Competition Day 1

We had to leave pretty early in the morning to get to the fair grounds in a town just north of Bellingham, called Lynden. We had a mandatory meeting (well, the team captain and drivers did) at 8am! It was really hard to figure out where we were going once we got to the grounds. We saw some other teams on the road, too, and we all drove down the wrong street! Eventually we figured out where we were going.

About to take out our baby!

There are a handful of Canadian teams here, I thought that was really exciting. There’s a team from British Columbia (UBC), Manitoba (University of Manitoba), Saskatchewan (U of Regina), Queen’s University (from Kingston), and four from Quebec! (Laval, McGill, École Polytechnique, and ÉTS). There were two Canadian teams that didn't show up, though: one from Northern Ontario (RMC), and the University of New Brunswick.

Teams came from all over the United States, and a few teams drove up from Mexico – we even talked to a team who came all the way from India!

The cars here are so cool, and even though there are strict rules on what you need on your car and what metal bars you need, the baja vehicles all look different. Here are a few I’ve seen so far:

Today was registration (to let the organizers know we were here) and engine check – only 35 teams got to get checked, though. So we spent the day fixing up the car. The guys took off the CVT. I don’t know what it stands for, but its what takes the movement in the engine, and makes the wheels spin. Here’s what it looks like:

I got to help Dew Drop with the electrical stuff. We had to tape up the wires and make sure everything was waterproof. It was drizzly and we weren’t sure how muddy the track would be!

She let me hold the tape roll

I also got a chance to sit in the seat. They said I was too small to be the driver, because the restraints were too big! Dew Drop told me not to feel bad, she’s too small for the restraints, too. She can barely reach the pedals.

Maybe next year I'll be big enough to be a driver

There are three Baja SAE competitions every year: East, Midwest, and West. This year, the Midwest competition was held by Tennessee Tech, in Tennessee. That was in April, and they didn’t register because they knew the car wouldn’t be done (they also said that was exams, so they couldn’t travel because they had to write those big tests).

The East competition was the one they were hoping to go to. That one is in June, in Rochester, New York. There are only 100 teams allowed in one competition, and they didn’t register in time to make it.

The West competition is the one we are at right now. There are a total of 87 teams. Some schools entered two cars! One school that did is Oregon state. They did really well last year.

Today we also fixed up a spill guard for the gas tank. We can’t have any gas getting onto the engine, that’s a fire hazard! So this way when they’re filling the tank, it gets onto the guard, and funnelled out through a tube, onto the ground.

More stuff was done today, too: every bolt was tightened on the vehicle! The seat was taken out, too.

I don't know how many are on the car, but it sure was a lot!

The team captain checked the brake fluid, but the containers were both full! He thinks that when we were going up and down the mountains, the pressure change caused the fluid to leak out.

It was a long day, and tomorrow will hopefully be better! We’re going through technical inspection. They check to make sure our vehicle fits the rules. If it doesn’t, we can’t do any of the dynamic events on day 3. Hopefully we pass!