Idea to Expand Participation

[shafeeq]

[Elmo Zoneball]

[cmhayes]

DTD was planning to roll at the beginning of this year, but the student spearheading the issue was "too busy with other projects" and the other two guys helping him really had no drive or desire to start a team. They were talking to Fringe about renting Insite. Out of a house of 60+ they had 3 people who wanted to get involved and the one who would have made it happen (Like Alex Russell for Phi Delt (shout out to his hard work)) bailed.
We as the BAA have money stashed away, and the alumni who built buggies don't want their babies being loaned out. Lets get a buggy built that we can drop on the frats doorstep, show them how to use it and say come out and try rolls this weekend and see what you guys think. If they hate it and never come back, well we tried. If it works we may have a new team! And we can help them build their first buggy with tips tricks and notes like the Alums helped Apex (that you guys again for that) if they hit that point. I'm in New York but I'll happily build the shell in my garage (much to the chagrin of my landlords) if the BAA funded me to do it.

[Pope on a Rope]

Competition issues aside, Making buggy easier to do, without changing the nature of buggy is a goodly goal.

To that end, there are a bunch of ideas.

Fewer but longer practices. Yes, go past 9 am. This will take cmu using some political clout. Get rid of the ones in late fall and early spring (which are typically the coldest ones and the ones mostly likely to have weather issues). This also gives the drivers a chance to practice in lighting conditions more like what they will see on raceday.

Get rid of the notion of the follow car. A designated recovery vehicle (with a driver who knows what is up) can be dispatched from the top of the hill with a mechanic and tools and get to the chute within under a minute of when the current follow car could arrive. No only does this speed up rolls, it gets rid of one of the biggest risks related to free rolls: follow cars. Cars and buggies clearly do not mix. They are not needed to teach new drovers as each org has access to hours of roll footage from their garmins or go-pros to show new drivers (or could borrow some). Less obvious but equally important is that follow car drivers have been known to do stupid things (like having passengers hang out of open doors or taking the chute turn too fast) so getting rid of them would also improve safety. This also frees up a follow car driver for every org. So, the flow would be. Get the buggies ready to roll. Have the same mechanics that would jump in the follow car, jump into the recovery vehicle. When the buggies are past the driveway, they get back out. If the buggy does not get past the driveway, they take a drive. There may be more than one bunch in the car when that happens. More often than not, they would end up with more wrenching time and less, driving around the course time.

Get rid of the idea of a pass "test. The current pass test does very little to prep the driver for a real world pass. It seems like a pointless waste of time that invites all sorts of chaos as "lazy" orgs use this as a means to get additional rolls late in the game. The lack of roll order above, should generate plenty of passing opportunities in a natural way.

And insert this rule. If you are not qualified before truck weekend, you are not allowed to roll truck weekend (or in the race). harsh but if you know it is coming, less so. The good is that it allows the roll order during truck weekend to be snappy and reliable which is important for the leading orgs to get their truck mojo optimized. It also gets rid of new buggies that show up late which is probably a good thing. It also encourages all orgs to get out there earlier. If that happens and then they find that they have truck weekend for extra practice, they might get better which might in turn lead to more participation.

[shafeeq]

[DAConley]

Thread has been quiet for a while....back to one of the challenges for new entrants - building a buggy.
Pike would be willing to sell the RAPTOR mold, a very nice shape for a young team to build upon. Lots of potential.
Motivation is physical space, for which we have little and need to dedicate to other resources.
Same offer was made to Kaycee to pass onto Sweepstakes.
Anyone intersted....contact Ryan Barrett - Pike Chair, Tom Wood, or Dave Conley

[Elmo Zoneball]

Any idea why so many posts are showing up blank?

Looks like a software problem; if I hit "edit" on one of my posts that is bank, the missing text shows up in the edit window.