WAR EAGLE MOTORSPORTS

AUBURN LADY TIGERS MINI BAJA TEAM

Race Report

Midwest Mini Baja, 16 - 19 June 2005, Troy, Ohio

 

The Auburn Lady Tigers Mini Baja team (ALTMB) rushed through a drivetrain redesign/rebuild after the Mini Baja 100/West Competition, relying on vital contributions from the Central Engineering Machine Shop. The much-improved car completed every event, but the drivetrain ills could not be completely solved as the short-handed team fought to an 81^st place overall finish.

 

Midwest is the largest of the Mini Baja Competitions. Without the technical difficulty of East or the faraway distances of West, Midwest reached its entry cap of 143 teams early in the registration period. Participants came from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, India, Korea, Mexico, Venezuela, and all over the United States.  The Dayton Section of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) hosts Midwest Mini Baja every other year, and their site is the Kenworthy Motocross Park in Troy, north of Dayton.  ALTMB arrived in Troy at the end of a very long season of Baja Competitions, having competed at East in Rochester/Palmyra NY and West at Tinaja Hills AZ.  This is the first time that ALTMB has competed in all three events.  

 

The team did reasonably well in the Cost event, in which scores are based on self-reported prototype fabrication cost. Reports are turned in a month before the competition, and some cars are spot-checked against their reports on site. Rigorous cost reduction of in-house fabrication is excellent engineering training, and this is encouraged by this event.  Still, too little cost can mean too much performance cut from the drivetrain and suspension, and so ‘good enough’ is usually the goal in this event instead of outright victory.  In the scoring, there remain some issues between U.S. prices and those obtainable in Argentina (Instituto Technolgico de Buenos Aires – 1^st in Cost with 48.45 points out of 50), Brazil (Escola de Engenharia de São Carlos – 2^nd with 47.93 points), Korea (Gyeongsang National University – 3^rd with 47.40 points), and Ohio (Akron University – 4^th with 46.86 points).  ALTMB made 34.14 points for 69^th.

 

Design Reports (also due a month early) were also fairly straightforward. ALTMB (with no team members having previous-year design experience, and no automotive or mechanical engineers among the team leadership) made 79 points for 37^th. Universite de Laval won Design Report with 96 points.  Once on-site, the first thing was Technical Inspection (safety), which the experienced cars passed with the exception (for both cars) of that eternal bugaboo, leak-test of the fuel drip pan).  Fortunately, the cure, underwater miracle epoxy, worked as advertised, and both cars passed on a quick recheck.

 

Next was Design Evaluation. The categories of Design Evaluation included: Craftsmanship (15 points); Operator Comfort (15); Serviceability (15); Structural Design (15); Feasibility of Mass Production (15); Powertrain (15); Suspension & Braking (25); and Originality & Innovation (35). The individual scores in these categories always leave us wondering.  ALTMB scored 77.3 points to rank 104^th. Design Evaluation was won by Brazil’s Centro Universitário da Faculdade de Engenharia Industrial (Centro FEI) with 126.5 points. SAE is continuing its efforts to rationalize standard score sheets for Design Evaluation.

 

It’s always a relief to put static judging behind us, put the design boards away and get out of the test-taking mindset, and get ready for some serious motorsports.  SAE/Dayton always helps make this transition by opening up a practice track with good turns and jumps, and both teams took full advantage of the tune up. At the end of static, ALTMB was in 76^th with 190.44.  Michigan led with 254.55.     

 

Short events at Kenworthy Motorcross Track tested the basic abilities of a Baja car in speed, handling, and tractive force. These qualities are measured in: the Acceleration/Top Speed Events (think drag race); the Land Maneuverability Event (think autocross plus bumps); and the Sled Pull (as in the monster truck progressive type machine) and Hill Climb Events. Acceleration and Top Speed are individual scores from the same Drag run, rated at 50 points each.  Land Maneuverability is worth 100 by itself. Sled Pull and Hill Climb are worth 50 point apiece to give 100 for traction. Carefully sticking to its rain plan SAE/Dayton moved the cars efficiently through their first attempt at each short event in the morning of the short event day to make sure everyone got a run, and then brought them back in the afternoon for the second run.

 

In Acceleration, Asha Sharma drove for ALTMB, improving on her second run to pull 0.285 g’s to rank 26^th in the field with 42.44.  São Carlos won Acceleration with 0.350 g’s and 50 points.  On the Top Speed side, Asha made it up to 24.149 mph, exactly, on both runs, and this was good enough for 30.79 points and 39^th place.  São Carlos won Top Speed as well, with 29.347 mph at the end of 150 ft, and another 50 points.  The Sled Pull was hard.  On a surface of river sandy gravel (if that’s the term - smooth stones intersticed with sand) it was hard to keep traction, and hard to keep the front pad on the progressive weight sled from digging in.  Christine Taylor twice managed to find tight spots on the course to stop the sled (in a course made mostly of tight spots), finally eking out 16 ft. of pull for 8.41 points and 105^th place.  Theory is that the flexing rear axle was still misaligning the final drive sprocket and bleeding away all of the driveline efficiency (something to fix in 2006).  Universite de Laval made a monster pull of 95.1 ft. to win the event with 50 points, in a machine apparently optimized for heavy pulling. The Hill Climb was easy.  Baja cars are good at climbing hills, most of them perform to the limit of the spec engine, and so scores are tightly bunched.  ALTMB’s Christine Taylor flew up the mound in 3.428 s to place 61^st with 36.49 points.  Winner São Carlos (50 points) was (photo cell) timed in 2.502 s.

 

Kenworthy Land Maneuverability courses are always fun. This one featured the Kenworthy signature, slalom over moguls, plus plenty of hairpins, 360’s, and straight moguls.  Carmen Heintzelman drove very well for ALTMB, showing great skill with a car made more for evening out the bumps than for threading the corners (all right – if you didn’t catch my drift, it’s on the long side).  Carmen stopped the watch at 84.78 s on her second run (after getting into serious cone trouble on the first), good for 82.81 points and 49^th place.  Going into the Endurance Race (static plus short event points), ALTMB had racked up 391.38 points to sit in 65^th.

 

            Gridding for the Endurance Race on the last day of Competition was based on the combination of Acceleration and Top Speed scores, in order to encourage the spreading of the field away from the starting line.  ALTMB grided respectably in 31^st based on a good Acceleration run.  Cars were released three at a time from the massive grid, racing for the first turn. The organizers were constrained by the Kenworthy track itself, designed for 20 small high-powered dirt bikes and now being raced by 140 large low-powered Baja cars, but added considerably to the thrill and challenge of the Endurance Race by including plenty of off-track sections into the course.  At one point, the course ran for over a quarter of a mile on the pebble beach along the Miami River, 100 ft. wide with drivers free to choose their line, giving advantage to the driver with a good eye for desert racing, and to the car that could spin its way out of the soft spots.  Another new section, hacked out of the underbrush, gave the drivers considerable opportunity to show how their cars could use terrain features to facilitate very tight maneuvering at speed – a highly compressed version of rally driving.  Overall, the course presented an extreme incidence of obstacles (jumps, bumps, ravines, etc) with very little straight or steady driving. The course was physically demanding on the drivers. The winner completed 34 of the 2.35 mile laps, for an average speed of 20 mph and a distance-covered of 80 miles.

 

Carmen started the race for ALTMB. The car kept up well, but the drivetrain difficulties that had dogged the team all season had not been solved. Even with these difficulties Carmen showed that she was learning how to compete on the course. Under the tension and shock of an Endurance Race, the final drive chain could not be kept engaged to its sprocket. In the one week between arriving home from the West Competition and leaving for Midwest, the original aluminum rear axle was replaced with a steel part to reduce flexing and chain movement (the Central Engineering Shop was instrumental in manufacturing the new part, allowing the team time to design before manufacture, and to install and test afterwards). But it wasn’t enough.  ALTMB Endurance drivers got plenty of practice in field repair of drivetrains.  Between repairs, Carmen drove well. After a refueling pit (under control of Captain Sarah Gallops), Asha also put on a good show, hanging with the pack, but equally bedeviled by breakdowns.  ALTMB finished with 10 laps and 114.71 points in 83^rd place.  ALTMB made 506.09 points overall, to place 81^st. It has been a hard year for ALTMB, with more than the usual rebuilding-year pain, but with plenty of lessons learned, and with some fine Baja engineers forged in the furnace of bearing up under adversity.

 

At Mini Baja East 2006 hosted by, yes, Auburn University.  ALTMB will have no graduation losses, and incoming Captain Christie Mardis will lead a team ready to take advantage of all of 2005’s lessons.

 

Auburn will host Mini Baja East 2006, 13-15 April.  This is the first SAE Competition ever in Alabama, and the new course being built at NCAT will surely make it one of the favorite future sites.  Static Events will include: Cost Report; Design Report; and Design Evaluation. Short Dynamic Events will include: Acceleration (two by two, drag race style); Log Pull (how many logs can your car pull?); Land Maneuverability (around trees deep in the woods); Water Maneuverability (yes, we’re digging a pond); and Suspension & Traction (gonna be tough…).  The Endurance Race will be 100 miles long (by special SAE dispensation).  Any and all, experience, and enthusiasm will be  needed to pull this off.  Event tracks need to be completed and operated.  Between 60 and 80 Baja teams have to be introduced to the Plains, problems solved, and shown where to go.  If you are interested in helping, e-mail pjones@eng.auburn.edu to be placed on the volunteer list.  It’s going to be exciting, and we want you to be a part of it.