RIT’s Baja SAE Team Captures Second Place in International Competition

While the rest of Rochester Institute of Technology was showcasing itself at the inaugural Imagine RIT: Innovation and Creativity Festival, the university’s Baja SAE team was in Tennessee May 3, capturing second place at an international Baja competition.

More than 90 teams from colleges and universities around the world participated in the event, which was hosted by Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville.

The RIT team finished in third place in the suspension and traction portion of the competition, first place in the acceleration event and first place in the four-hour endurance race, on its way to its second place overall finish. RIT finished less than five points, or one-tenth of a percent, away from first place. It was the best finish in the team’s history.

“This is an amazing group of students,” says Marty Gordon, an RIT mechanical engineering technology professor and the team’s advisor. “They have great technical skills and know how to apply them while functioning as part of an extremely dynamic team.”

Baja SAE is a student-design competition sponsored the Society of Automotive Engineers. Students build all-terrain vehicles that must undergo a technical inspection by a team of professional engineers before they compete in a series of events. RIT hosted a 140-team competition last June.