The baja team arrived Tuesday, May 18 in Bellingham, Washington for the 2010 Mini-Baja competition, after 31 hours of driving. The first day of competition was Wednesday, May 19 which included the Sales Presentation as well as Engine Tech inspection.

Thursday, May 20 was tech day. The team got an early start to the day, arriving just after 7am. On the first pass through tech the team failed with respect the roll hoop bracing. Two braces had to be added to the front end of the car. The rest of tech went smoothly.

The team placed 7^th in design, a feat never accomplished before by a UMSAE Baja car.

Next, the car was off to the brake test. On the first few runs they couldn’t get the brakes to lock up all the wheels, but after a few adjustments, they passed. This completed tech day, and the UMSAE #6 was one of less than 10 cars that passed tech the first day.

Friday, May 21 was dynamic day. The team arrived early to make ready for the dynamic events. They first took on the Hill climb, followed by manoeuvrability; they were the 3^rd car to take a run on the course, and the 3^rd car to push right off the track on an extremely tight off camber turn. Later on the course was changed and the UMSAE team was given another chance. The next event was acceleration. The team made their run, but felt it was fairly slow, seeing as the car was geared to accelerate quickly. This was one of the first instances where they start to suspect they had a lemon of a motor. Afterwards, came the rock crawl. Jamie Beatty went through the course with high speed and went into an obstacle too quickly. The car hit nose first into the ground from about 6 feet in the air and rolled. This required the team to have the frame rechecked, which it passed. After lunch, the team made a second attempt at the rock crawl. Jamie made it through all the obstacles intact. The team made another attempt at manoeuvrability, this time completing the course. After making adjustments to the car Jamie was able make it through the manoeuvrability course without hitting any cones and received zero time penalties. Another run was made at hill climb, this time with greater speed, and an even faster time.

After making further adjustments to the car the team called it a day, and packed up. Endurance day was Saturday May 22. Over 90 cars started; the grouping was 4 cars wide and over 20 rows deep, which made for an interesting start to the 4 hour endurance race. The #6 UMSAE car did well in the beginning. A throttle link bolt had loosened off, but was fixed during the first pit stop. It was at this point that the car began having engine trouble; Jamie had a tough time in the woops (tight rolling bumps) to keeping it running. He had to feather the gas to keep the motor from flooding out. The throttle backed off again, which required another pit stop to fix the problem. Aside from the throttle and engine issues the Endurance Race went smoothly, with the car remaining on the track most of the day. This concluded the 2010 SAE Mini-Baja competition.

The team celebrated Saturday night and departed on Sunday. After many fuel stops, they made it back to the U of M.The team placed 11^th overall. A very good finish, however, the team hopes to improve the placing next year.