More perfect fall weather set the scene for a solid weekend of rolls with a SDC, Spirit, SigEp, AEPi, and the citizens of Pittsburgh stepping up and giving us some things to talk about.
In Attendance (buggies listed newest to oldest)
| Org | Saturday | Sunday |
|---|---|---|
| AEPi | Kamikaze | Kamikaze, Zephyrus |
| CIA | Freyja, Renaissance, Firebird, Quasar | Freyja, Renaissance, Firebird |
| Fringe | Borealis, Bedlam, Banyan, Blizzard | Borealis, Bedlam, Banyan, Blizzard |
| PiKA | Nemesis, Chimera, Brimstone | Nemesis, Chimera, Brimstone |
| Pioneers | Chaos | |
| SDC | Avarice, Malice, Psychosis, Addiction, Rage | Avarice, Malice, Psychosis, Addiction, Rage |
| SAE | Rubicon | |
| SigEp | Peregrine, Barracuda, Pandora | |
| Spirit | Seraph, Fuko, Haraka | Seraph, Fuko, Haraka |
Observations (Saturday gallery | Sunday gallery)
SDC is having some real trouble keeping their wheels on the buggy. Two weeks ago, we saw Avarice’s stubs bend significantly after a near-spin late in the chute. This week on Saturday, Addiction made it through the initial chute turn and was approaching the bend at Scaife when the right rear wheel came off and it skidded to a stop. Observers noted that it wasn’t that the wheel simply fell off, but that the whole stub came off and the wheel was still attached to the stub. Then on Sunday Avarice ended up in a similar position – pointing the wrong direction with one wheel off and the other attachment badly bent. I try not to editorialize too much, but wheel attachment is a basic competency, and whatever materials / attachment modes they are using seem like they should be attracting safety chair attention at this point. Shaving those last 8 ounces will not win you the race, use something strong and reliable!- Update: It has been pointed out that there was a really big pothole near where addiction lost its wheel that was subsequently filled before Sunday’s rolls. So it’s likely that the pothole was the cause of the wheel loss and it didn’t just fall off. I guess that’s an important part of the story, but I stand by my argument that wheels shouldn’t be knock-offable.
Spirit’s yellow buggy (sorry, that’s terrible reporting, but I haven’t had a chance to memorize the new colors yet this year) had a spin in the chute. It was a fairly slow spin as the tail just kept coming around then slowly rolled tail first in the bales. Sound familiar? It is pretty familiar because Spirit’s buggies seem to always be on the edge of this fairly harmless oversteer situation. Something in the weight distribution or tire compounds is going to have to change before they can count on a raceday without DNFs. The buggy rolled again later in the day.
Flip cameras are popular again this year which gave us this great shot of a stray biker on the course just ahead of a rolling buggy courtesty of AEPi. Fringe also had a near-miss when a dog walker crossed the chute just as Borealis was hitting the chute flag. Some folks are just never going to listen (apparently the dog walker dismissed many warnings and commands and pointed out he was “just going over here to the hill” ) but obviously there is always room for improvement in the barricading and communication department.
Update: apparently the cam footage of the biker is from CIA’s Firebird and the incident was a bit more of a close call than I realized. The biker came onto the course from the Westinghouse pond area and merged obliviously right in front of the buggy. The driver braked some, but when the rider heard something behind him he slowed down and got more in the way causing the driver to end up against the curb as she came to a stop. With those details it sounds a bit more serious and that a stern talking to is in order for those barricaders and all orgs involved in keeping hazards off the course.
The front hatch on SigEp’s Pandora fell off on the back hills, but they were undeterred. Somehow they managed to continue pushing the buggy at full speed for the rest of the course with the hatch just sliding on the ground in front of the nose of the buggy. I’m actually pretty curious … If this happened on raceday, would it be considered loss of mass?
AEPi brought out Zephyrus with a pushbar made of a 2×4. Even the handle was a 2×4. I can’t figure out why this would be a desirable solution to any problem, and it’s too early to suspect a prank from the booth-oriented members of the house. Did the original pushbar fail sometime that us alumni didn’t notice? Was there nothing more suitable available in the whole house? Update: a reader filled me in on a couple of interesting details on the case of the lumber pushbar. Zephyrus’ metal pushbar broke on the first day of the year although not in a very exciting or easily visible manner. That explains why it hasn’t been on the course for the last couple of weeks. The mechanics made an attempt at a composite pushbar, but that apparently snapped during capes. What we saw this weekend is a try at a 3rd, more reliable (perhaps less permanent) solution.- SAE was back out with Rubicon on Sunday for the first time since the very first day of rolls this year. They now have 2 drivers each with 2 rolls sharing one buggy. That doesn’t sound like the shortest route to driver qualification, but hey, there are still 6 months before that’s an issue.
- One observer noted, “if buggy was decided based upon volume you’d have a close race between pika (brimstone), cia and spirit. they were all turned up to 11.” We keep talking about doing an all-audio report from rolls.
- SDC brought Psychosis out for the first time this year. It was their Men’s and Women’s B team buggy in ’09 and ’10 (and A team before that) so had been surprised not to see it out in previous weeks.
- Freeroll times were similar to last week which is to say that Fringe, SDC, and PiKA were pushing it the fastest but nobody was putting down their A-game. SigEp is still hanging out in the almost-top-tier territory. Spirit set their season-best time on Sunday but is still a 4-5 seconds off the cluster of best times. AEPi set all of their best times of the fall this weekend with Kamikaze, but those are well behind the previously mentioned folks.
Thanks very much to revo, hvincent, crstengel, and aepibuggy this week for helping out with great observations and pictures while I was out of town again.
Emily says:
AEPi’s Zepyrus has been having pushbar problems for a while, it finally gave in and a new pushbar was purchased but snapped off during capes on thursday. A quick, simple and cheap fix was put into action by attaching the 2×4 and the buggy recaped on friday.
Carl says:
Regarding SigEp’s hatch, I’d think that they would be DQ’d for having the length of the buggy change during the course of the run (an unexpected application of the ‘no more backwards-dropping pushbars’ rule). I could be wrong but that springs to mind.
Shafeeq says:
I agree, Carl. Since it’s the time it takes the the nose of the buggy to make it around the course that matters, a buggy whose nose extends during the race makes the course that much shorter.
Supposing the hatch fell straight down, it’d be interesting what happens when they pick the buggy up for drops – nothing about loss of mass after the finish line, but can’t reattach it before drops either.
v says:
Does it count if the driver grabs the hatch to keep it from falling during drops? ;D
Anonymous says:
Speaking of noise, has anyone else noticed the weird clicking noise Malice has been making this year?
Carl says:
Well v, if a driver can grab the wheel to keep a buggy from failing drops I have to assume that grabbing the hatch is legal. ;)
Alex says:
Not sure what incident Carl is referring to in a driver grabbing a wheel, but the hatch falling off would be a DQ, even if it makes it across the line, as it’s a change of configuration that was not designed for (at least that’s how I understand the rules). The nose thing Shafeeq mentioned makes sense too, but is not an actual rule as far as I know, just a logical extension of existing rules.
Carl says:
Not an incident, just a fond memory.
‘Abby, if the brakes fail on the drop test grab the wheel.’
‘Carl, if the brakes fail AT ANY POINT I’m going to pull your balls off through your ass.’
McCue says:
I don’t know about the hatch thing. The buggy is going to be the same length as when it started the race, and no competitive advantage is given by their screw up. The big reason, though, is that no mass is actually being lost, so you can’t DQ someone for loss of mass sort of by definition.
Consider a wheel cover flopping around or some similar error (anyone have that Spirit picture from 2004 with the missing locknut?). Unfortunate, but DQing someone for it is a stretch.
Janice says:
The buggy might not be the same length if the hatch is pushed forward even a little bit when it comes loose. Also, this has to be a design failure, which should be a DQ
“The loss of any part of a buggy’s shell, hatch, or cover while that buggy is competing in any Sweepstakes race shall be considered to be a design failure of that buggy, and will result in the disqualification of that buggy and its entry from the race competition, even if that loss did not interfere with any of the other entries in that heat.”
TommyK says:
We’ve secretly replaced SDC’s regular metal matrix stubs with a Folger’s crystal based metal … let’s see if they notice.
McCue says:
They didn’t lose the hatch, it’s right there in the picture. It’s still attached to the buggy. There is no rule against design failures if you don’t lose mass, except for you suck.
Now KDR, they know how to lose hatches with style.
Carl says:
True, they didn’t lose mass, but the buggy is (slightly) longer.
What would be hella-cool would be to have a telescoping arm (pneumatically powered, of course) with the hatch attached to it. That way when the buggy gets to the 4-5 transition the driver hits a switch, deploys the hatch, and Hill 5 is suddenly 20′ shorter.
Due to the recoil I’d think you’d want to incorporate some sort of a clutch system so that the buggy doesn’t shoot backwards and kill the Hill 5 pusher.
Or you could have a recoilless system that shoots the rear hatch backwards at the same time, I suppose, which could make the buggy even longer and then the Hill 5 pusher (assuming he/she is not killed) can use the deployed rear hatch and telescoping ram as a super-long pushbar.
I think pneumatic might not have the required ‘oomph’ though. Maybe gutting an airbag from a car would yield a more suitable material…
Eric says:
Wouldn’t the buggy be disqualified on a safety violation. The driver is exposed to a point that unacceptable from a safety standpoint.
KDFringe says:
I think the clicking in Malice is either a broken or misaligned flywheel.
Shafeeq says:
The Inspector Gadget extend-a-buggy runs into the problem that the buggy can only be 15 feet long, so that only buys you a 6-7 foot shorter course. If it weren’t for that, I think the most useful super-long buggy trick would be to have the handle come off in the Hill 5’s hand while remaining attached to the buggy with a long string. That way you could shove as hard as you want in the middle of the hill and still be touching the buggy as it crosses the finish line. No more DQ’s, and the buggy can cover that distance faster than any human.
Some buggies appear able to meet the letter of the rules without the hatch in place. Others appear unable to meet them even with their hatches in place. There’s no rule requiring a buggy to be completely enclosed, and while you are required to have a windscreen in front of the driver, there’s no requirement that it has to completely protect the driver. There’s also no rule against a braking system that relies on the driver grabbing the wheel in her hand, assuming that she can pass capes & drops. Presumably, these areas have been left to the safety chair’s judgement.
Anonymous says:
correct me if im wrong, but isnt there actually something in the rules saying that the driver (if not technically the whole buggy) has to be completely enclosed?
its one of those bits thats worded weirdly, (referencing an infinitely long, infinitely stiff rod not being able to touch the driver), thats been boiled down to the pencil test–a driver must not be able to be poked with a pencil while secured in the buggy.
Carl says:
Drat, no super-long buggy.
I think the obvious application of the detachable pushbar handle would be to have a line of string attached to the buggy in the center of the pushbar and secured with a weak magnet. Then your Hill 5 pusher could have a glove (or something) on his/her non-bumping hand equipped with a rare earth magnet so that they grab the string off the pushbar at the beginning of the hill, perform their normal bump-and-run, and if things go badly they are still touching the buggy. Sort of.