The 2014 season was a transitional year for UMBC Racing, with many experienced members graduating and moving on to full time careers. This was balanced, however, with an influx of ambitious young members to replace the veterans, and the team grew larger overall. As a result, the 2014 team was the youngest since 2007. Despite this reduction in experience, the team banded together and worked hard to succeed. Managing to balance schoolwork and the task of running a successful Baja program, another competitive team was brought together.

Every new vehicle sees major improvements from the previous generation. As an example, one major redesign was the upright assembly. The new assembly is 25% lighter, while allowing the new system to gain 12 degrees of steering angle. As a result of the increased steering angle, the vehicle’s turning radius was reduced by 5 feet – a substantial improvement for maneuverability. After extensive tire testing, a new tire package was used this year, increasing the rear tire size to 26 inches for superior performance over rough terrain. Another large step in the 2014 season was in data acquisition. For the first time in UMBC Racing history, live telemetry was utilized during the endurance race. This gave the team beneficial insight into vehicle performance and status.

The schedule in 2014 saw 274 individual teams from around the world across three competitions. The first race was in late April, 2,000 miles away from campus in El Paso, Texas. A month later in May, the team traveled 1,200 miles to compete in Pittsburgh, Kansas. Two weeks later, in early June, the third and final competition was held 800 miles away from campus in Peoria, Illinois.

UMBC Racing travelled 8,000 miles in total, attending all three North American competitions and to compete for the Mike Schmidt Memorial Iron Team Award. The Iron Team Award is given to the team with the most cumulative points who attend all three competitions. The team has competed for the Mike Schmidt since 2010, recording a best finish of 2nd place in our first year.

Even with such a young team, UMBC Racing came away with excellent results at all three races. 2nd, 1st, and 2nd place cost trophies from Texas, Kansas, and Illinois will soon find their way to our impressive trophy collection. UMBC maintained an incredible record of never finishing outside the top 3 in overall vehicle cost. Other notable finishes were in the acceleration event, with the team coming in 3rd place in Texas, and 9th in Kansas. 

One of the best performances of the season came at the Illinois competition where UMBC Racing won the business presentation despite not having any business majors on the team. This is especially impressive considering the team was slated against schools with top ten business programs such as the University of Michigan, which is currently ranked 2nd in the United States.

When all the points came together, UMBC finished a respectable 9th in the Mike Schmidt Iron Team Award. In the end, despite the challenges of a difficult learning year, the young UMBC Racing team can stand proudly by their results from this year. Looking forward, there is much to improve, but the future is bright and the team is eager to win.

Expect to see UMBC Racing at the front yet again in the 2015 season!