AUBURN LADY TIGERS MINI BAJA TEAM WINS SAE GRANT

The Auburn University Lady Tigers Mini Baja team (ALTMB) is the winner of the 2005 Women Team Leaders Grant from the Women Engineers Committee (WEC) of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). This is the second year in a row that the team has won the $1,000 Mini Baja Challenge.

"This award is a big deal," team captain Sarah Gallops says, "SAE has never given this award to the same team two years in a row." The grant will assist with completion of the team's vehicle and with travel to and from Mini Baja events.

The grant program was established to encourage women leadership roles in the SAE Mini Baja competitions, all-terrain, off-road events that include tests of speed, power, suspension, endurance, land and water maneuverability, and rock crawling. Auburn's Lady Tiger's team is one of the first all-female Mini Baja teams in the world and is also one of the most successful.

This year's eight-woman team has only two members with prior experience and none who are seniors, but that hasn't stopped them. "Even though we're new, there is a lot of natural talent on this team," Sarah says.

This year's design is modeled after last year's car. Improvements have been made in fabrication efficiency and in ergonomic and suspension design that will give the team the edge they need to be competitive.

"Hopefully these improvements will give us the chance to shine," Sarah says.

The 2005 competitions will take the team to Rochester, N.Y., for May's Mini Baja East; to Tucson, Ariz., in early June for the special Mini Baja 100 (a 100 mile race in honor of SAE's 100 ^th anniversary); and to Troy, Ohio, in mid June for Midwest Mini Baja. If the team does well, they are hoping to raise the money to travel to overseas events in South Africa or Brazil.

Starting the year with only two veteran members, the ALTMB had to do some recruiting. They enlisted the help of prior members and created a recruiting video to get students excited about the project.

The team is open to any female AU student. "You don't have to be in engineering—diversity helps," Sarah says. "Non-engineers bring a different perspective to the project. This year's team has four mechanical, one civil, one industrial and two aerospace engineering students. We're always looking for new members."