The last regular weekend before truck weekend was a pretty good one, nice and long with 2:20 of daylight and temperatures starting in the low 30’s but the sun warmed things up quickly.
Saturday
In Attendance (11 Orgs, 26 Buggies)
- Beta: Problem Child
- Spirit:Fuko, Haraka, Seraph
- Fringe: Banyan, Brazen, Bedlam
- PiKA: Chimera, Knightfall, Zeus, RD09
- SDC: Psychosis, Envy, Malice
- KDR: Perun, Powder, Polaris
- AEPi: Kamikaze, Camo
- SigNu: Skua
- SAE: Rubicon
- CIA: Firebird, Mirage, Conquest
- SigEp: Pandora, Barracuda
- PhiKap: Svengali, Schadenfreude
Observations
- Lots of pass tests – I think everyone, including beta and SAE, did pass tests. Also lots of hill 1s. It must be getting close to raceday.
- SAE went with CIA for a pass test – SAE passed CIA before the transition flagger, then got confused and starting turning right after the monument – cutting right in front of the CIA driver. The SAE driver then realized what was going on, straightens out, and then takes the chute on the inside….the CIA driver, in the meantime takes a normal line, and narrowly avoids a collision in the chute
- Beta’s Problem Child came to a halt in the middle of the chute with a very loud grinding noise. Word from observers was that the two front wheels were no longer pointing in the same direction.
- KDR’s Powder hit the seam right after the chute and had to be taken off the road by hand before the plug.
- Kamikaze stopped just past the chute flag, but it was a controlled stop.
SigNu painted Bungarus Krait, and started to paint Skua. Skua’s front hatch was covered in newspaper
SigEp’s new Barracuda had a new windshield cut. It’s not clear if it’s an entirely new hatch, but the windshield hole is much larger in the front, and cuts quickly towards the back.- CIA’s Mirage Firebird: pushers were trying to tighten the handlebar while pushing Hill 2, it dropped nuts, washer, screw and eventually the entire handle on hill 5.
- CIA pass test (first of CIA’s roll): Firebird passed Mirage in the Chute past the gazebo, got very close to each other (no bump, was counted b/c pass was before end of haybales)
- Spirit and Beta rolled together on almost each roll, then Beta would loop around for their turn.
- SigEp’s last roll: Barracuda slowed to halt at start of Flats. Was rolled on sidewalk anti-buggywards back to staging area. (Right side was slow, either bad bearing or something tightened too much.)
Sunday
In Attendance (11 Orgs, 28 Buggies)
- Beta: Problem Child
- Spirit: Fuko, Haraka, Seraph
- Fringe: Bristol, Banyan, Bedlam, Blizzard
- PiKA: Chimera, Knightfall, Zeus
- SDC: Psychosis, Envy, Malice, Rage
- KDR: Perun, Polaris
- AEPi: Kamikaze, Camo
- SigNu: Skua, Bungarus Krait, King of Spades
- CIA: Firebird, Mirage, Conquest
- SigEp: Pandora, Barracuda
- Pioneers: Chaos
- PhiKap: Svengali, Schadenfreude
Observations (check out the full gallery from Sunday here)
New buggy names are trickling out … SDC’s new one is Malice (overheard from pushers), Fringe’s is Bedlam
SDC is pushing their envelope to the breaking point. They have pushers, and their buggies are damn fast, but they sent two into the bales today. On SDC’s second roll, Malice and Psychosis came cruising down at raceday speeds. Malice made it through the chute and rolled out what looked like at least 8 windows. Psychosis’ line was wide and the driver couldn’t reign it in. She hit the outside bales past the apex with the full side of the buggy and a lot of force. The left wheel got jammed between bales and as the buggy continued on, the left axle was sheared off at the shell. Psychosis came to a rest in the middle of the road, the following buggies stopped safely, and the driver was fine. As if that wasn’t enough excitement for the day, Rage also went into the bales at full speed on the last roll of the day.- CIA’s poor hill 3 pushers had to deal with Firebird’s pushbar not coming up at least twice. One guy got Firebird all the way to the 3/4 transition by leaning down and pushing the tail of the buggy.
PiKA didn’t roll their new buggy on Sunday. Given its similarity to Chimera, I had assumed they were hoping to race it on a top team, but you’d think they would want to get it out for more than 2 days of rolls before truck weekend. Chimera lost its rear hatch on hill 2 after what looked to be a rear axle failure. After crossing the huge bump at the top of hill 2, the rear hatch was dislodged and couldn’t be put back in place. The rear wheel was no longer visible under the buggy. They carried it back to the tent.
Beta is getting all the help sweepstakes can offer to qualify for the races. Problem Child rolled on what seemed like every other roll of the day, sharing turns with Spirit and I think others. SigNu and SigEp also got in the act, rolling together more than once. It’s definitely a noble goal to get as many teams participating and qualified as possible, but I wonder if eventually the teams getting to role only on their turns might wonder how it’s fair. Beta skipped a lot of cold dark mornings all year, and now they’re getting more than their share of the most important freeroll time of the year.
New wheels are trendy. We saw SDC bring out their whites at the beginning of the semeter. Today we saw SigNu rolling to two new wheels, one was a dark red polyurethane in the general tradition of xootrs with custom PolyU, while the other was a thick flat profile that could have been rubber. Spirit also got in the act, rolling Fuko on xootrs with a beige polyurethane on alternate rolls. The other rolls were on their standard pneumatics. Even AEPi’s Kamikaze had their usual clear xootrs on the front but a black on in the rear. Fringe’s fairings make it tough to get a good look at their wheels, but rumors suggest they aren’t sitting idle in the wheel game either.
Weekend Times
Organizations ranked by their fastest freeroll (end of hill2 to beginning of hill 3) this weekend
- PiKA – Chimera
- SDC – Malice (+1 sec)
- SigNu – Bungarus Krait (+3)
- Fringe – Bedlam (+3.5)
- CIA – Firebird (+5)
- Spirit – Fuko (+5.25)
- KDR – Perun
- PhiKap –
- Pioneers – Chaos
- SigEp – Barracuda
- Beta – Problem Child
- AEPi – Kamikaze
- SAE – Rubicon
anon says:
“a thick flat profile that could have been rubber.”
Could SigNu be having a Goodyear?
Anonymous says:
Beta getting more than their share is really unfair, especially because the same treatment is not allowed for other orgs. We tried to roll with another group because one of the drivers needed a few more rolls in before qualifying, but Sweepstakes said no, saying that you couldn’t roll with other orgs if it wasn’t a pass test attempt. This is because the driver had already gotten in the past test earlier that day. How fair is that?
Anonymous says:
fuck that noise. dont take this shit so seriously
Anonymous says:
in fact, a lot of us take buggy seriously. if you find that this shouldn’t be taken seriously, maybe you shouldn’t be rolling and racing on raceday.
Anonymous says:
At least the new Barracuda hatch complies with the crash protection rules. No more smacking the driver in the face with a 12″ infinitely stiff rod. At least not while in the buggy.
hvincent says:
At least voice your complaints where it’ll do some good, like to Sweepstakes, not anonymously on a public forum that’s mostly only read by snarky alumni :p
the cook says:
I challenge the timer to publish the times – the numbers don’t work – not close
also not close two weeks ago
Carl says:
I challenge everyone to publish their times since, uh, I have none.
Shafeeq says:
I can’t recall having ever seen a total steering failure in the last decade. And now two in the same month. Fluke? Bad roads breaking more things? Or just more reverse trikes so more things to go wrong.
Back in Mirage’s first year we had a similar pass & re-pass attempt with a Pioneers buggy, until the driver realized the safety chair was watching & backed off in a cloud of brake dust.
Alex says:
Can’t see how publishing their times is going to fix anything. It’s just simple math to find the differentials.. Seeing the numbers from which they did the math does not make their timing any more “right” or “wrong.”
Not that I wouldn’t want to see them, of course, but you can’t expect seeing the data will somehow prove its accuracy.
swiftsam says:
I’m assuming that the times “not working” means that they don’t agree with some other set of times. If that’s the case, it seems like a challenge of timing accuracy would require we see that second set (even if it’s just ranks and spreads like these). Once we’ve got both, then we could all see what the discrepancy is.
Carl says:
Kids and their ‘data’ and ‘graphs’. These sorts of disputes can only be settled through the ancient and pure ritual of beer pong.
andy b says:
Screw the times. I predict much carnage at races this year and that’s the true test of mettle for these teams. Sheared axles! Flipped buggies! Cats & Dogs living together! Complete anarchy!
I can’t wait. I’ll have to bust out a litany of exasperated comments: “Oh, the humanity!”
“A day that will live in infamy”
“Scratch my back with a hacksaw!”
swiftsam says:
discussion about extra rolls continues here:
http://cmubuggy.org/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=64
Erin says:
Minor correction: CIA’s Firebird lost the handle, not Mirage. It wasn’t a very good weekend for Firebird.
compubooger says:
I have pka with one quick roll, sdc and signu tied about 0.5 second back and fringe trailing by a slightly larger gap.
the cook says:
that’s more like it
the 3 and 5 second gaps don’t exist
Alex says:
Seriously? You doubt that there are buggies that are not 3 seconds slower from the shove at the top of the hill to the hill 3 pickup, relative to the fastest buggy (whichever that may be this year)? I could even see 5…
Kurtains says:
Not for the top buggies of the the fastest rolling teams, which the 3-5 second gaps claimed.
Carl says:
Why are we even talking about this? If 5 second gaps don’t exist that means those ‘pusher’ people are somehow important and, well, they’re not even on the LOGO!
Black Rims says:
Nice and sweet and to the point. Added your site to my RSS reader. Was searching for “black rims” when I found “CMU Buggy Alumni Association”. More insight from the ultimate insight gang.