Participation of 41 teams, Successfully completes the 16th Baja Sae Korea on August 9th
[July 9, 2011]
The 'Baja Sae Korea' which Yeungnam University has opened up for the first time in 1996 with the purpose of raising creativity and spirit of challenge by engineers to apply the theory on the field was held for the 16th time this year.
The festival of automotive engineering students which became a de facto international tournament by obtaining a certificate of United States SAE (Society of Automotive Engineering) in 2001 was started on July 6th and dropped the curtain of heated contest with the endurance race on the 9th.
This contest where 41 teams participated has performed entrance of car shed on 6th, static inspection on 7th along with opening ceremony, Gyeongsan downtown car parade and dynamic inspection on 8th.
Especially the ‘Rock Crawling’ attempted for 5th time this year had produced various things to see. While an elliptical shaped rock obstacle of 5m in width and 1.5m in height with course length of 10~15m is installed and the team that has passed through this within shortest period of time gets the highest score in order to test the transmission speed of engine power, there was an accident of all participants failing last year. This year, only 1 team has passed so that there is a criticism of 'difficult course' where safe passage itself is the key.
On the 9th which was the last day, the ‘endurance race' which is the highlight of this tournament was held at the back hill of Yeungnam University filtration plant. In the middle of pouring rain started from early in the morning, the tournament continued as scheduled even in bad weather of pouring heavy rain accompanied by thunder and lightening.
As soon as the start flag of tournament chairman was raised at 10:50 AM, the muddy water started splashing from all over as the self made cars lined up to wait their turns started running by gushing out their loud engine sounds. The 35 cars were started in order to spread the race of 180 minutes with Cheoma DM (Car No. 9) that had placed first in the 'acceleration' category of Dynamic Test performed on the previous day at the front.
The endurance race is a category in which the victory is determined depending on who turns most number of 4km off-road track within given time.
The drivers of self made cars are having quite a bit of difficulty in securing their field of vision from the goggles mixed up with muddy water and sweat. Also, the suspension system of car and driving skill are more important than simple speed because the surface of unpaved track is slippery, has a lot of steep turns and is a mountain trail with severe unevenness. Needless to say that the car must have good power of engine in order to finish three hour's race by crossing 5 layered obstacles with steep slope here and there.
If there are small and large accidents such as engine stopping, deviating from the track or slipping from the hill in the middle of race, the referees stop the race for a moment by waving a red flag and the volunteers must run in immediately to push the car off the track for the race to resume.
Although the cars that broke down resume the race after getting repaired from the pit, they naturally get behind in the race because they lost that much time. Therefore, the driver and all team members rush in to fix the car in order to reduce the time remained in the pit. So it is the moment when teamwork and promptness are also very important.
At 1:50 PM of this day, the heated contest for three days has dropped the curtain with the flag to finish the endurance race. The closing ceremony was held at the main stadium of Yeungnam University from 5 PM. As a result of adding up the scores from all categories including static inspection, dynamic inspection and endurance race, the honor of overall victory given to the team with highest score went to the No. 29 MIRACLE-Blue team of Hanbat University. To the winning team, the Minister of Knowledge Economy award, championship flag, trophy and prize of 3 million won were given. In addition, the No. 6 T.E.M11 team of Ulsan University that has placed second received the Governor of Gyeongsangbuk-do award and prize of 2 million won and No.30 MIRACLE-Red team of Hanbat University that has placed third received President of Yeungnam University award and prize of 1 million won. The result of tournament will be announced throughout the world through official homepage of SAE (www.sae.org) and publications.
