members of Idaho State University’s Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) club will do.
Luckily for the club members, they’re allowed to swap out different drivers during the endurance event—as long as they can get in and out of the vehicle in five seconds.
From April 24 to 27, teams from around the world will participate in the Baja SAE UTEP, a Baja vehicle racing competition hosted at the University of Texas – El Paso. The events include an intense racing and dynamic events, which are preceded by an initial safety inspection.
Each team builds its own Baja vehicle, pictured at right and on page 4, to be used in the competition, a task that has kept ISU’s Bengals Racing team members busy putting in hundreds of hours and sacrificing their free time over winter break to work on their buggy, said SAE Chair Kurtis Zemke.
Although they’re confident in their vehicle’s abilities, the SAE club members still need to raise $2,500 just to travel to the competition, according to Zemke.
On Saturday, Feb. 8, the club will host an open house to show its Baja vehicle to members of the public and potential sponsors. Anyone interested in driving the buggy or donating to the team’s travel fund is welcome to attend the event in the parking lot of the Stephens Performing Arts Center from 1 to 3 p.m.
The team invited about 20 local companies to attend the open house, said club member Jake Thompson, a senior in mechanical engineering. The group hopes additional local businesses will attend, and perhaps help fund its travel, as well.
A recent graduate from the mechanical engineering program, Bobby Miklos, donated some gear to the team to help it succeed. Miklos went to the competition with ISU’s SAE club last year and was hired by Polaris as a result of his exposure to potential employers at the event, Thompson said.
Although ISU teams have attended the competition for the past two years, those teams’ vehicles never passed the safety checks.
This year’s team aims to change that. The SAE members have the Baja vehicle that last year’s team put countless hours into, providing the framework for this year’s group to make the necessary changes.
One change made by this group is the installation of a new seat, said the club members. Its size accommodates all of the team members and ensures that, even with a helmet on, each member will have the required height clearance between the top of the helmet and the bars framing the vehicle.
During a four-hour endurance competition, the engineering students will likely be glad they had that foresight, so each member can take a turn driving, splitting the tiring task among the group.
Teams registered in the competition hail from countries all around the globe, including Egypt, Mexico, South Korea, India, the United Arab Emirates and South Africa, according to the competition’s website.
Companies interested in sponsoring the team, students interested in joining the club or those who want more information can contact Club Chair Kurtis Zemke at ude.usinull@trukkmez.
