Brian Johnson may not have a good reason for why he joined the mini-baja team, but he’s still glad he did.

“Some guy on my floor was the previous captain,” Johnson, the current team captain, said. “He just said, ‘Hey, you want to come down and work on a mini-baja car,’ and I said sure.”

Now in his second year, Johnson hopes this year’s miniature buggy will perform even better than last year’s, when the team finished 39th out of approximately 80 cars.

“We hope to do a lot better,” Johnson said. “I think we have a really good feel for the car now.”

Last year’s competition was held in Ohio, while this summer the team will race in Milwaukee, Wis. Several different races will take place over four days.

“Any time you can get a car out the door that actually runs in the race, it’s an accomplishment,” said Greg Luecke, faculty adviser for the mini-baja and mini-formula teams. “These guys have a right to be proud of themselves.”

Luecke said the projects are almost entirely student-run.

“My main function is to try to get them to plan far ahead,” he said. “Occasionally I’ll help in some way, but these students work really hard on their own.”

Johnson said every car is limited to an eight-horsepower engine, so the major challenge lies in designing a car with ideal weight and suspension.

“We’ll probably start designing another new car around Christmas,” Johnson said.

Every two years a new car must be built from scratch, so the team is now in the process of refining last year’s model.

Both the mini-baja team and the mini-formula team work under a student chapter of the Society of Automotive Engineers, a national organization. Much of the funding for the cars originates from the Engineering Student Council and from corporate sponsors.

“It’s kind of died off the past few years,” Johnson said. “But we’re trying to revive some of the interest.”

Most of the students on the team are engineering majors, although anyone is welcome to participate.

“There’s a lot of design work involved,” Johnson said. “We also have to file safety reports and cost reports. There’s a lot that needs to be done.”

Luecke said he is proud the students work so hard without getting compensated by class credit or money.

“I think it’s a really good awakening to the realities of team-oriented projects,” Luecke said.