Baja SAE Oregon 2012

WARRENDALE, Pa., May 7, 2012 - Laval takes top accolades at a muddy Baja SAE Oregon

Kicking off the second event of the season was Baja SAE Oregon hosted by the SAE Oregon Section taking place on May 2-5, 2012 with the team registration, sales presentations, tech inspection, and Polaris Design events taking place at the Portland Expo Center, Portland Oregon with Dynamic day in Washougal MX Park, Washougal Washington.

Wednesday afternoon kicked off the event with registration at the Holiday Inn, Portland with 57 teams registering that day as well as Briggs & Stratton governor checks and engine evaluations. Thursday’s activities began at the Portland Expo Center with continued registration and the teams setting up their paddocks in the parking area. Thursday continued with technical inspections of all Baja vehicles, brake testing, and design and sales presentations in the adjacent buildings. The teams were challenged to fully explain and discuss all aspects of their vehicle’s design and the rationale behind their design decisions. As well their sales presentation, the objective of this presentation being for teams to convince the “executives” of a hypothetical manufacturing company to purchase the team’s Baja SAE vehicle design and put it into production at the rate of 4000 units per year.

Top Finishers in the Polaris Design Presentations:

1^st Place #2 ETS Ecole de Technologie Superieure

2^nd Place #4 Oregon State University

3^rd Place # 8 Rochester Institute of Technology

Top Finishers in the Sales Presentations:

1^st Place #24 University of Tennessee – Chattanooga

2^nd Place #38 University of Manitoba

3^rd Place #1 Universite Laval

Friday kicked off dynamic day with three impressive courses and an acceleration run all designed and manufactured by the Oregon organizing committee. Teams competed in a challenging rock crawl event, as well as a maneuverability course, and a hill climb that tested each vehicle to the limits as well as caked them in mud. 

On Saturday teams prepared for the Endurance Race. The endurance track boasted muddy pits, moguls, hills and other aspects that made this course a true test of durability on all Baja participants and vehicles. Spectators watched as cars were placed in their run order based on their overall dynamic scores from the previous day. The four hour endurance race proved too much for some vehicles but some prevailed over the Washington MX Park terrain and persevered to the finish line. Finishing in the top three for the endurance event were:

1^st Place #1 Universite of Laval

2^nd Place #4 Oregon State University

3^rd Place # 29 University of Regina

Later that evening and after the layers of mud were stripped from cars and participants, the teams were invited back to the Holiday Inn Portland for an awards ceremony and dinner. Overall winners of the Baja SAE Oregon 2012 competition were:

1^st Place #1 Universite Laval

2^nd Place #4 Oregon State University

3^rd Place #8 Rochester Institute of Technology

4th Place #11 University of Nebraska - Lincoln

5th Place # 2 ETS

6th Place # 3 University of Maryland – Baltimore County

7th Place #87 South Dakota School of Mines & Technology

8th Place #24 University of Tennessee - Chattanooga

9th Place # 47 University of Louisville

10th Place # 34 Western Washington University

SAE would like to thank everyone that helped with the success of this competition including: the SAE Oregon Section, Briggs and Stratton, Polaris, Honda, SolidWorks, Magna Powertrain, and all the volunteers and sponsors that came out to the site and worked tirelessly behind the scenes months before and especially the lead organizer Chris Etzel and his team: Steven Hyde, Darren Johnson, Todd Rautenkranz, Valerie Uskoski, Jason Wilkening, Ryan Dillon, Hillary Shoop, Thomas Reed, Taylor Finley, Brad Fresch, Aaron Rudick, Tony Clark, Matt Freitag, Andrew Stratton, and Dan Tucholsky. The SAE Collegiate Design Staff thank you all for your dedication and commitment to making Baja SAE Oregon 2012 truly a successful event.