2006 - SAE Mini Baja

cruiseroutfit

Cruizah!
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Sandy, Ut
What a trip... our car did excellent in design judging (6th), and ran great all weekend (other than a broken axleshaft :mad2:). We broke with 11 minutes left in the 4 hour endurance race, crappy but we lasted longer than 75% of the vehicles. The course was brutal, rocks, tree's at different angles, ledges, mud pits, tight corners, whoops and everything else you get in a motocross track :cool:

Here are a couple pics of the action:

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Greg

I run a tight ship... wreck
Admin
Awesome, congrats!! I want to see more pics, that looks like a blast!! I can't believe you built that for 'school'. I should have studied Mech. Engineering.
 

cruiseroutfit

Cruizah!
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Sandy, Ut
Greg said:
Awesome, congrats!! I want to see more pics, that looks like a blast!! I can't believe you built that for 'school'. I should have studied Mech. Engineering.

It was pretty much all I did my Senior year... :cool: Full access to several machine shops, a weld shop, and pleny of support equipment. :cool:

Some of the designs from other schools were VERY impressive... sway bars!

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cruiseroutfit

Cruizah!
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Sandy, Ut
James K said:
cool, did you get to do much of the driving?

Yup... :D half of the dynamic events (acceleration, hill climb, maneuverability and rockcrawl) and half of the endurance race. We swapped drivers at each fuel stop (~ 1 hour). Best part is I plan on getting plenty more driving this summer :cool:

I am also going to help teach the drivetrain & suspension class for next years students, they have TONS more to work with than we did, they have 2.95 (one is close to running) running cars as well as alot more documentation than we started with.

Some of the teams we competed against are VERY prepared and funded, they have trailers, 4 years of students (freshmen-seniors), etc... At the U we only have the Seniors working on it... we are trying to change that now to make the U a stronger competitor. All things considered we beat out alot of teams with more experience, more money, and more tested cars.
 

Greg

I run a tight ship... wreck
Admin
It has an anti-sway bar!!! :eek: :rofl: That's too cool!

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cruiseroutfit

Cruizah!
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Sandy, Ut
This car has the funniest story attatched... :D:D:D

These 3 students from India (as a long ass way from Portland) has their car shipped to the US. They flew into Portland and were planning driving their baja car from the airport to the expo center, and then to the race track (over 30 miles away). They didn't bring a hemlet, or any safety gear, just their clothes and some camping equipment... A bunch of teams pulled together to get them through tech (took ALOT of modifications)... unfortunately their car broke down a couple minutes into the rave... :(

Die hard in my book :cool:

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cruiseroutfit

Cruizah!
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Sandy, Ut
A trip down memory lane. I’ve stayed in contact off and on with my senior project advisor, Dr. Sam Drake, over the years. I’d see him up at the U’s Mechanical Engineer Design Day every few years and I ran into him at a Native American ruin site in SW Colorado of all places. He stopped by the shop a few months back and updated me on the latest from the SAE Mini-Baja and Formula SAE team (now an EV) up at the U. I’d not been to Design Day in 3-4 years and I havn’t been back in the old Kennecott Building since the year after graduated and I was helping the 2007 team with their initial planning the summer/fall after I graduated.

He invited me to join a student meeting for the now Formula SAE Club, 15-20ppl strong and including students from many different fields. I was just a fly on the wall enjoying hearing about the twin-motor EV race car they are planning to design/build. I’ll likely drop-in a few times over the semester to see what they are up too. It’s some high-speed stuff compared to our old Briggs & Stratton powered Mini-Baja. :D

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I’ve told this story many times but he’s literally the reason I’m still at Cruiser Outfitters and not in a cubicle somewhere. See, selling Land Cruiser parts was only supposed to get me through school. Like many, I was convinced I needed to enter the job field and get an entry level engineering job and put that degree to work. Dr. Drake convinced me otherwise. I spent a ton of time in his Advanced Manufacturing Lab in the bottom of the Kennecott Building, we met as a Baja team, that is where we built our car and often hung out to do homework or eat peanuts and watch cool machines work. He was up to speed on my rabid Cruiser passion and my then super small business. He didn’t hesitate to tell me “we didn’t teach you to be an engineer, we taught you to be a problem solver, use that to grow your business”. That advice has served me well and made all the effort of school worth it imo.
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Corban_White

Well-Known Member
Location
Payson, AZ
Mini Baja was the only thing that kept me sane in school. 2002 in Logan and 2005 in Tucson. That's where I got my start in machining and welding. Learned way more working on that than I ever did in class. Lots of fond memories.
 
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