It was another beautiful winter-turning-to-spring weekend last week in Pittsburgh. Temperatures creeped to just above freezing to reach an almost comfortable 33F. Unfortunately, Sunday Rolls were cancelled due to wet forecasts. It did rain between Saturday and Sunday, but high winds ended up being the real danger on Sunday.

With Raceday just 6 weeks of questionable weather patterns away, teams are beginning to take a serious look at their Hill 2 push offs. Unfortunately, the pot holes along the hill make it exceedingly difficult to get much definitive information. Perhaps next year we can introduce a new sport: Buggy Slalom Races.

In Attendance 

Org	Saturday
Apex	Azula, Firefly, Ember
CIA	Emperor, Equinox, Tempest, Icarus, Orca
Fringe	Bumper, Boson, Bolt
PiKA	Raptor, Banshee, Cliodhna
SDC	Malice, Bane, Avarice
Spirit	Inviscid, Seraph, Zuke

Observations (Saturday Gallery)

Two teams (CIA and Fringe) followed PiKA’s example from last weekend and were running pass tests throughout the morning. Fringe got a little overzealous with their early tests and sent their buggies off too quickly to actually execute a pass. Later in the day, Fringe attempted a Bumper/Boson pass, but when both took the turn off Hill 2 wide, it looked like they were going to hit. Fortunately, the drivers were able to safely execute the pass before Westinghouse. By the end of Saturday Fringe had successful pass tests with 2 buggy/driver combinations and CIA got in successful passes with 5 combinations.

Construction continues to displace CIA from their normal staging area. This weekend they infiltrated PhiDelt’s spot when SDC booted them out. The temporary homelessness didn’t seem to phase the org as they were able to keep 5 buggies rolling throughout the day.

PiKA suffered a low member turnout and was forced to work with only a skeleton crew and put their buggies in line as they were cleared by Sweepstakes. As a result, they were running their buggies close together all morning. Despite this, there was no major incident when they lost a hatch before Westinghouse on one roll.

SDC and Spirit were competing for who could induce the most spectator anxiety. An SDC driver unexpectedly stopped at the transition flag when she mistook it for a stop flag. She was able to continue rolling after the stop with no incident. During one roll, Spirit was driving close to the road’s edge and ended up ever-so-lightly tapping the curb just after Westinghouse. The driver wasn’t rattled and was able to finish out the roll without further incident.

As we get closer to Raceday and the weather starts warming, we hope to see the organizations step up their speed game. Until then, here’s to safe practices and avoiding potholes.

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Rolls Report Contributors:
Ben M.
Natalie M.