Twenty-six students from Oregon Tech’s Baja Racing team traveled to Lebec, Calif., April 25-28 to compete in Baja Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) California, where students test their self-built off-road vehicle for performance and endurance.

Baja SAE is a Collegiate Design Series competition run by SAE International. Oregon Tech finished No. 17 out of 61 teams from Canada, Mexico, India, and the United States in the three-day competition, which included static and dynamic events. The static events consisted of engineering design, safety and cost presentations. The dynamic events included an acceleration braking event, a maneuverability event, a hill climb, and a four-hour endurance race that pitted all the vehicles against each other on an extreme rough off-road course.