Tried off-roading? Now, learn about BAJA SAE, a competitive automobile sport in Chennai

What is it like to sit in a buggy and compete in BAJA? A sport for engineering students, that binds the worlds of scholarship, man and machine

It is that time of the year when engineering students dissolve the four walls of the classroom and enter a space where feet do not dare fall. Only a specially designed off-roading vehicle is able to tread this space. This is the world of the BAJA SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers), a competitive sport which bridges the gap between academia and the automobile industry.  

The sport originated in 1926 and gets its name from its place of origin — Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula . One of the teams representing Chennai this year was from Sri Venkateshwara College of Engineering (SVCE). The 26-member team represented the city at Himachal Pradesh’s Chitkara University and returned with a second runners-up trophy in the innovation category. Their novelty? The team built a two portal axle (Portal gear lifts) buggy or vehicle which increases ground clearance and aids in off-roading abilities.

The BAJA SAE is an intercollegiate automobile design and racing competition for graduate and undergraduate engineering students. Only colleges affiliated to the SAE organisation or with committees under the same can enroll for the event. The game is a marriage of off-roading and automobile off-roading. While off-roading is done with SUVs, the buggy in BAJA is built from scratch.  The idea behind the event is to test the vehicle’s limits of endurance and allow students to put their academic knowledge to a rigorous real-world test.  

Prior to the competition, a team of 26 students put their heads together to build a single seat off-road prototype vehicle — the procurement of materials, design, testing and enhancement of the vehicle’s faculties take eight months.  

The competition is held every year in April at different locations across the country.

The 26-member team from Chennai comprised only one female participant — Anushri Muthukumar — an electrical and electronics engineering student. Anushri explains that the competition is divided into three stages. The first is the technical inspection where the vehicle is checked for errors. The next round is the brake and acceleration test followed by the endurance race where the vehicle has to complete 10 laps in a stipulated time.