After last week’s hiatus thanks to midsemester break, buggies were out and rolling again this weekend. Well, they were rolling on Saturday. Apparently, most of the organizations didn’t want to do buggy things the day after Halloween. They must have been up late handing out candy to trick-or-treaters. This Saturday was also the last day before Daylight Savings, so teams only had 1 hour to get their buggies around the course. All-in-all it was a petite weekend of rolls.

Even if we only had one short day of buggies, it was still a pretty great day. We are happy to report there were no crashes or spins. There was one stop, but it was due to some hatch issues and was overall relatively minor. One of the most exciting things to happen was a visit from Sam Swift of BAA fame. It’s always good to have our alumni back for surprise appearances. Unfortunately no one manage to get a picture. Or an autograph. In lieu of a autographed picture of Sam, we present a picture of a bus that tried to come on the course. Apparently Sam was as amazed at the newly paved roads as the rest of us Pittsburgh folks were at the start of the semester.

Because of the singular short day of rolls, the individual write-ups are a little shorter than normal. We thought about just making stuff up, but didn’t want to tarnish the integrity of the BAA rolls report.

In Attendance 

Observations (Saturday Gallery)

• AEPi – Usually we only see AEPi out on Sundays, but with the premediated lack of buggy activity for All Saints Day, Kamikaze was out rolling this Saturday. The AEPi driver was rolling with bags for the entire day. While we aren’t sure what they are trying to work on, the buggy is moving fairly slow for this point in the season.
• Apex – Both Phoenix and Ember were rolling without bags this Saturday and making clear gains in their speeds. One observer noted that Apex’s chute lines are starting to take shape smooth out. Hopefully we’ll be seeing bigger and better rollouts in the future.
• CIA – Equinox missed her first day of rolls this season. Rumors as to why range from a lack of driver availability to garage trolls. Given the day, it was probably trolls. CIA is still leading the way with their impressive rollouts even while other teams make improvements. As always, the CIA drivers are taking more daring chute lines much tighter than the other teams and are flirting with the manhole cover on a regular basis.
• Fringe – Describing Fringe at rolls is becoming like a broken record: very smooth, very quick, very stable. Despite the dependable nature of their rolls, Fringe buggies just are not getting the rollouts we would expect from them. We anticipate seeing more from them come spring.
• PhiDelt – PhiDelt rolled this Saturday with only one of their 3 drivers. Slowly but surely they are increasing in speed and are now getting rollouts past the hay bales and making it into Hill 3.
• PiKA – Banshee was screaming around the course, catching up to CIA’s rollouts. They continue to drift through the chute turn, scrubbing quite a bit of speed. They will be giving the other orgs a run for their rollout money if they can nail down the chute turn.
• SAE – We are excited to report that SAE were back in action this weekend, returning to the course for the second time this semester. They are rolling on some fancy wheels which look like they have a dynamic camber as Lucy rolls and leans through the chute.
• SDC – Although we have never described SDC as slow this semester, the team is significantly ramping up their speed. Both Malice and Vice are turning hard at the chute flag resulting in some skidding/drifting action. Havoc provided perhaps the most excitement of the day when she came to a stop just after Hill 2 due to a hatch issue. While this caused a significant delay in the schedule, driver and buggy are believed to be fine.
• Spirit – With Fuko making her debut appearance for the semester, Spirit was out in full force rolling a slightly different combination of 4 of their buggies. Fuko’s previous hibernation was made all the more apparent by her paint job from 3 racedays ago. The team is continuously picking up speed and had a clean and quick days of rolls.

There was some buzz along the sidelines this weekend when Sweepstakes called rolls at 8:40am instead of waiting until 9:00am. Perhaps the bike lane bollards take more time to reinstall after rolls? Regardless, the lost 20 minutes seem quite precious. If you made it all the way to the bottom of this article and know anything about the truncated time or have some thoughts on the subject in general, feel free to leave a comment.

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Rolls Report Contributors:
Ben Matzke
Thomas Felmley