Mini Baja (Baja SAE) Anahuac, six years and counting

I cannot believe it. It was six years ago on a Thursday September 27th that we held the first ever meeting of the Mini Baja Anahuac Team.

It seems like a far memory when we first gathered around in a classroom and start discussing the idea of having a team dedicated to building a car to compete in the USA. It was un-thought at that time to have that kind of project in our University, some have tried to but never succeeded.

After that meeting, we began our attempts to design a car and enroll more team members. It wasn't until a couple of months later when we got funding from the University and the Ford Company that things started to look clearer.

In February 2002 we took some persons that were interested in participating in Mini Baja to a competition in the city of Queretaro. That was all we needed to convince them. They got hooked up and the rest is history.

Along these years I have been the Captain and now Faculty Advisor of the Team. Lot of people have gone through the team and I hope that it has changed them. We have built some cars, participated in a few competitions, and have lots of fun.

Right now the team is struggling to survive (yea I know, again!), let's hope that it succeeds and keep alive what has come a tradition in the Engineering Faculty of the Universidad Anahuac Mexico Norte.

I leave you with some numbers that reflect what has happened in these 6 years of Baja:

• 6 years;
• 3 cars built (and one more in construction);
• 10 competitions (2 in USA, 8 in Mexico);
• 12 competition entries;
• 1 test first place;
• 1 disqualification;
• 4.83 average grade of all entries;
• 6 Captains;
• 2 Faculty Advisors;
• 2 broken transmissions;
• 1 guy with blue face ("the smurf");
• 1 guy temporarily blind (less than a day);
• An unknown amount of lost tools;
• About 5 rollovers; and
• ONE TEAM

That was a long post and it could be longer. Remembering the Tlacaelel, Homer, and Coyote.