Time flies, it is already November.  This past week was incredible between Homecoming, work on sponsorship, and a 62 mile impromptu off-road excursion Saturday night.  Anybody interested in a Southwest Baja?

This past Friday Braaden, Mike, Josh and I went to the annual Engineering Alumni Breakfast and along with us came the 2007 vehicle.  Thanks to the guys at Honeywell we had a great time talking and getting to meet everyone.  At the breakfast were alumni from all different fields of engineering with a majority being represented by Raytheon, IBM, Texas Instruments, and Honeywell.  I wish I could have stayed around longer to talk but as luck would have had it I had a test at 10am.  If we had a chance to talk with you or if you wanted to talk to us at the breakfast please feel free to contact one of our team members.

Homecoming was an entertaining experience this year and by experience I mean experience.  First off, our deepest apologies are extended to the Bobcats if we broke any rules during the homecoming parade, we thank you for all your hard work.  The rocks along the UA Mall were tempting to use as a crowd-pleaser and our Baja fit on them perfectly.  It won’t happen again.  A big thanks to the College of Engineering for letting us display our 2007 and 2008 vehicles at the Engineering tent on the Mall; we had a blast.  I think the highlight of the parade was driving the Baja on a few of Tucson’s major streets past police officers without getting in trouble.   When the event was over we towed the 2006 Formula SAE vehicle back to our shop which was an experience in and of its own.  Needless to say it got a lot of people laughing and pointing.

Saturday night around 6pm I was sitting in my room editing video from Homecoming and got the sudden urge for dirt.  Within half an hour seven of our team members jumped on the bandwagon and by 8 we were heading out to Redington.  Enter chaos.  We started a 62 mile journey which started on a small and highly technical loop and ended on Redington Road which is phenomenal for rally racing.  We saw some interesting animals, some trees that were from Dr. Suess’s worst nightmare, and nobody broke anything.  The worst that happened was me trying to squeeze through a ravine and landing my sprint bars on two rocks, thus high-centering my Baja.  The car was still rocking and the next time the rear wheels touched down I gunned it and blasted (slid) over the remaining rocks.

Next weekend is the Baja 1000.  Our plans to go never worked out due to tests, lodging, and travel constraints.  Hopefully we will make it out there next year.

Southwest Baja.  What is it and how can you compete in it?  Jump over to the Southwest Baja page of our site or head to the Southwest Baja Forum for more details!

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