Oregon Tech Baja car places 13th in four-hour endurance race

Nineteen students from Oregon Tech's Baja Racing team traveled to Washougal, Washington, May 7-10 to compete in the Baja Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Oregon, where college students test their self-built off-road vehicle for performance and endurance.

The team of Aidan Pearson, Allison Wheeler, Andrew Burgoyne, Anthony Jauregui, Connor Endacott, Dylan Bonfield, Eli Stevens, Garrett Sutherland, Hunter Hosier, Isaac Pinkham, Jarrett Dressell, Luke Silvey, Marshal Bixler, Matthew Haines, Orion Skinner, Owen Haugh, Raymond Loby, Stephen Mccamment, and Trenton Morgan had their best finish as 13^th place in the endurance portion of the race, followed by the top half of the rankings in the hill climb and rock crawl.

Overall, 70 teams from the United States, Canada, and Mexico competed in the three-day competition, which included both static and dynamic events. The static events consist of engineering design, inspections, and presentations. The dynamic events include an acceleration braking event, a maneuverability event, a hill climb, and a four-hour endurance race that pitted all the vehicles against each other on an extreme rough off-road course.

Oregon Tech Racing advisor Cliff Stover is also a Professor of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering and Technology and has been involved in Formula and Baja SAE for more than 30 years.

"SAE is by far the largest engineering design competition on the planet," Stover said. "Students must cover a wide range of disciplines and be able to competently present and compete with a vehicle that has been built from the ground up in less than a year. This international competition encompasses all levels of engineering, management, business, marketing and hands-on design, fabrication, and testing of real-world projects."

Each year, Oregon Tech Baja students build a new off-road vehicle from scratch, sometimes using knowledge gained from the previous year, but often experimenting with their own mechanical engineering skills and fabrication techniques.

"I am truly proud of our Oregon Tech Racing Baja students for their impressive performance and strong teamwork," said Dr. Neslihan Alp, Dean of the College of Engineering, Technology, and Management. "They represented Oregon Tech with distinction, and I would like to extend my sincere appreciation to Professor Stover for his outstanding mentorship and commitment to the team."

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