The CWRU Motorsports team had a strong showing at the Baja SAE Maryland competition, which was held April 19-22, 2018 in Mechanicsville, MD. Model F drew widespread attention from other teams and earned praise from the judges. The weekend weather was perfect for racing, and with Team Captain Tyler Eston behind the wheel Model F performed exceptionally well. During Saturday's dynamic events, Model F placed 4th in Acceleration, 9th in Hill Climb, and had a best-ever 3rd place finish in Maneuverability.
CWRU began Sunday's endurance race gridded 4th on the starting line and got off to a great start in the race. Model F remained towards the front of the pack until another car collided into the side of it during the first hour, causing damage to the steering which forced the team to take the car off the track for repairs. Luckily, the team came prepared with spare parts and thanks to excellent teamwork Model F was back out in a matter of minutes. Shortly after returning to the race, Model F's half shafts failed while attacking the rock crawl section of the track. This took CWRU out of the race yet again. The car was eventually repaired after an agonizing 40 minutes, at which point the team had fallen back to 40th place with about 1.5 hours remaining. Tyler was now more determined than ever and pushed the car to its limits for the remainder of the race. He was able to post some of the quickest lap times of the day and climbed all the way back up to 16th place by the end of the race. CWRU placed 12th overall at the competition and was only 10 points from earning the top ten ranking that the team was aiming for. Although there was disappointment that the team did not reach its goal of making the top ten once again, this was still an impressive showing and the CWRU team is proud of themselves and and vehicle they built.
