Posted on | by ben

Alright, it’s not actually a rolls report, but there sadly haven’t been any rolls to report on… So here we are…

In the absence of anything to talk about rolls-wise I figure this might be a good time to talk about things that are coming up just a month from now. There’s not a whole lot set in stone just yet but I’ll share with you guys what I know.You could also think of this as a reminder to pay your membership so that we can keep doing the things that we do and so you ensure that you will get the comprehensive pre-Raceday guide recapping the year and giving you our predictions for Raceday.

  • Starting with the first day of rolls, a few of us BAAers will be out bright and early with a grill to cook up some delicious food for what will probably be a pretty chilly morning. We plan on bringing out enough food for alumni and others to join us during rolls and I imagine we could have enough for students to join us afterwards and swap stories with one and other. We’ll be setting up down in the chute as usual along with…
  • Webcasting all the rolls. With so few rolls left, this should be a pretty easy thing to accomplish, but I plan on being at and putting up the live stream of every day of rolls. If there are enough people interested, we can upgrade our account to allow for HD video (which I believe also means that we keep the HD video for upload as well).
  • Moving to even more exciting things, Raceday is right around the corner and we plan to again run the lead truck auction as we have for the last few years. Also as with the last few years, the first 1000 raised is planned to go towards helping sweepstakes with the Jumbotrons.
  • Along with the support from our Lead Truck Auction, Sweepstakes is again seeking company sponsors to help cover the growing costs of putting on larger and larger Racedays. To hopefully develop a good relationship with the companies, Chrysler and 4moms have agreed to sponsor Raceday again and rumor is Google will be back as well. Chrysler will not have the same presence as they did last year, but they will still likely be far and away one of the largest contributors. We’re excited to get their help and hope we can continue to work with Sweepstakes to make Raceday a larger and more awesome event every year!

As for more recent buggy related news, a forum thread was started by those who can’t wait for rolls to actually start. Some info has already come out of that but I imagine there will be more to come so be sure to follow. Here’s what we’ve learned so far:

  • We’re running out of weekends before Raceday so any team looking to qualify will have a tough time unless they get their act together. Those who came out in the fall will have a huge advantage needing half as many rolls and will realistically only have trouble getting a pass test for every driver they want to race. There was a precedent set over the last few years of allowing teams to roll even if they didn’t have the full roll count. That said, this has really only been the case if the team had a pass test, so if I were a chair, that’d be my primary focus.
  • There have already been reports of new buggies being caped and ready to go. CIA was the first to cape their new buggy #19 before spring break, followed recently by SDC with a bright yellow buggy that is not addiction. CIA’s is currently unpainted, no word yet as to a name for either, nor a paintjob for #19. Other Orgs are rumored to be building including Fringe with NBXIII, PiKA with RD 2013, and SigEp with a new buggy. Some teams have been working on overhauling what they have to avoid working on a complete new build. KapSig has been upgrading Apache to roll again and could see the course again this spring. ROTC has been planning a return the course and rumor has it they have been fixing up Shrek. Apex has been putting the finishing touches on Phoenix and finally got her all painted up, while there were rumors of a second build for the new org this year, it seems to have fallen through which as any veteran knows, it will be a huge relief specially with so few weekends to get up to speed with one brand new buggy, much less two.
  • Not yet confirmed, AEPi has been working on a new buggy for either this year or next which was at one point codenamed “Mexican Thunder”. I am unsure whether that Codename still exists but with no buggy since Aether, they’ve been falling behind in the technology battle with each passing year. Spirit is apparently working on “something” which, if that something is a buggy, is good news for the org that only just recently started building again with Mapambazuko in 2011. Lastly, now that SAE has parted ways with Limo (an historic build which was quickly obtained by a local collector), they have the room to build a new member to add to their fleet in addition to their updated Rubicon.
  • Unconnected to the thread, I was able to take a walk of the course a few weeks ago and as any long-time member of this site would guess, orgs will have to deal with more of the same post-winter road troubles. The good news is that there isn’t much in the way of new cracks that have formed. Most of the damage was done to the pre-existing problems, some cracks grew deeper,  some potholes wider, and some mysteriously patched areas have re-cracked and broken down. Hill one is starting to see the lane 2 cracks again, but they are still more than manageable. The Freeroll has not generated anything new, just enlarged what was already there. And of course Frew street, which can’t really get worse, is still the nightmare that it was. On the whole though, despite this being a long winter that has plagued our weekends, teams should be relieved to find that there are few new major issues, if any.

That’s all I have for now, I have a brand new camera that I’m excited to use for rolls where I should be able to get some nice High res photos and video. Feel free to add any more rumors, info or corrections and I hope to see you out on the course this weekend!

11 thoughts on “Rolls Report: One Month To Go”

  • Zatch says:

    Good intro, thanks for writing it!

    Hey Sweepstakes committee – with the lack of rolls, any word on how cold it could be before rolls get called this weekend? It’s a long ways out, but the forecast this weekend is clear skies and a brisk 21F.

  • Connor says:

    There is going to be a lot of cool stuff to see and talk about at rolls this weekend. Seems as if near every team has a major modification to an older buggy or a completely new buggy to reveal. Talking about Apex, we have an undercoat of paint on the buggy and he will be rolling with a new suite of internals meant to improve performance. Practically everything on the interior has been re-designed. Learning mucho from this first build and now much better prepared for what we hope will be an awesome second build in the near future.

  • Elmo Zoneball says:

    Would someone tell Sam the website is all buggered up. No PMs, no gallery, no discussion threads…. weird error messages at the top of the News page….

    • Sam Swift says:

      thanks Elmo. I think I noticed it right about when you did. I was trying to roll out some new pre-raceday features, but I think I broke more things than I added. back to the drawing board

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