University Of Virginia SAE Mini-Baja

On Monday, April 21st Virginia Baja Racing will be holding the official 2008 car lanch event. Come join us in Darden court (the grass courtyard in the middle of Thornton Hall) from 4-6 pm to check out UVa’s most competitve car yet. Team members will be presenting their designs and answering any questions about the new car. Stop by anytime you like, the event is open house style so even if you just want to take a quick look come on by.

Philip Moir, Virginia Baja Racing Vice President

I have uploaded 6 videos from this year and years past on YouTube in the past couple of days.

Here is the link to my “channel” where you can find my Baja videos.

http://www.youtube.com/oggy7033

Here is the video of the rolling chassis of our 2008 Baja car. Click on the link to see the rest of the Virginia Baja Videos.

The front and rear suspension teams worked hard this weekend and the Baja team was able to put the buggy on the ground for the first time on Monday afternoon. Team members took turns sitting in the Mini-Baja and the suspensions were tested by bouncing the baja car up and down. This is a big step for the Virginia team and it feels great to see the months of work come to fruition. Currently the baja is running with prototype rockers and spare control arms. Out of house, custom fabricated rockers and control arms are on the way to the team.

Phil
University of Virginia Baja Team Vice Captain

On the weekend of March 15th, the UVA Baja SAE team made massive improvements to the Joshua T. Owens Memorial Proving Grounds which is our team’s test track. With the help of Bo Jones, the Baja team’s founder and owner of most of our shop equipment, his friends Kubota front end loader, and a Bobcat, the team built many new obstacles to help prepare the 2008 Baja car for competition. The JTO Proving Grounds now features a 6 foot tall table top, a 7 ft. spine, a log field, several on-and-off camber banked turns, plus several other jumps and a flat, coned land maneuverability testing area. Check out the pictures of the Baja track and a video of us jumping the table top can be seen in the media section and on YouTube.

Dave

University of Virginia (UVa) Baja Racing Team Captain

The University of Virginia Baja website is up and running! The website will be a great resource for current and prospective students interested in Baja SAE at UVa. Browse around and you’ll find a history of the Baja cars Virginia students have built, information about Baja team members and Baja faculty advisers, and news about the Baja team. Some areas of the UVa Baja website are still under construction but will be finished soon.

The University of Virginia Baja team successfully completed construction of the front spaceframe of the 2008 Baja car. UVa Baja Team members returned from winter break early to begin construction of the new Baja car. Construction began on the 10th of January with planning and layout of the jig table. With a few miscues and some frustrations the main Baja structure came together quickly and accurately. Completion of the spaceframe this early in the year is a huge improvement in the Virginia Baja build process.

Going into the winter recess the team is in excellent position to begin the build process. The frame team has finalized the front spaceframe and many team members are planning to return early to begin construction. The rest of the design teams are working hard to meet a February 1st design deadline. Once the designs are completed the plan is to build the complete car in two months and then do a month of testing in April.

To test the performance of the UVa Baja cars the team constructed a set of obstacles at the Milton airfield. This Baja test track has been christened the, Joshua T. Owens Memorial Proving Grounds. The team will be able to take lap times, check for suspension bottom-out, and test the durability of the Baja car over these new obstacles. Based on the testing data changes can be made and tuning can be done to prepare the UVa Baja car as best as possible for the SAE Baja competitions.

Returning University of Virginia Baja team members took newly recruited Virginia Baja members out to the Baja work shop for an orientation. The new UVa Baja members were shown the machines and capabilities that we have at the Milton Airfield Baja shop and everyone had some fun driving the 2005, 2006, and 2007 Baja cars.

Welcome back to Virginia Baja Racing! The team learned a lot in 2007 and we have grand plans for the 2008 Baja car. The Baja team has been divided into 6 major design groups: Frame, Flotation & Water Propulsion, Front Suspension, Rear Suspension, Brakes, Powertrain. Each Baja design category has a team in charge of that portion of the car. Design will begin immediately so that the Baja car can be built early and we can perform plenty of testing.