Whoa! Rolls start in 2 days, time to get the BAA back in action!

Sweepstakes and the teams are on the ball and the 93rd season of buggy is scheduled to kick off this Saturday at 7:01am.  Are you ready?  Are you excited?  Is this the last thing on the list telling you that you have to admit that summer is over?

Well get ready, and get excited, because it’s time to stuff the smallest ladies in Pittsburgh into carbon tubes, send them flying down the hill and then push them back up to the top.  If it doesn’t put a smile on your face to think about our most peculiar sport ramping back up for a new season … your smile must be broken because you’re on this website, who are you kidding!

So, what does it mean to start a new season?

  • Our highly-esteemed rolls reports will resume next week, with weekly coverage of the weekend’s action usually hitting the interwebs on Monday morning to give you  something to look forward to as you start your week.
  • Our fall activities are coming up.  We’ll be running a welcome table at Cèilidh to meet and greet, Tom Wood will be giving his history of buggy talk, and we’ll be running the 2nd annual game of Fantasy Buggy scheduled around mini-raceday at the end of the fall season of rolls.
  • Now is the time to start working on projects to make buggy bigger, more popular, and more fun for alumni and current students.  Ideas tend to come up in March when the buggy buzz is really getting strong, but it’s tough to pull off the big projects in a month.  If you’ve got a big idea, throw it out in the Project Zone and rally some troops to get it done.  We don’t raise money for our retirement accounts, we raise it to fund fun projects.  Let’s do it!
  • It’s time to re-up on your BAA membership.  BAA membership is an annual affair so any contribution now until the end of May makes you a 2013 supporter.  A contribution of any amount >$1 gets you on the roster for the year and gives you the happy feeling of knowing that you enable the BAA to support buggy and make it cooler than it was the year before.  Check out our membership page to see the past year’s rosters and for details on the money stuff.
How are we going to pull off this exciting new year of BAA activity?
  • Well, that’s an interesting question.  The BAA is at a bit of a turning point.  The BAA will celebrate its 5th birthday at carnival 2013 and many of the folks who founded and have led this awesome organization have new, probably less awesome things vying for their time (babies, jobs, living in different cities, whatever).  As a result, we’ve got opportunities aplenty for alumni with energy and ideas on how to continue to contribute to the sport of buggy even though you’re no longer paying your student activities fee.
  • Janice Schneekloth is stepping down as chairwoman after 2 great years at the helm, and that is the primary role we need to fill.  The BAA is a group effort.  We work on things the community thinks are worthwhile and interesting and we try to do it by including everyone who can contribute.  Still, we need one person to make the tough calls (there aren’t many) and keep the organization hanging together and moving forward.  We also need more people to be part of the committee and adopt specific parts of the BAA operation and make them their thing.  This post from May outlines the jobs that need doing.
  • I am also one of the people who has been forced to move on a bit because I physically moved to Chapel Hill, NC this summer.  Blackjack is already hung on our new wall, so I won’t forget about buggy, and being part of the beginning of the Buggy Alumni Association has been one of my favorite CMU experiences.  This is my 147th post on cmubuggy.org, and I’m sure it won’t be my last, but I don’t think I’d do a very good job with the rolls reports from 500 miles away.
  • So Ben Matzke (CIA chairman, 2011) is going to be taking over to start things off on the news front, but he could use your help.  I’ll let him do the coordination, but rolls reports is an ideal job for a 2 or 3 person rotating team.  You’d be surprised how nice it is to get out of the house early, go see some buggy, and then start your Saturday.  That, and telling the ladies you write for cmubuggy.org works like a charm every time, trust me.
  • So, for the next 8 days we will be accepting nominations for Chairman of the BAA and volunteers for the other myriad of  roles that need filling.  Next Friday, we will either announce the new 2013 BAA committee, or (if we have more than 1 candidate for Chairman) a ballot .  Please comment on this post or email admin@cmubuggy.org to get involved.  Get involved, you’ll love it, I definitely have.

Men’s Finals washed out, SDC Sweeps 2012

The rain held off for long enough to squeeze the women’s finals run starting earlier than scheduled at 8am.  A quick downpour doused the crowd waiting for the men’s heats to begin, and sweepstakes called it.  SDC takes both the Men’s and Women’s crowns for 2012.

More wrap-up later!  Enjoy the rest of carnival!

Final results:

Prelims awesome; finals waiting on weather

Prelims were pretty awesome.  We’re hoping Finals will happen and be awesome despite the threat of rain.  Here’s the deal with what happened and what is scheduled to happen.

Prelims Results

Women’s Finals

Heat Lane 1 Lane 3
1 SigEp A SDC C
2 SDC B Spirit A
3 SDC A CIA A

Men’s Finals

Heat Lane 1 Lane 3
1 PiKA A SDC C
2 SigEp A Fringe B
3 SDC B Spirit B
3 Fringe A SigEp B
3 SDC A CIA A

12 hours left in Lead Truck Auction. Bid now!

Our 4th annual lead truck auction will draw to a close tonight at 9pm, so get your bids in early and often to secure your ride.  We do have a “reserve bid” system if you want to set a maximum and let the computers do the work.

We’ve raised a total of $471.38 so far (all future bids in whole dollars please, wise guys), and here are the current prices.

Women’s Prelims

Heat
1 $1  by yanetut (CIA, '98): SDC C CIA C FringeC 
2 $1  by joe (Beta): Spirit A SDC D Apex A 
3 $0  by nobody: SigEp A Fringe B CIA B 
4 $20 by twood (PiKA): Pika A DF A SigEp B 
5 $0  by nobody: SDC BCIA D Spirit B 
6 $1  by joe (Beta): Fringe A SigEp C SAE A 
7 $5  by CRStengel (SDC): SDC A CIA A Aepi A

Men’s Prelims

Heat
1 $10  by ziolko (Fringe, '00): Fringe B SigEp C Spirit C
2 $25  by twood (PiKA): Pika B SDC D CIA D
3 $26  by joe (Beta): Spirit A Apex AF ringe D
4 $11  by mark_estes (SN): SDC C SigNu A CIA B
5 $1   by ATHundt (Fringe, '09): SigEp A Aepi B Fringe C
6 $2   by lchomas (CIA): SDC B SAE A CIA C
7 $100 by twodd (PiKA): Pika A SigEp D Spirit B
8 $25  by pdesiderio1780 (CIA): Fringe A CIA A DF A
9 $5   by Perrypierce (?): SDC A Aepi A SigEp B

Women’s Finals

Order of selection
1st $10 acharters87
2nd  $2 hopke
3rd  $2 hopke

Men’s Finals

Order of selection
1st $100 twood (PiKA)
2nd $31 mark_estes (SN)
3rd $30.00 abigailsullivan (Spirit)
4th $27.69 ATHundt (Fringe)
5th $26.69 ipmcc (SN)

cmubuggy.org/auction 

Truck weekend mini-report and Raceday hype

If you’re a member you should have found our legendary Members-only Raceday Preview in your inbox by now.  Enjoy it.  If you didn’t get a copy, you should know that it’s not too late.  Join up, forward us the gift receipt to join@cmubuggy, and we’ll hook you up pronto.  If you thought you were a member, maybe we don’t have your email or have it wrong or something, let us know.  Lots of people plan on joining while they’re on campus, but we’ve  got some serious ground to cover to match last year’s membership total, so don’t be shy.

 Lead Truck Auction

Can you believe this is our 4th time putting on the lead truck auction?  It seems like just the other day that we announced the first iteration of our biggest fundraiser of the year.  It continues to be a fan favorite, so we’re back at it again.  If you haven’t ridden in the lead truck before, you should definitely get in the mix and snap up a heat you like the looks of.  If you’re a veteran, you know that it’s a great way to mix up your raceday experience.   Bidding starts tomorrow morning at 9am and will run for 36 hours until 9pm Wednesday.  Full description of the rules can be found on the auction page.  We’ve got a new version of our home-grown auction software this year.  We hope you like it! (and that it doesn’t break!).

Truck weekend Continue reading

2011 Raceday videos now online!


It’s the time of year when exciting buggy things start happening pretty much every day.  I hope you’re not trying to get any work done, because today is one of those days.

Since we unveiled cmubuggy.org 2.0 just over a year ago, the video section has been one of the less talked about, but most used new parts of the site, tallying 47,300+ videos watched.  The deal we have with cmuTV is that we wait a year before we add their excellent coverage to our ever-lasting online archive.  Hopefully many of you have already bought a DVD from CMUtv to add to your personal collection, but now we’ve also got them all organized, online, and for the most part integrated with our history database. Without further ado, I give you:

cmubuggy.org/video#’11

If you prefer the native youtube experience, you can find the full Raceday 2011 playlist here.

Sneak Preview of upcoming excitement …

  • Sat & Sunday : Truck weekend
  • Monday : Members-Only Raceday Preview is emailed to supporting members
  • Monday 10pm : Heat selection meeting
  • Tue 9am : Lead Truck Auction begins
  • Wed 9pm : Lead Truck Auction ends
  • Thur : Design Comp, Carnival starts, …. woooooo!

Rolls report: April 7 & 8 (last weekend of regular rolls)

Teams took advantage of two full days of brisk but dry weather to close out the “regular season” of freerolls.  Most teams got all of their drivers qualified and are ready for truck weekend which is coming up fast.  Thanks this week to Ben Matzke and Shafeeq for the notes on rolls as I was out of town again.  If you’ve got pictures or additional observations (especially from Saturday), don’t be shy, share!

In attendance

Org Saturday Sunday Qualification Status
AEPi Kamikaze KamikazeZephyrus (6 rolls + PT)
Apex Insite Insite Insite (1 roll + PT)
CIA Orca, Ascension, Freyja, Firebird, Quasar Orca, Ascension, Freyja, Firebird, Quasar Orca, Ascension, Freyja, Firebird (2 drivers), Quasar
DeltaForce Perun Perun
Fringe Bissa, Bonsai, Borealis, Bedlam Bissa, Bonsai, Borealis, Bedlam Bissa, Bonsai, Borealis, Bedlam
PiKA Raptor, Chimera, Zeus Raptor, Chimera, Zeus
SAE Rubicon Rubicon (3 rolls + PT)
SDC Bane, Avarice, Malice, Rage Bane, Avarice, Malice, Rage Bane, Avarice, Malice, Rage
SigEp Mamba, Peregrine, Pandora Mamba, Peregrine, Barracuda Barracuda, MambaPeregrine (1 roll), Pandora (2 rolls)
SigNu Krait Krait Krait
Spirit Zuke, Seraph, Haraka Zuke Zuke, Seraph, Haraka 

Observations (Saturday Gallery | Sunday Gallery) Continue reading

Rolls Report: April Fool’s edition

It may have been April 1st, but there’re no pranks here, rolls happened on Sunday, they were fun, and we’ve got the details for you.  Saturday was rained out, but in one day we got more headline material than the last couple of weeks put together.  One new buggy, one radical renovation, one new team on the course, one new animal-theme paint job, and a spin for good measure.  Lots of alumni in the chute and following along with our live streaming broadcast was just icing on the cake.

In Attendance

Org Sunday
AEPi Kamikaze, Zephyrus
Apex Insite
CIA Orca, Ascension, Firebird, Quasar
DeltaForce Perun
Fringe NBXII, Bonsai, Borealis, Bedlam
PiKA Raptor, Chimera, Zeus
SDC Bane, Avarice, Malice, Rage
SAE Rubicon
SigEp Mamba, Peregrine, Barracuda, Pandora
Spirit Zuke, Seraph
No-Shows SigNu

Observations (Sunday Gallery) Continue reading

Rolls Report: March 25

After almost two full weeks of ridiculously beautiful weather while the kids took two weekends off for spring break, Pittsburgh slapped the reality back into us with a cool down and enough rain to cancel Saturday’s rolls.  Sunday was  still overcast but dry, and 8 of our teams made it out the morning after greek sing for four cycles through the order.  I was out of town on Sunday, so big thanks to Zatch and Vincent who supplied the bulk of the narrative and all of the multimedia.  Read on for the details of a Fringe buggy out of retirement, some new PiKA wheels, and a couple of chute mishaps, but no new buggies!

In Attendance

Org Sunday
AEPi Kamikaze
Apex Insite
CIA Ascension, Freyja, Firebird, Quasar
Fringe Bonsai, Banyan
PiKA Raptor, Chimera
SDC Bane, Avarice, Malice, Rage
SigEp Mamba, Barracuda
Spirit Zuke, Seraph
No-Shows Delta Force, SigNu

Observations (Sunday Gallery) Continue reading

Ask your employer: Don’t you want to sponsor Buggy?

This idea has been in the works for a while, but now it’s happening, and just in time.  When we helped introduce Jumbotrons to the course in 2009, it was a fun experiment.  Now it’s practically a necessity.  Can you imagine not being able to see what was going on in the chute while you’re at hill 2?  Actually, most of you probably can because you were around before 2009, but I think we can agree it’s a pretty awesome addition.

The only problem is that Jumbotrons and other pro-spectator efforts like our printed Raceday Guide don’t come cheap.  A pair of jumbotrons for the weekend is in the neighborhood of $10k.  Printing 2,000-3,000 color copies is more than most people can pull off on the sly at work.  We’ve kicked in $1,000 each year from our Lead Truck Auction, and Alumni Relations has contributed, but much of the rest has basically just put Sweeptakes into the red each year.  That’s not sustainable.

Luckily, raceday is an exciting event with lots of eyes from high quality demographics, and we think that there are lots of companies out there who would love to help support buggy and be part of such an important event at CMU.  We will be introducing a number of sponsorship opportunities this year for the first time, and we hope your company wants a piece of the action.  Most notably, both jumbotrons will have sponsorship banners flanking the screen, and our printed raceday guide will carry sponsored logos.

Some of the spaces are already sold, but we’re looking for more support.  Download this PDF and show it to someone in your company who makes these decisions.  It briefly explains what buggy is and has rates for the different placement options.

Buggy Sponsorship Information 2012

You might notice that raceday is not that far away and that we need commitments even sooner (2 weeks from today!).  We realize corporate decisions don’t always happen this fast.  We hoped to have this together quite a while ago, but it’s our first time in this arena.  If your company loves the idea but can’t make it happen, we understand.  If you can make it happen … awesome, let’s do it!