USD Magazine Spring 2021

C O U R T E S Y O F E L I O T T WA T S O N

[ c h a m p i o n ]

he University of San Diego was definitely on Eliott Watson’s radar as RUNN I NG DOWN A DR E AM T Eliott Watson balances engineering, race car driving by Ryan T. Blystone

senior capstone project just yet, but when it happens, he’ll be a natural. He can give the team an immediate advantage. Watson drove his first racing vehicle at the age of six. He competed regularly at age 10 and, since he turned 14, he’s been a professional driver in the Lucas Oil Off-Road Racing Series (LOORRS) in the Pro Buggy division. He’s the back- to-back Pro Buggy champion for 2019 and 2020 and is also driving off-road desert vehicle races for Team Honda Talon Factory Racing. While COVID-19 played havoc with his racing schedule in 2020, Watson won his last eight races

The Mini Baja Project, as it is known at USD, is a student-built, off-road vehicle for a capstone design project for the Society of Automotive Engineers Collegiate Design Series. Senior engineer- ing students design, engineer, fabricate, test and ultimately compete in their off-road vehicle. Watson, 20, is a third-year electrical engineering major now and isn’t eligible for a

Marcos School of Engineering’s Belanich Center were nice, but one image stood out. “When they saw the Baja vehicle and sent me pictures, I thought, ‘Okay, that’s a big attraction.’ That showed me how hands-on students could be in engineering labs, the machine shop and through the Baja project. It definitely pulled me to USD.”

a potential college choice as he made a visit to campus, but a picture he received on his cell phone gave USD an edge. “My parents were doing their own campus tour, checking out facilities,” Watson recalls. Photos of the machine shop and design labs taken inside the Shiley-

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