On October 3rd, fourteen members of the CWRU Baja team traveled to Louisville, KY to compete in the University of Louisville's Midnight Mayhem, a competition hosted at Nickota Motorsports Park. University teams bring anywhere from one to four of their older Baja cars to compete in this event. CWRU Baja brought two cars to this race, from the 2014 and 2015 seasons, which were numbered #11 and #17 respectively. Our cars were joined by 109 cars from 49 university teams.
The competition included acceleration, suspension and maneuverability courses, as well as the Endurance Race which was scheduled to run from 8 pm until midnight. The competition also included mud... lots and lots of mud, which covered the tires of all cars and the boots of all attendees. Both CWRU cars finished the endurance race at midnight. The 2015 car placed 13th, and the 2014 car placed 21st out of 111 cars at the race.
Over the next week, the team spent some time cleaning up the 2015 car for the CWRU Homecoming Parade. On October 10, a few members of the team hitched a small, open U-Haul trailer to the car and piled into the trailer. We drove in the parade to cheers from the crowds and had
a great time. The team members in the trailer were even joined by the CWRU mascot, Sparty, for a joy ride at the end of the parade.
We successfully registered for all three Baja SAE competitions for the 2016 season: Tennessee Tech, California, and Rochester. We have a few more events coming up in the fall semester, where we will be sharing our car with the CWRU campus community. In the meantime we will be focusing heavily on the design and testing for the new 2016 car, as well as fundraising for this season's manufacturing and travel expenses.
We are optimistic for another great season of Baja racing, and we look forward to sharing more good news as the 2016 Baja season progresses!