Circled around a neon spray-painted race car, several students begin to take the pieces apart, ripping parts off the frame and fiddling with the engine.

The Miami Vice-inspired race car sports a faded pink, purple and blue paint job, along with a hula dancing doll on its dashboard. The sides of the car are marked by dents, scratches and broken wheels.

Over the next week, members of the UCLA Racing | Baja SAE team will take the entire body of the race car apart, fix it and put it back together in time for their next racing competition.

The team members plan to travel to Pittsburg State University in Kansas next Wednesday to compete in their second Baja Society of Automotive Engineers competition this year.

“It becomes a real big part of our UCLA life on campus; the team becomes very close-knit,” said Nirav Mehta, a third-year aerospace engineering student and the team’s marketing lead. “We all want to see each other succeed and we all want to win.”

The Baja SAE competition challenges at most 100 engineering collegiate teams every year with time trials and endurance races that are designed to break the 300-pound cars. While only a handful of teams even get to finish the races, the UCLA Baja team’s performances on the track have improved over the past few years.

The team members recently travelled to El Paso, Texas to compete, where they received fifth place overall – the highest the team has ever placed since its start in 1999. The group also won first for sales presentation in the business portion of the competition, the hill climb and the overall dynamic events.

The competition challenges students from around the world to design, build and race an off-road vehicle. The students are graded on their car’s design and performance.

Each year, the students build a car with a pre-made engine provided by the competition organizers, but the team must choose the design, frame and all other parts of the car.

The team relies on donations from sponsors to pay for parts, supplies and education for the younger students. The sponsors, mostly engineering companies, provide about $30,000 to fund the team during its competition season.

The funding allows for the team to create their own customized parts and make careful decisions about what makes it onto the car. Each part is selected based on its characteristics and contributions to the machine’s entirety.

During fall quarter, the team travelled to Quail Canyon Motocross Track in Gorman, Calif. to conduct time trials and choose drivers for the race. Paul Jackson, a fourth-year materials science student, and Honesty Kim, a fourth-year bioengineering student, were selected based on their fastest times and started driver training soon afterwards to prepare.

Honesty Kim, a fourth-year bioengineering student, Jessica Leung, a third-year mechanical engineering student, and Christina Daniel, a second-year aerospace engineering student, assemble parts to build a race car. (Austin Yu/Daily Bruin)
Honesty Kim, a fourth-year bioengineering student, Jessica Leung, a third-year mechanical engineering student, and Christina Daniel, a second-year aerospace engineering student, assemble parts to build a race car. (Austin Yu/Daily Bruin)

Jackson, who drives dirt bikes and “anything with wheels” in his free time, drove for three of the four hours during the endurance race.

“You really get into race mode where you don’t think about how you’re feeling. You’re just thinking about that one guy in front of you or that big rock you have to get over and you just get in the zone,” Jackson said.

Usually, the president of a team is the driver for the competition, but this year’s UCLA team captain, fourth-year mechanical engineering student Dylan Aramburu, decided to hand the opportunity to someone else on the team.

Aramburu said he drove last year but decided not to drive again this year because it makes communication between the pit crew, driver and team captain easier and allows the driver to better focus on the race.

At Texas, the team faced dry and rocky terrain, similar to its practice course in Gorman. But in Kansas, the driver, strapped in the middle of the vehicle, will face new challenges on a track with mud pits and possible rain.

“There was this one really gnarly drop, it was probably 12 feet deep with lots of rocks,” Kim recalled from the Texas competition. “I went up to it not knowing there was a drop, and I just had to commit to it. I just took it and survived.”

Jackson, who drove for the suspension and traction, maneuverability and endurance events, said his favorite part of the competition was during the hill climb event on dynamics day – a challenge designed to break the race car.

Kim drove the car for the event after other top schools tried and failed. Kim made it to the top, shocking spectators with the team’s improvement over the last couple of years.

Baja racing is not offered by UCLA, so the older students each year work to teach the younger ones how to build off-road race cars, from the basics of designing to the detail-oriented decisions that need to be made.

The Baja SAE competition centers around engineering, but it also offers a business component for students to learn how to present their cars as potential investment to companies. At the competition, the teams present business plans for their designs to judges from the Society of Automotive Engineers, who pretend to be potential investors.

“Our goal this year was to finish top ten, and we’ve achieved that so we’re very excited. We now have high expectations for Kansas,” Mehta said. “Generally there are some teams that take up the top ranks and we want to see our team up there, too.”

The team leaves next Wednesday, and will then spend spend several days in competition. Until then, the team plans to finish repairing any damage from its last competition and continue preparing for the change in terrain for the next competition.

Published by Jasmine Aquino

Jasmine Aquino was an assistant Opinion editor in the 2016-2017 year. Previously, she was an Opinion and News contributor.

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1 Comment

  1. You guys are really serious for the race and it seems like you’re giving much effort. It must be a great day for you all. Of course race car sports are exciting but at the same time risky too. You are getting into it, that’s okay but make sure your car is fully prepared for the race. Make a checkout of all parts before the race else you may face difficulties. Have a good servicing before the race. Good luck. http://motronix.net/service-specials/

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