By Sidney Wilhite | Reporter
Baylor Baja, an engineering team that designs and drives off-road cars to compete in Baja SAE (Baja Society of Automotive Engineers) competitions, alerted students to its return on Friday during Late Night.
The car that was on display was built in 2018 and used in the 2019 competition. After 2019, Baja SAE shut down competitions due to COVID-19.
Highland Village sophomore and president of Baylor Baja, Benjamin Sunderman, said competitions were challenging to hold due to the pandemic.
“Competition was shut down for the past two years,” Sunderman said. “It was online – how do you race a car online? Doesn’t really work.”
Despite the challenge of not having many members for two years, Baylor Baja is planning a return to competition, with the first race occurring in 2023. To plan for this competitive comeback, engineers will construct a new race car throughout the academic school year, as they have in years past.
Saline, Mich. junior Sarah Franko does public relations for Baylor Baja. She said she was optimistic about Baylor Baja’s prospects for the coming year.
“It’s ever-growing. We have a lot of young engineers getting involved,” Franko said. “It wasn’t well maintained ever since COVID happened, which is really disappointing because the Baja club is one of the main engineering clubs, and we need it.”
The engineers design the cars to be sturdy and travel off-road.
“It feels fast, but it’s under 20 miles an hour, it’s off–road stuff,” Sunderman said. “You’re going over lots of terrain … it’s very versatile, that’s the whole point of it.”
When asked about who can drive the cars, Sunderman said, “The car is made to fit an average sized human, so it’s big enough for any of us to fit in there … [The] competition is all about speed.” Sunderman also said Baylor Baja has separate tryouts for potential drivers.
Building the cars and racing them builds community, and Baylor Baja can be a place for engineering majors to network and grow their communities. The races are usually held outside of Texas, so students travel to each competition where multiple large companies also attend.
“If you come out to Baja, talk to some of these companies,” Sunderman said. “That might be an automatic internship.”
During Late Night, students were constantly passing through the Baylor Science Building area and commenting on the organization.
“I was walking by, and I saw a 10-horsepower buggy there,” Baton Rouge, La. freshman Griffin O’Neill said. “It’s really awesome. I’m not a big engineering guy, but I love watching cars race, and it looks like they built it very well.”
