Sweepstakes Committee 2010 elected

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 3 Comments on Sweepstakes Committee 2010 elected

These kids aren’t just breaking course records like they’re nothing special, they’re also thinking one step ahead about running the show next year.  Traditionally, the first sweepstakes meeting of the year is called by the defending champion some time in September.  After a couple of meetings a committe is elected and they rush to figure out what they’re doing to get rolls started as soon as they can.

This year, they decided to do the electing now so that the committee has the entire off-season to get a feel for things and set their agenda.  It makes an 8 month job into a 12 month job, but at the wages they’re getting paid, sweepstakes can afford it.

Without further ado, the raceday 2010 sweepstakes committe is:

  • Chair: Jess Thurston (Fringe, graduating, starting Masters)
  • Assistant: Chris Shellhamer (Pika, will be sophomore ChemE)
  • Safety: JB Feldman (AEPi, will be senior CS)

Good luck to them, and good work outgoing committee.  Thanks to Vincent for hooking me up with the official info.

Wanted: Pictures and Seniors

Posted on | by Sam Swift

Now that the real hangovers have worn off, the buggy hangover is in full swing, and we want to help you deal with the emptiest time of year: post-raceday.

Pictures
Share your pictures from raceday with the rest of the cmubuggy.org community.  So far we have a decent start with 250 pictures from 4 or 5 people, but there are a lot parts of raceday that aren’t covered at all.  We are especially short on pictures of the back hills (not unusual) and the chute (very unusual!).   So please, upload some of your favorites from this year.  I know I saw lots of cameras out there and there was no shortage of exciting moments to capture.

Check out the 2009 albums

If you have any questions about how to upload, or have so many pictures to upload that it’s arduous to use the web interface, please let us know at admin@cmubuggy.org

Seniors
Well seniors, you had a hell of an exciting year to go out on, and not a bad 4 year stretch at that.  It’s going to be tough next year being away from things.  Take our word from it, we’ve been there.  Let us help by offering you a year of Dues-Paying-Member benefits for free.  Those benefits include:

  • Fall 2009 Report – get in depth details about the fall semester
  • Spring 2010 Raceday Preview – get the comprehensive coverage of each and every team so that you’re in the loop when you come back to your first raceday as an alum
  • Raceday 2010 Reception – mingle with other alumni after the races
  • Raceday 2010 Wrap-up – a look back on everything that happened

All you have to do is sign up before graduation:

Seniors Sign Up Now

SDC sweeps, smashes records

Posted on | by carsenkline | 6 Comments on SDC sweeps, smashes records

Sweepstakes 2009: Yes, there is a person in there – and Holy &!^@ did she go fast!

It was another record breaking year, something no one might have expected after last year’s impossibly fast times. The men’s and women’s course records (2:04.35 and 2:28.84) were shattered after only a year, replaced by SDC’s new times of 2:03.3 and 2:25.6.

Members of the Buggy Alumni Association will receive a special post-raceday wrapup email in the coming week. It will feature more facts and figures, observations from the hills, and a team by team analysis of performance this year. You can join today by visiting cmubuggy.org/Join. Until then, here are some highlights:

* It is the lowest First Day place for PiKA since 1969…they did get 3rd this year and in 2004 they were 4th after day 1…also 3rd in 1997 and 1989…the last time PiKA had a lower final place was 1985 due to the dqs. (thanks Revo)

* Fringe put on a great 40th anniversary show for their returning alumni, just edging out PiKA to take 2nd on the last roll of the day for a new team record 2:07.25.

* SigEp men’s A sliced 6 seconds off last year’s time, coming in with a 2:08:61, a time that would have won four of the last ten Sweepstakes. The SigEp women’s team got a trophy for the first time with third place.

* AEPi posted an 11th place finish, their best ever, separated from a spot in the finals by only 3 seconds.

* Beta was DQ’d and then banned from participating in buggy until fall of 2010 due to fire safety violations (5 gallons of flammable fluid were found in the Beta truck.)

* CIA produced their first new buggy in nine five years, named Renaissance.  It’s a radical departure from their traditional style of building, yet they still somehow made it look like a CIA buggy – including a windshield that is several inches longer on the left side than it is on the right, for “passing on the inside.”

* Due to a change in the conditions for winning the Spirit of Buggy award, exhibition heats were one of the highlights of Saturday morning. Anyone who went back to the old school practice of switching wheels at the bottom of hill 3 would be considered for the award, so Pioneers, KDR, AEPi, and CIA all made the switch after the chute.  AEPi had an entire F1-style pit crew working on the buggy, complete with a gas can, a foot massage, and a lollipop-sign guy. Pioneers won the award on their driver’s performance – she actually got out of the buggy, pulled the replacement wheel out of the buggy, replaced it herself, and then got back in to drove the rest of the race.

* Despite winning the Spirit of Buggy award, this might be Pioneers’ last year.  There are currently no members of Pioneers planning on returning next year. There is some word on the street that KapSig might be in line to race their buggies.

For more highlights from the weekend, check out the Tartan’s Sweepstakes coverage. We’ll excuse the minor inaccuracies since they were awfully quick to go to press with this story. Also, it’s pretty obvious the author took buggy descriptions from our Raceday Guide that has unpainted buggies from before Truck Weekend. We’ll take that as a compliment!

Also view a video of AEPi’s pit stop.

Special raceday features debuted

Posted on | by Sam Swift

Check out the raceday-special front page and the new features that we’re unveiling

  • Raceday Buzz – for the folks at home to converse while they watch the cmutv feed
  • Raceday Guide – download your own copy of the ultimate buggy spotter’s guide
  • Leaderboard – check during the races to see a near-live update of the standings
  • Rosters – see which teams are rolling which buggies and being pushed by whom

Also, pictures from Design Comp are already available in the Gallery!

Buggy Books of History Countdown : T-0.3

Posted on | by Sam Swift

Oops! With the chaos of getting the auction ready last week, I wrote half of this and forgot to finish or post it. I’m sure all of you out there were waiting anxiously to complete your collection, so I apologize for the delay.  Here is an abridged version of the narrative.

All of the buggy books (starting with 1965!) are scanned and the DVDs are burned so it must be almost raceday.  Indeed, this is our last post in the Buggy Books of History series.  Make sure to find us at design comp or at our reception on the Skibo Gym lawn after the races on Friday and pick yourself up a copy of the DVD.

The weather was perfect on both Friday and Saturday: sunny and reaching 73F before the last heats of the day.  That’s the sort of weather that is supposed to produce record breaking races, and the teams did not disappoint.  The 1988 record that spat in the face of so many good teams finally fell and was beaten four times in two days.   In the end PiKA kept their win streak alive with a margin of victory of only 0.15 seconds over SDC and a new record 1.85 seconds better than any raceday before.  Just to underline things, SDC broke the women’s record pushing the bar further below the previously elusive 2:30 mark to 2:28.84.

Buggy Book 2008

Comments in the forum

Members-Only Raceday Preview is out

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 2 Comments on Members-Only Raceday Preview is out

The Buggy Alumni Association has distributed its first ever Members-Only Raceday Preview, an action packed, full color, team-by-team low down of the buggy scene just a few days before the races.  Check out these real quotes from satisfied members:

  • “the sweetest thing that has ever come out for buggy ever”
  • “who even needs compubookie now anyway?”
  • “Balanced, nuanced, and – my God – Useful!”
  • “It’s almost as though I’m already there.”

If you are a dues paying member and you have not received your copy, please let us know at admin@cmubuggy.org.

If you aren’t a member yet, there’s still time.  If you become a dues paying member before raceday, we’ll send you a copy of the Raceday Preview right away.   Just make sure that you indicate “Display my name in the list of attendees for this event. ” so that we can quickly confirm things, and then send us an e-mail at admin@cmubuggy.org so that we know to check.

Major history data upgrade

Posted on | by Sam Swift

Just in time for our first raceday, the Buggy Alumni Association’s database of buggy history has been seriously upgraded over the lat couple of weeks.  Major accomplishments include:

  • The entire backlog of history contributions has now been processed and added to the database.  Thanks so much for your contributions so far, and sorry that it took us so long to add them into the system.
  • Additional data from past buggy books, the History of Buggy presentation, and old Tartan records has been added such that we now have full records of times and places going back through the 80’s and times and places for the top 5 or 6 going back through the 60’s
  • Having more complete data allowed us to add more data to the organization pages.  You’ll now see a summary of the last 20 years of places and times for each organization
  • Similar improvements to the Person and Buggy pages reflect more of their individual histories

So check it all out in the History section

Having this much more data in the system opens the doors for you to help us find errors and fill in holes in the data.   To streamline things a bit more, we’ve added standardized forms for Race, Organization, and Buggy data.  Check those out on the Contribute Data page

Huge thanks to Scott Ziolko for doing the hard dirty work with all of the data for this update.  We never would have been able to work through the backlog without him.

22 hours left. Bid Now!

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 4 Comments on 22 hours left. Bid Now!

It’s less than 24 hours until the first ever lead truck auction will close.  Don’t miss your chance to get right up in the action this raceday.

Detailed Auction Info |   Live Auction –> Bid Now

Anyone (Alumni, current buggy folks, other students, anyone else) can get in on the action, and there are still some heat without bidders meaning you can take a wild ride for only $10.  Show support for your team by bidding on their heats!  Don’t wait until the last minute to enter your bids, there is no system for extending the deadline if there is a flurry of last minute action.  Enter max bids to make sure you don’t miss out.

Here are the current (11:45 pm)  high bids: Continue reading →

Rolls Report – Truck Weekend

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 8 Comments on Rolls Report – Truck Weekend

Sweepstakes was able to pull off two successful days of rolls this weekend, despite some delays. Many organizations were able to complete their qualifications for Raceday.

Saturday, April 11 – all orgs present (Saturday’s pictures here)
Sunday, April 12 – all orgs but Beta present (Sunday’s pictures here)

While the proposed start time of rolls was 6:20, rolls did not officially begin each day until approximately 6:50. By some mis-communication, Pittsburgh Police did not think rolls were taking place this weekend. This delayed closing the roads until CMU Police could send 1 or 2 officers and organizations could send volunteers to man the four sets of outer barricades. Saturday was further delayed by a sprinkling of rain at 6:55. It cleared quickly, and rolls were able to start at 7:05. Continue reading →

Heats are selected and the Auction is on!

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 5 Comments on Heats are selected and the Auction is on!

The heat selection meeting happened tonight, and we’ve got a raceday schedule to work with.  There are 40 50 teams entering the race this year (18 Womens and 32 Men’s) which is down 9 from last year even though SAE and Beta are joining the fray this year.  Maybe it’s the bad economy. up 1 from last year!

The heats being released also means that our Lead Truck Auction will be underway at 9am this morning.  Get in on the bidding action early and tell all the other alumni (and current students) about this new opportunity.

The heats are: Continue reading →