Some students are lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the Tiger Baja team outside of the Engineering Building, washing the dried mud and debris off of their custom-built dune buggy. Senior Arjit Purohit, junior Prakash Samuel, junior Scott Hunerwadel junior Trent Jenkins, sophomore Charles Collier and sophomore Drew Liberto invited a Helmsman photographer to accompany them on an outing to one of the Tiger Baja events.
Daily Helmsman: What exactly is Tiger Baja?
Arjit Purohit: The Tiger Baja team is sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers. Every year we have to build a new car or modify the old one enough to where we can use it again. That's only for two years, then we have to build a new one from scratch. Next year we're actually going to be building another one from scratch.
DH: Why did you get involved with Tiger Baja?
Trent Jenkins: It interested me because I've been a car guy pretty much my whole life. Now I'm actually going to get the chance to lead the suspension side of our car. We're modifying the front and rear control arms, and a new active rear-steer system. Basically we just want to keep things interesting and try things we've never done before; things that could give us an edge in competition.
DH: What is the team doing out here today?
Scott Hunderwadel: We're here at Comp Cams today. They're actually our oldest and largest sponsor, so it's definitely good to come out here and give back to them a little bit.
AP: It's actually the first time they've seen the cars since they've been our sponsor.
SH: We're also excited to get the new car ready for the competition that's coming up in the end of May. Our main objective is to make it a little bit lighter, and improve performance at the same time. Weight is where you can pick up an advantage as far as speed is concerned.
DH: Can you tell me a little bit about this competition?
Prakash Samuel: At Society of Automotive Engineers Baja, we're given these goals we have to meet to build this car, like role-cage specs, what kind of fire extinguisher you need, what kind of lights are needed, etc. Every team has to run the same exact engine and can't modify it in anyway. There's all kinds of terrain on the 4-hour endurance race; jumps, mud bogs, logs, tight corners, rock climbs and hills. The cars have to be able to survive that for four hours, and do it well. Out of 106 teams last year about fifty finished, and we were one of them. That was the first time Memphis has done that, so we were
