The report below was written by Adam Baumgartner ’10.
It was a fantastic weekend for Blue Jay Racing at Baja SAE California hosted at Quail Canyon Motocross in Lebec, CA from April 25-28. We had clear skies and cool temperatures in the first test for the 20XT. Before I talk about the performance, I want to talk about how good this car looks. This is one of the best looking cars for our program and represents a lot of know-how investment driven by new team members!
Highlights I took away from numerous design improvements were: 1. Stressed Half Shafts (weight reduction) 2. Custom machined CVTech Primary “Bell” (rotational inertia down, acceleration up) and 3. Front drive torque limiter integrated into the transfer case (allows on-the-fly shifting between 4WD and 2WD, and reduced weight).
These improvements (as well as others!) were enough to get Blue Jay Racing into Design Finals, with six teams total.
Dynamic Day was smooth for the team. Maneuverability was solid, (the chassis seems to default to a bit of understeer, but there is ample power-on yaw rate to navigate the course) and Acceleration showed this to be a very quick car within the top 10 accelerating teams. The Hill Climb is where we found our groove, accelerating up what looked like a 75% grade slope for an estimated 150 feet. The low weight and low inertia CVT played a role, and the team would take home a third place trophy in this event.
Finally in Suspension and Traction, Tyler Stanley showed real driving brilliance in navigating a truly mental rock garden that had at the time stopped every competitor and he nearly avoided going out of bounds while clearing the course. Sadly after Tyler’s game breaking run, they called him out of bounds just before the end, and other teams were able to duplicate Tyler’s line and finish the course in later runs.
The Endurance Race saw a huge validation of the 20XT’s potential. Over the 4 hours I watched Tyler match the performance of ETS, Michigan, and Cornell. I don’t mean simply keeping up with them on a downhill; I mean that the 20XT in combination with Tyler’s traffic management saw us pull leads on top teams. It was quite a watershed moment for me seeing our program pass the eye test of absolutely ripping it on the endurance course!
Tyler Stanley competes in the Endurance race
The race was not without its challenges. The endurance featured steep descents into sweeping turns, leading to high loading conditions on the suspension. This load cycling caused a failure 1 hour into the endurance race when the right rear suspension disassembled while driving. After getting towed back I watched the team work on the 20XT, pulling out spare suspension arms and making the repair with excellent group coordination. After the fix, the team was back on course.
With five minutes to go in the race, disaster struck again. In a similar load case scenario, the right rear suspension once again was overwhelmed and disassembled while driving. The race being nearly over, this was not a big deal, but a slightly sour end to a brilliant drive and team repair effort.
The team repaired the damaged right rear suspension post-race (with additional spares in the trailer) and congratulated everyone on a remarkable competition. I talked with the members who were on carnage-crew during endurance, and they had a great time as well. Despite the challenges, I could already see the team’s attention turning to Baja SAE Williamsport where in three weeks time they would once again be putting the 20XT to the test.