Rolls were canceled late Friday night with an unfortunate message regarding Sweepstakes leadership health. Sunday morning got underway still lacking Sweepstakes Chair Enosh, who has a bad case of Pokérus brought on by the the recent update to Pokémon (Here is Enosh at the Dallas Regional).
It’s looking warm for the start of Spring Rolls this semester. It was a brisk 40 degree low as everyone climbed out of bed for the first time since the winter hibernation. T-shirts were seen on many pushers while those with more stationary jobs were still forced to bundle up. Temps climbed to 50 degrees with the rising sun.
While it didn’t rain overnight the few orgs in attendance were treated to a sopping wet road surface. Speculation abounds about the cause; high pressure fronts, temperature differentials, sabotage by the shadow government, regardless rolls were delayed until 7:10 to give the streets some time to dry out.
In Attendance
| Org | Sunday |
|---|---|
| Apex | Ember |
| CIA | Icarus, Equinox, Tempest, Orca |
| Fringe | Bissa, Bolt, Beacon |
| SDC | Malice, Havoc, Bane, Vice |
| Spirit | Inviscid, Kingpin, Mapambazuko |
Observations (Sunday Gallery)
Apex – First Rolls…almost. Apex was raring to go and had their driver loaded up before the course was even called clear and unfortunately for them, their eager preparations were not rewarded as a drivers meeting was called forcing them to unload the buggy and scratch the first roll. Apex has had hatch trouble in the past usually losing rear hatches, but today during Ember’s first roll as it rounded the turn into the chute the front hatch popped off flying clear of the buggy. The driver applied the brakes and the buggy came to a stop against the bales, rolls were put on hold as EMS cleared the driver for extraction and the buggy was carried to top of hill. Apex scratches another roll after that but on the last cycle Ember managed an uneventful trip around the course racking up one roll for the day. Phoenix was dropped in the morning and present in the staging area but was never brought to the start line. 
CIA – CIA brought out 4 buggies and rolled the lot of them. The condition of the road surface seemed to be affecting all of their buggies but they didn’t run into issues until they started picking up speed. Once the bags were off, CIA was making great time around the course constantly rolling windows which is performance we’ve come to expect from them. On their third roll, Tempest took the chute corner tight over some freshly paved roadway and fishtailed into a spin, it scrubbed all it’s speed and slowly backed into a hay bale. Stop flags were thrown at the monument, but Orca rolled through the chute at speed. Icarus hit the brakes and came to a stop at the chute turn. Rolls were put on hold and EMS inspected the driver she was extracted and everyone was determined to be fine.
Fringe – The members of Fringe brought the mobile party to rolls this morning. Packing no less than 6 people into their follow SUV (SC plates reading BUGGYCMU) the moral support crew could be heard hooting and hollering around the course. Once they were off their mandatory first bagged roll, Fringe wasted no time getting their drivers up to speed. They never rolled more than two buggies at once which kept the pace high. On roads where some drivers looked shaky and others were getting experience with fishtail recovery, Fringe was rolling smoothly into turns and giving their hill three pushers a run for their money. Some major orgs make a point to use all of the 30 seconds allowed between buggy push-offs but Fringe kept everything high and tight this morning.
SDC – Ready to go as usual SDC rolled out 4 buggies. Appearing more data hungry then a silicon valley startup every buggy rolling today had a matching camera strapped to the top. With no alternate Buggy/Driver Combos, SDC is getting serious about their lines. The buggies were fast, quiet and seemingly unaffected by the wet roads. Although some of the pushers on Hill 3 were sent running when an bagged buggy did not roll quite as many windows as they were expecting. Annie Black, Last year’s A-team driver in Malice claimed the first pass-test of the season and the only for this weekend.
Spirit – Rolling 3 buggies and a comedic number of bags on some, Spirit rolled clean throughout the day maintaining control on the less than ideal road surfaces. Some of their buggies were a bit noisier than we expected suggesting some new or experimental hardware. 
Robobuggy – Not every safety consideration may be necessary when the contents of your buggy are silicon rather than flesh and blood. Transistor was not invited to this morning’s drivers meeting and in fact began rolling right at the scheduled start time of 7:00am just as Sweepstakes was discussing delaying rolls. Glad to see the Robuggy team keeping up the enthusiasm. Even if they are only rolling once a day it’s a long trek from their warm beds to the start line, and there might be some new competition for them in the form of a retrofitted Quasar that has been spotted around campus.