The Michigan State University Baja Team visited the Caterpillar proving grounds near Peoria, Illinois at the end of May for their second SAE season race.  Over 90 teams participated in the race event, competing in acceleration, hill climb, rock crawl, maneuverability, design evaluation, and sales presentation.  The MSU team was honored with several awards.

The stand alone award for innovation was sponsored by International and Navistar.  This award is given to a team which successfully races an innovative vehicle system which proves beneficial to the vehicle performance.  MSU was granted this award  for the first ever high performance four wheel drive baja SAE vehicle and in recognition of their innovative, cutting-edge design.

In addition to the Innovation Award, the Baja team took 3rd place in the hill climb, 4th place in the rock crawl, and 10th place in acceleration.   The team placed in the top 20 with both vehicles in every other event in the dynamic and static portions of the competition, and after the endurance event placed 20th and 24th overall.

 The team is currently preparing for the largest race of the season, the SAE World Challenge in Montreal next week.