Lumberjack Racing: NAU's Baja SAE off-road car

Another one from college: my senior capstone at Northern Arizona University was Lumberjack Racing, NAU’s entry in Baja SAE — a nationwide collegiate series where teams design, build, test, and race a single-seat off-road car to a shared rulebook. Team was me (financial officer), Karl Schultz (team lead), and Chris Minchuk (technical liaison), sponsored by NAU’s SAE chapter.

The rules of the game

Every Baja SAE car runs the same mandatory 10hp Briggs & Stratton engine, so the competition really comes down to chassis, suspension, and drivetrain design. Our requirements: 40+ mph top speed, a sub-8-foot turning radius, two independent braking systems, five hours of continuous off-road operation without a major breakdown, and a roll cage built to the Baja SAE spec.

How we built it

We split the car into seven subsystems — frame, suspension, brakes, steering, drivetrain, electrical, and safety — and worked through them roughly in that order, since suspension and drivetrain design both depend on the frame being finished first. Everything was modeled in SolidWorks before it got built in the NAU machine shop on lathes, a CNC, tube benders, and a MIG welder, including a four-wheel independent dual A-arm suspension.

How we did

We raced at the June 2009 Baja SAE Wisconsin event and finished 43rd overall out of 100 teams, per the official SAE results. Breaking it down: 84.6/100 on cost, 113/200 on design, and 243/400 on the endurance race — respectable for a first-year rebuild, if not a podium finish.

The build itself also picked up first place at NAU’s Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Design that year — good payoff for a semester spent mostly covered in weld spatter.

More on the original NAU capstone project page.