Close the books on this one because the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) has just awarded its honors for the 2024 Baja Michigan competition! 

The 3rd & final battle of the year was held last week at the Holly Oaks Off Road Park in Holly, Michigan. It capped off an intense rivalry as nearly 100 teams from universities across North America (& beyond) battled head-to-head in what proved to be what you can only call an absolute uparalleled shake-up.

At GMN Bearing USA, we are a proud sponsor of 30+ motorsports teams, lending our precision sprag clutches for use into the 4WD systems of these hand-crafted, fully designed, single-seat, all-terrain vehicles.

And guess what? Our clutches & these teams' cleverness & execution did not disappoint!

CWRU Baja car, 2024

Final Stats

Let's take a look at the stats from the FINAL OVERALL Top Ten GMN-sponsored teams as they rumbled through this year's gritty competition to take home top accolades.

1st - École de Technologie Supérieure (ÉTS)

2nd - Cornell University

4th - University of Michigan

5th - Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT)

6th - Case Western Reserve University (CWRU)

8th - Oregon State University

9th - Johns Hopkins

View the full list of results

Each of these collegiate teams competed across a series of engineering & business categories, which included Business Presentation, Cost Event, Design, Acceleration, Maneuverability, Hill Climb, and Suspension & Endurance.

And we're pleased to say that our sponsees ranked in the Top Three for each! (Coincidence? We like to think not!)

What Teams Are Saying

Here's what the First Place Overall winning team had to say:

"We are extremely proud of our performance this season," said Olivier Chandonnet, Team Captain for Baja ETS in Motreal, Quebec, Canada. "Working with GMN has been a pleasure, the knowledge and technical advice we received when choosing the sprag clutch we would be using was key to selecting the right product for our application."

"Come assembly and testing time, the quality and precision of the bearings ensured a smooth installation process and a reliable performance from the sprags," Chandonnet added. "Through all three competitions this year, our 4WD system has proved to be both performant and reliable, thanks to the contribution of GMN Bearing USA."

We were happy to hear other teams also shared success with GMN clutch durability. 

"The sprags worked flawlessly!" said Ammar Ali Ashgar, Rear Drivetrain Lead for CWRU Motorsports, the Baja SAE team at Case Western Reserve University. "We won 1st place acceleration, 3rd place hill climb, 6th place endurance and 6th place overall with zero 4WD failures."

Earlier in this year's competition, Nils Coffey, Team Lead for Cornell Baja Racing team, who won 2nd place in the Michigan match-up, echoed the strength of GMN clutches as helping to push their team to the top of the pack.

"We wanted to reiterate that your sprags helped make our four-wheel drive system much more robust, which significantly contributed to our recent first and second place finishes," Coffey said.

We're happy to hear that our precision components helped make the difference in what proved to be an exciting season of ingenuity, determination, & meticulous preparation.

Congratulations to all the young men & women who competed in this year's events!

As a sponsor, we're both proud & humbled to help shape the engineers & business leaders of the future.