WAR EAGLE MOTORSPORTS

BAJA SAE TEAM

Race Report
Baja SAE Carolina, 8-11 April 2010, Greenville, South Carolina

Auburn’s Baja SAE Team worked hard all year and built a good car, but a few
mistakes and a lot of bad luck kept any of the good from showing at the Baja SAE
Carolina Competition on the campus of Clemson’s International Center for Automotive
Research. Power was low and suspension was off. Trying hard to make up in the
Endurance Race, the Team was disqualified for excessive roll-overs – an action that SAE
admitted was an error, and apologized for. A tough introduction for a young team (only
three had ever been to race before), but one sure to bring the future into sharper focus.

Baja Background
Baja SAE is an engineering student design competition organized by the Society
of Automotive Engineers (SAE). Each college starts in summer with an engine (305 cc
Briggs & Stratton utility – no modifications allowed), a thick set of safety rules, and a
blank sheet of paper, and then proceeds to design and build the best off-road racing car
that they can dream up. The right answer on design is continually evolving, and the
design diversity of the cars is striking (although similar in appearance, due to the required
protective roll cage configuration, qualified automotive engineers judging Baja never fail
to comment on the extreme design diversity from team to team and year to year). In
general, Baja SAE cars are designed for applications similar to sport-style All Terrain
Vehicles (ATV’s), but are expected to corner more effectively and be safe in rollover.
Compared to a sport ATV, a Baja SAE car is wider, longer, lower, stiffer, carries a full
rollcage with safety harness, and has more sophisticated steering and suspension systems.
Depending on the competition site, Baja SAE cars may also float, propel, and steer in
deep water.

Baja competitions are nominally three days long. Static events on the first day (or
day and a half) are: Design (report plus on-site judging); Cost (report and possible on-site
audit); sometimes Presentation (selling design marketability and manufacturability to
investors); and the dreaded Technical Inspection (no fix, no race). Regular short events
on the second full day, with one car running alone on a variety of short courses, are:
Acceleration (150 ft. drag race); Traction (a Hill Climb, sometime substituted by some
sort of weight pull); and Maneuverability (a somewhat tortuous form of Autocross).
There are usually one or more additional competition-specific short events, such as:
Suspension (maneuvering in the vertical plane); Rock Crawl (as one might expect); Mud
Bog (ditto); and Water Maneuverability (marine autocross). On the third day, the entire
field runs wheel-to-wheel in the impossible excitement of the four-hour Endurance Race.
Points are distributed approximately equally over the three days, so that an intriguing
design that doesn’t hold together can’t win overall, but neither can a solid car put together
without engineering flair.

Baja SAE began in 1976. Approximately 240 universities across North America
(plus many overseas entries) now participate in one or more of the three American
Competitions. These three are as geographically spread as potential hosts allow, and try
to include one competition where the cars must float (the ‘water race’). In addition,
overseas competitions are held in Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, and South Korea.
Auburn competed from 1977 to 1982, and continuously since 1991. Auburn won in 1977
(in an all-comers field of 12) and again in 2007 (in a field limited to 100), with several
2nd’s and 3rd’s in the last few years. An independent Auburn Lady Tigers team ran in
1998, 2000, and from 2002 until 2006, when the two teams merged.

Baja SAE teamers are more likely to be mechanical engineers, but over the years
Auburn's teams have included aerospace, biosystems, chemical, civil, electrical,
industrial, software, textile, and wireless engineers as well, plus a sprinkling of non-
engineers (business, criminal justice, geography, industrial design, marine biology,
medical technology, secondary education). Team alumni are widely sought because of
their project management and machine design skills, though graduate school and the
automotive industry tend to be the more popular post-graduate destinations.

Although stirring race results are the immediate goal of any Baja SAE team, the
real product is the teamers themselves. They learn the hard project engineering lessons
of teamwork, metric-based overall design, devil-in-the-details machinery design, project
planning and scheduling, financial control, supplier interface, communication (written
and oral), and how to enhance each ability to make the whole greater than the sum of its
parts. Most importantly they learn (and prove that they have) that special moxie that it
takes to get a real running product out the door on time, under budget, and up to a
demanding performance specification. They learn that a prototype design is just that – a
prototype. It isn’t ready to race until they learn a whole lot more about how to get the
most from what they have just built.

Baja SAE is a real world experience, and is not possible without real world tools,
space, parts, and supplies. Access to these essentials would not be possible without the
generous support of our major sponsors. War Eagle Motorsports is enabled by:

Samuel Ginn College of Engineering Industrial Specialty Corporation Inc.

Department of Mechanical Engineering Peter Jones
Dept of Polymer and Fiber Engineering Lotus Engineering Software
Aardvark Racing Gary Martin
Advanced Heat Treating Corporation National Center for Asphalt Technology
Alabama Bolt & Supply Pearsall family
Briggs & Stratton (Auburn Plant) Rental Service Corporation
Bush Hog SAE/Alabama
Carter Brothers Manufacturing Schlumberger
Cowles, Murphy, Glover & Associates Simulations Plus
ExxonMobil Twin Cities Yamaha
Gaged Engineering Stephanie Vu
Tim Gilino Willie’s Cycle Salvage
Industrial Machine & Supply Woods family
Auburn Baja 2010
Every Baja car is unique. An optimum design is hard to achieve in the fuzzy
design setting of Baja (very wide operating profile in settings that are not analysis-
friendly, plus it’s a new and unknown set of courses every year). And so each year’s
effort is most likely to reflect the brilliance and design insight of that year’s team, heavily
flavored with whatever went wrong for that team the year before. But Auburn’s 2010
team, led by Captain Blake Sparks, broke more of the mold than usual. After 12 years of
double wishbone rear suspension, Tripp Schlereth tried something completely different
with a semi-trailing arm system. The concept was to give up a little bit of suspension
functionality and gain a lot of lightness and ease of manufacture. 18 years of front
knuckles borrowed from production ATV’s ended with bespoke parts in 2009, and Tripp
continued the evolution of this key component in Baja maneuverability. Taking
advantage of the rear suspension’s clarity of load paths, J.D. DeCastra worked out a
snub-nosed, high-sided frame design that emphasized protection from collapse in the area
of the driver’s head. Stephen Sparks took advantage of years of lessons-learned in
gearbox design, and then added his own inspiration to put together a unit whose input
could be dialed back and forth with one finger – very fine machine design. Phillip
Woods created a solid outboard rear braking system. Bobby Haynes came up with a
vinyl-wrapped aluminum body panel system that just looked sharp. It’s hard to say who
was responsible for the rest of the car, since AU Baja 2010 was one of our most collegial
teams, working together and sharing tasks better than most. Chris Lambert, Wallis
Salters, Kyle Sculley, Corey Smith, and Lindsey Tenneson were the glue that held the
team together and made it work.

Day One – Static

Day One (Friday) actually started the afternoon before (Thursday) with
registration and some Technical Inspection preliminaries (governor setting). Full Tech
went mostly well on Friday – Auburn made it through in one pass (a rare occurrence –
mark of a well-prepared team and car), and in fact was the first team in the field to pass
Tech. Brake Test, despite some concern and fiddling with the system set-up before hand,
was also passed on the first try.

The Cost Event starts with a report turned in a month early. Of the 100 points
available, 15 are for the report itself (we got 8), and the other 85 are scaled by self-
reported vehicle cost (subject to audit at the Competition). We got 68.01 for direct
prototype cost to yield 76.01 total points and 41st place. University of Maryland –
Baltimore County (UMBC) won Cost with 100 points (the full 85 on cost, and 15 on their
report).

The Design Event also comes in two parts, with an independent design report
scored out of 75, 100 points for on-site design evaluation (not associated with the report),
and a potential 25 bonus points for the design evaluation finalists. We scored 66.75 on
the design report and 85 on design evaluation. The 150.75 point total was good for 11th
place. Centro Universitario Da FEI (Brazil) won design with a total of 181.60 points.
Judges’ review of the design evaluation finalists (FEI, RIT, ETS, and Maryland – College
Park) cited the usual fluff (solar panels, DAQ without a specific design/operation
purpose, safety ignition interrupts), but also gave recognition to solid engineering studies
like: experiment-correlated FEA; design space optimization (suspension); CVT
simulation; ergonomics; and fastener design.

Day One scores gave Auburn 226.76 points out of 300, putting us in 17th behind
ETS (268.75), FEI (266.62), UMBC (248.00), Maryland (247.69), and Tennessee Tech
(247.22).

Day Two – Short Dynamic

We started the day (Saturday) with the Traction Event. Since BMW was a
Competition sponsor, this amounted to a 75 foot haul of a BMW X5. Kyle Sculley
drove, getting a best time of 11.81 s. As the day wore on, the best time was finally
logged by the University of Tennessee – 8.90 s. Tennessee got the full 75 points, and we
got 56.52 for 59th place.

Acceleration went even worse. For 150 ft. on pavement, Lindsey Tenneson’s best
time was 6.021 s, giving us 42.97 points out of 75 and 71st place. Universidade de Sao
Paulo won in 4.675 s. Something was clearly wrong.

The Maneuverability course was very tight – tighter than even the Auburn 2006
course, which had to be opened up for our 2009 Competition as a consequence of
complaints from the many teams that could not complete it. It turned out that it was our
turn to not be able to make a Maneuverability course, though Blake Sparks surely gave it
a great effort. The car just would not oversteer around the hairpins on the soil of soft dirt,
rocks, and roots, and needed courseworker assistance (with associated time penalties).
Our adjusted time of 133.94 s was too slow to get any points, putting us in a big tie for
54th place. Universidade de Sao Paulo was able to fling themselves around the course
(without reverse or a differential) in 40.38 s to win the event (75 points). RIT and
Cornell, with similar set-ups, also did well.

Suspension offered a bit of a reprieve, in the sense that the car could handle the
course (moguls and boulders), but it still lacked quickness. Stephen Sparks drove to a
time of 35.78 s, good for 30th place and 57.09 points. Universite Laval ran a quick 28.87
s to win (75 points).

Our Day Two total was 156.58 out of 300, as compared to Laval (275.52) and FEI
(268.59). Going into Endurance, we were in 38th place with 383.34 points. The leaders
were FEI (535.21), ETS (513.89), Laval (511.90), Maryland (508.00), and Tennessee
Tech (487.45). Endurance would be staged by Acceleration place, which gave us another
disadvantage.

So the next item on the agenda was to try to figure out what went wrong. Clearly
the car was not a quick as it had been in testing. Since the drivetrain concept was pretty
new, and the rear suspension concept was entirely new, investigation focused on the
transmission (CVT) and driveline. Each component, even the wheel bearings, was
isolated and tested. Finally, there was nothing left to look at but the engine – brand new
for this Competition, right out of the box (though we had run it in). Examination of the
engine did reveal metal chips in the sump, and spalling on the piston skirt. It is not clear
whether this created a power problem. Examination also suggested the possibility of a
pinched fuel line. The fuel tank is removable, so that pit stops can simply replace a tank
instead of laboriously filling it, and the resultant gravity fuel lines are long to allow
access to quick disconnects fittings. The final call was to replace the engine with a spare,
and change back over to short fuel lines and a non-removable tank. With these repairs
made, the car seemed happier. The lesson learned seemed to be to always test the car,
strenuously, in as-raced condition.

Day Three – Endurance

The Endurance Race looked like a tall order. Down on points because of the
previous day’s power problems, the team had a grudge to show what it could do. But the
course was short for a Baja Endurance course (1.2 miles), narrow (only a few good places
to pass), and we were staged by Acceleration Event finish order (meaning we had a lot of
pack to fight through). Blake Sparks started the race, and tried his best to make a
scramble of it. One jump didn’t land well, and the steering rack arms were bent. But
recovery service was good (thanks to our friends, the Cheaha Trail Riders, who also do a
lot to make the Auburn Competition a success), and the team handled the repair expertly,
with minimal time lost. Blake spent the rest of his shift steadily passing cars, except for
one rollover, trying to squeeze by on a tight section. Rollovers have to be inspected by
Tech in Baja, both to ensure that the frame is OK, as well as to discourage rollovers. But
we were back on course quickly, and Blake handed off to Stephen Sparks at the first pit
stop. Stephen got into passing mode, but also had trouble squeezing by the traffic, and
also had a rollover. Fortunately, on the short course, securing the attention of frame
Techs for quick inspection was not that hard. Then it was down to the business of
Stephen making laps until he got caught in traffic on the ramp of the one big dug jump,
forced a poor launch, and rolled again. We were disqualified. Tech had decided that cars
making three rollovers would be excused from the Endurance Race. Since this regulation
is not written in the Rules, was not mentioned at the Endurance drivers’ meeting, and had
not been heard of by any of our drivers over the last three years of Baja, the team filed a
written protest. But for the moment, the race was done.

Later on, SAE upheld our protest. The disqualification was improper. Of course,
our race could not be given back. So SAE did us what favor it could. Our Design Report
had been turned in way late for the upcoming Washington competition, and at 10 points
penalty per day, we had no points left. SAE removed the late penalty, so that we were
even going into Washington. A small silver lining. And a chance, 19-22 May in
Bellingham, Washington, for a Baja team with something to prove.