What happens when hundreds of college students get together to show off cars that they have built themselves from the ground up? An epic race.
Such was the case at the 2016 Mahindra Baja SAEIndia, which had almost 150 teams of college students competing for the top spot.
Called the ‘endurance race’, it went on for four hours and the car that clocked the maximum number of laps would be declared the winner.
The students had two ways to approach this – either they could build a car that goes really fast and clocks laps quickly at the risk of having a quicker breakdown, or go slow and stay in the race, but have lesser number of laps.
The key was to strike a balance, and the confidence within the teams suggested that they did.
The track was divided into sections. Each section had a different terrain. Some were straight stretches for the cars to go fast while some had big rocks laid out to test the suspension.
There was a splash zone too, filled with water to make the race a little more dramatic.
It all started great but the excitement fizzled away after a couple of hours as a traffic jam-like situation was created on one of the tracks.
Called the toughest part of the track by many, the cars had to make a steep uphill climb, followed by a steep downhill drive. The uphill drive turned out to be the tough one for most.
To make matters worse, the terrain consisted of big rocks and as most of the cars lacked the necessary power to make the climb, they got stuck. The students had to wait for officials to pull their cars to the top with the help of proper All Terrain Vehicles (ATV).
The race was brought to a halt and it took half an hour to get the track cleared. There were, however, quite a few students who managed to make the climb on the first try.
By the end of the race, there were many cars that had fallen apart and taken the brunt of the track, but the students were still full of energy and excitement and were already planning for the 2017 Baja.
(The author was invited by Mahindra to cover the Baja SAEIndia 2016)
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