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An 840-mile drive down the coast of the Baja California peninsula in Mexico might sound like a great way to enjoy some sightseeing, but for 13 Georgia Southern students, that drive was dangerous, grueling and the opportunity of a lifetime.<\/p>\n
It also was a historic event for the students, as they became the first collegiate team to compete in the utility terrain vehicle (UTV)-specific class of the second-largest off-road race in the world: the Baja 1000.<\/p>\n
The students, part of the University\u2019s Eagle Motorsports Baja 1000 team, traveled to Mexico in mid-November to compete in the race, also becoming the first collegiate team to compete in more than three decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a sustainable activity for us to go out and baby step into the field,\u201d said Spencer Harp, team advisor and laboratory supervisor for the Department of Mechanical Engineering in the Allen E. Paulson College of Engineering and Information Technology. \u201cYou get noticed for the splash that you make, so we\u2019re just jumping in and doing something else that no one else has done.\u201d<\/p>\n
In order to compete in the race, the team, one of three racing teams within Eagle Motorsports, met numerous challenges. It began with rebuilding, from the ground up, a brand new UTV, a two-seat machine with a roll cage, to meet SCORE-International requirements. SCORE-International is the governing organization of the off-road race.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cMost teams spend a minimum of two years building a platform to go race, and we started a year ago with the idea, and spent six months trying to secure a corporate sponsorship, then building, designing and figuring out the logistics,\u201d Harp said. \u201cThat\u2019s a third of the time anyone else would normally attempt to do it. We\u2019ve been told by several seasoned professionals that this was an absurd idea and we were really reaching.<\/p>\n \u201cBut what they don\u2019t understand is where they may have a team of two or three people, we\u2019ve got 20-plus, well-educated engineering students making an effort to ensure everything is accounted for,\u201d he continued, noting in addition to their team in Mexico, a \u201chome team\u201d on the East Coast was also in place helping coordinate race efforts.<\/p>\n They also had to prepare mentally and physically for pre-running and race day of the 840-mile course, which essentially is a rough cut path through the woods, Harp said, with hidden obstacles including large rocks hidden by cacti or brush, cliffs that can abruptly end in 1,000-foot drop offs and terrain ranging from mountainous and rocky to old riverbeds full of silt and sand.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen someone says Baja [1000] is tough, I wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s just the terrain, it\u2019s the entire race as a whole,\u201d said Chris Gleiter, lead fabricator for the Baja 1000 team. \u201cIt\u2019s nearly a thousand miles, a ton of logistics that have to work perfectly together in an orchestrated way to make the whole thing happen.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the challenges the team encountered during preparation and their travels to Mexico, Harp said pre-running the race course proved to be the biggest challenge.<\/p>\n \u201cWe ran over 400 miles of that course prior to the race even starting. We pre-ran for pretty much a solid week leading up to the race and that is a challenge in itself. Getting out with race machines and going through the terrain at a slower pace. That was probably the biggest struggle for us.\u201d<\/p>\n Having practiced on more than half the race course really boosted the team\u2019s confidence leading up to race day, but it didn\u2019t compare to the \u201cheat\u201d the team was destined to feel once they crossed the starting line.<\/p>\n \u201cCloser and closer to the race, more of our supporters told us \u2018you\u2019re going to receive so much heat from Baja but it\u2019s not physical heat, it\u2019s a mental game more than anything,\u2019 and it showed,\u201d said Robert Branch, team leader and one of the drivers.<\/p>\n Driving alongside seasoned professionals of the Baja 1000 on unfamiliar terrain \u201cwas like no other thing I\u2019ve ever done,\u201d he said. \u201cBut once you\u2019re in the car, the build up and emotions go away once you\u2019re in your element.\u201d<\/p>\n But despite feeling in his element after the start of the race, at mile 116, he encountered an unexpected ravine and crashed. While he and his co-driver were unharmed, the team\u2019s chase vehicle with parts to fix the damage was too far away. Harp explained teams have to reach race checkpoints within a certain time frame, and by the time the chase car arrived with materials, the team wouldn\u2019t have made the next checkpoint in time.<\/p>\n \u201cHaving pre-run that area of the course and knowing what the course looked like \u2014 knowing that you were three inches from 1,000-foot ledges \u2014 made the decision [not to finish] pretty easy for me. We weren\u2019t going to try to push beyond our means,\u201d Harp said.<\/p>\n \u201cAt that point during the race, we had encountered everything that the competition was for us. All the challenges, struggles, professional development, contingency plans \u2014 all that stuff had been executed and executed well.\u201d<\/p>\n Branch said he sat quiet for a while after the decision was made not to finish the race, weighing two perspectives.<\/p>\n Different thoughts and emotions consumed each team member, but co-captain Kara Dees said not finishing because they ran out of time was, in her opinion, \u201cthe best reason not to have completed the race.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think the team is completely satisfied with what we did,\u201d she said. \u201cWe came and did our best, and honestly that is the only thing I could ask from my team is to come, give it their best and make it safely home and that\u2019s exactly what we did.\u201d<\/p>\n Although the car never crossed the finish line, Harp noted he was surprised how passionate the students were about getting the experience, whether it was learning more about motorsports, engineering or getting professional development and leadership skills.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were a lot of life lessons taught that I don\u2019t think there is another avenue to get all of that in one shot. These students are exceptional students. If I was running a company I would hire every one of them tomorrow to work for me,\u201d he said. \u201cEach person brought a different perspective to the group, and seeing all that really open up and develop that was pretty breathtaking.<\/p>\n \u201cWe went down there as a team and left as a family.\u201d \u2014 Crissie Elrick<\/em><\/p>\n![\"SPRING16ride-of-a-lifetime-2\"](\"http:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/SPRING16ride-of-a-lifetime-2.jpg\")
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\u201cAs a student leader, I had to look at it as what was the best collective call and when the call was made I couldn’t agree more. Time was the thing that took us out. It wasn\u2019t a mechanical issue, or safety,\u201d he said. \u201cBut from a racer\u2019s side, your number one thing is competition, so that part of you is thinking ‘If I\u2019m not number one, I need to be number one.\u2019 And in Baja, honestly you can\u2019t finish first without first finishing, so that part of me is not upset, but more disgruntled and sorry to see that we couldn\u2019t finish.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Engineering and Off-Road Adventure<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"