And we’re back! Due to some unfortunate weather patterns, absentee alumni, missing permits, and Halloween, Buggy reports have been on hiatus for the better part of the last month. Despite the ever dropping temperatures, Buggies finally found their way back to the course and we had a full weekend day of rolls!

Saturday practice was cancelled, but not for lack trying on Sweepstakes end. The call didn’t come until 1am when it was clear that the weather wasn’t going to cooperate. The dreary weather failed to dampen the teams’ spirits and spectators were treated to some mechanics and pushers dressing up in the spirit of Halloween. The wet weekend was a ghoulish nightmare for the sweepers, who had to put in some extra elbow grease to remove soggy leaves from the Chute. This caused a slight delay in the start time.

I have a note here from our reporter on the scene that the quote of the day was: “Only the Friwizard can wear the hat!” Not sure what that means, and sadly we don’t have a picture to go with the quote. 

In Attendance 

Observations (Sunday Gallery)

Construction at the GSIA patio has it fenced off, leaving only enough room for PiKA to fit. CIA opted to stage at the bottom of Hill 1 near their typical Raceday location to deal with the issue.

This weekend saw the return of our future robot overlords, with both Atlas and Robobuggy getting in some practice. Atlas still only gets time before the rest of the teams start, but Robobuggy is still working within the Roll order. In fact, the team has made some impressive strides in maintaining their trajectory, and mostly stayed to their lane up Hill 1. Although Robobuggy seemed to encounter some sort of issue at one point and suddenly deployed its break by the monument. The Buggy was quickly loaded into its follow car.

Rolls were mostly without incident, but Buggies were not moving terribly fast. PhiDelt appears to be borrowing or renting Brazen from Fringe, but is going slow. W3VC described the new driver as “crawling through the chute”. PhiDelt was also in need of a push at Panther Hollow bridge on one of their runs. SigEp’s Beyonce appeared to be scrubbing a significant amount of speed in the Chute turn and also had some troubles getting past the bales. And finally during one roll, Fringe’s Bumper made it to the bottom of Hill 3 before running out of juice and started to roll backwards. Fortunately the pusher quickly caught up (back?) with the buggy..

There were only a few anxiety-inducing events to report on from this weekend. Cliodhna from PiKA was taking sudden turns at the Chute flag, making us all wonder if the driver was about to make a break for freedom down Schenely Drive. Raptor lost a hatch in the Chute, which appeared to be held on by magnets. CIA was also having some Chute line issues with Orca taking even wider lines than usual, scaring away the W3VC standby. Spirit scraped Inviscid against the curb when starting a Hill 2 push off; Buggy and driver are okay. And finally, Fringe came to a stop during one Roll at the Westinghouse pond, although the reason for that is currently unclear. Our understanding is that the driver is fine.

Many teams lamented a low pusher turn out this weekend. A SigEp driver picked up one Hill 3, and waited patiently for the follow car driver to hop out and trade positions. The two then traded back at the 3-4 transition. It seems the driver was really against Hill 3… Spirit had to rotate a fair bit to prevent their pushers from having to do double hills. And Fringe ended their day with just a single Buggy rolling. While students are neck deep in assignments and midterms, we hope this isn’t indicative of future turnouts.

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Rolls Report Contributors:
Ben M.
Natalie M.