Anteater Baja Racing (ABR) is a team of 37 undergraduate students that aim to design, manufacture, and test an off-road vehicle to compete annually in the Baja SAE West International Competition in late April to early May. At competition, the team faces a combination of static, dynamic, and presentation events evaluated based on design quality and performance. ABR team members apply real-world principles across mechanical design, manufacturing, and project management to develop a vehicle capable of high performance in extreme terrain. The objective presents challenging trade-offs that mirror decisions engineers routinely face, balancing between durability and reliability with optimization for speed, efficiency, and lightweight performance under budget and manufacturing constraints. Additionally, ABR prepares UCI students for industry by engaging them in the full product development cycle, from problem definition and concept generation to prototyping, validation, and testing, while building practical skills in fabrication, collaboration, system engineering, and iterative design.
Anteater Baja Racing
Summary
Current Work / Recent Updates
This year, ABR’s mission is to place in the top third overall at the 2026 Baja SAE Oregon Competition. In 2024, ABR significantly improved its standing at competition by finishing in the top 50% overall, compared to the top 66% in 2023. In 2025, the team aimed to improve its performance once again with a vehicle that successfully achieved two major goals, a 20% weight reduction and a custom transfer case. However, ABR placed in the same position as the previous year. ABR also lasted only one hour during the endurance race due to component failures in both 2024 and 2025. These results highlighted a critical gap in the validation process, revealing that several competition setbacks and failures could have been prevented through more testing.
Previously, ABR never tested the competition vehicle prior to competition and had no documentation on tuning vehicle components. To address this, ABR transitioned from a one-year to a two-year design cycle this year and formed a new testing sub-team dedicated to evaluating our 2025 vehicle, Corsair. The goal of this testing was to obtain measurable, quantifiable data to determine whether subsystem-level modifications improve vehicle performance and establish design parameters for our 2027 competition vehicle, Spectre. ABR successfully completed four testing days at UCI Lot 16H and five desert testing days in Barstow this year, focusing primarily on CVT and coilover shock tuning. This testing helped increase Corsair’s maximum pulling force by 200 lbf, reducing understeer, and improving overall handling.
At the 2026 Baja SAE Oregon competition, UCI successfully placed 21st out of 76 teams overall, and consistently placed in the top 25 across almost all events.
Team Structure
ABR is led by the Project Managers and Chief Engineer. The team is organized into six sub-teams: 1) Chassis and Human Interface, 2) Suspension, Steering, and Brakes, 3) Powertrain - Transmission, 4) Powertrain - Driveline, 5) Testing, and 6) Operations. For more detailed descriptions of each sub-team, please refer to the ABR website or sub-team descriptions document.