RIT Mini-Baja Team Scores High in Mini Baja West

In its second competition this spring, Rochester Institute of Technology’s mini-Baja team captured fifth and sixth places in the Mini Baja West last weekend in Portland, Ore., marking RIT’s highest-ever combined placement for its two separately entered cars.

Competing among nearly 90 challengers, RIT also earned top-10 finishes for design, endurance, hill climbing, maneuverability, “rock crawl” and sales report.

“This is the best the team has finished for both cars—we’re very pleased,” says Jeff Broomhead, fifth-year mechanical engineering major and the team’s project manager. The contest followed a seventh-place finish a week earlier in the Mini Baja Brazil in São Paulo.

Next, RIT travels to Ski Bromont in Montreal for the Mini Baja East, May 6-8, hosted by the University of Quebec, followed by the Midwest Mini Baja, June 3-6, in Milwaukee. Each mini-Baja contest features unique challenges, including the “rock crawl” in the West competition, water maneuverability in the East event and tractor pull in the Midwest contest.

RIT’s mini-Baja team is supported by the manufacturing and mechanical engineering technology/packaging science department in the university’s College of Applied Science and Technology. Mini-Baja competitions are sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers and Briggs & Stratton Corp.