Surviving mud pits, open fields, rock crawls and a collision with a tree, the Cornell Baja racing team wrapped up three competitions this summer with an intact car and a first-place finish.

The student project team, which designs, builds and drives an off-road vehicle that can withstand the punishment of rough terrain, came in first for design at the Baja Wisconsin competition in June. It was the first top finish in the team's six-year history.

Also for the first time this year, the team competed in all three Society of Automotive Engineers Baja competitions, held April 16-19 in Alabama, May 7-10 in Oregon and June 11-14 in Wisconsin. The contests pit about 100 student engineering teams against each other in such events as acceleration, suspension, traction and driving through a mud bog (a crowd favorite). The final event is a grueling four-hour endurance race, in which the vehicles face obstacles ranging from jumps to hills to train tracks.

Historically the team has only focused on one contest per year, but this year they wanted to see if their car -- lightweight but durable -- could stand the test of three competitive bouts.

"We put all this hard work into it, and the enjoyment really is the competition," said team co-leader Eric Hunt '09.

Judges at all three locations were impressed with the Cornell team's design presentation; they also had a fourth-place finish in Alabama and a third-place finish in Oregon for that category. The design elements scrutinized included the students' understanding and use of engineering design principles, their ability to answer questions and explain the logic behind their design, the overall fit and finish of the vehicle, and a pre-submitted written report, Hunt explained.

The team also took home high marks in other areas. In the June competition in Wisconsin, they finished second in the sled pull, which requires the vehicle to haul a heavy load, and second in suspension. In the April competition in Alabama, the students had a second-place finish for acceleration, which tests how fast the vehicles can travel 150 feet. Also in Alabama, the students won an "innovative technology" award for their custom-made LCD dashboard, complete with readouts for speed, RPM and text messages.

Some bad luck took Cornell out of the running for an overall top finish at the final meeting in Wisconsin. Going into the endurance race near first place, the students took an unfortunate bump from another car, running them into a tree and costing them 40 minutes in repairs, explained team co-leader Michael Burger '09, who watched from the sideline. Fortunately, they came prepared with extra parts, including a new drive shaft.

"We bring enough parts to fix anything that would break," Burger said.

The student team, whose major sponsors are Toshiba, General Motors, Shell, Borg Warner and General Plastics, currently is looking for a faculty adviser. For information: http://baja.mae.cornell.edu/baja/files/home.php.

The Cornell Baja team kept people updated during competitions via Twitter. Here are some highlights from Baja Wisconsin, June 11-14:

Friday we got through tech with only having to fix a wire tie, then design and design finals.

We realized the steering rack was toast and luckily Kara got us a new one in Cali and it got installed overnight.

got through saturday's dynamic events with no trouble, just a slashed tire that was quickly changed out.

the endurance race was going well at the beginning until FEI followed us fast into a corner and pushed us into a tree.

we rolled and broke a steering rod end from the tree hit and where FEI hit us it broke our driveshaft, costing us 40 minutes.

later some engine trouble from the roll cost us more time.

Overall we came in 1st in Design, 2nd in Sled pull, 2nd in Susp and came in 22nd overall out of 100 teams.

We're a little sad as we could have easily had a top three overall finish wrapped up but that's the nature of wheel to wheel racing.