We’ve made it to (Mini-)Raceday! COVID has dealt a number of blows to Buggy over the past year, but Sweepstakes worked incredibly hard to get buggies back on the course this Spring and now it’s time to crown a champion.
For the first time in 50 years, Raceday returns to its roots; the month of May. We’ll be live-streaming Mini-Raceday on both Saturday, May 1 and Sunday, May 2, beginning at ~6:15AM ET. You can watch along at http://tinyurl.com/BuggyLive2021, and of course, the Discord is always open for alumni and students to watch and talk together (and based on past experience, there might even be additional camera angles).
Of course, much like everything else this past year, this won’t be a traditional Raceday. COVID safety measures are still in place, which means that alumni should not attend in person. There won’t be any crowds, and the teams themselves are limited in personnel and attendance. In total, 7 organizations will be competing in both Men’s and Women’s races in a “time trial”-style of racing. Only 1 buggy will be on the course at a time. Each Men’s team and each Women’s team will receive 2 individually timed rolls, and the best of those two times will be the team’s official time. In the event a team doesn’t finish or has a disqualification in one of their runs, then the other run will determine the team’s official time. However, certain event-based DQs, such as noncompliance with COVID safety measures, will result in a full team DQ and no official time will be recorded for that team.
The normal cmuTV and WRCT broadcast teams won’t be out on the course, but that doesn’t mean we’ll be without commentary. Representatives from CMU’s SLICE office will be on-site to announce the races and keep those of us at home informed of what’s going on at the corner of Tech & Frew. And of course, alumni, students and parents in the Discord will almost certainly provide some commentary of their own.
Saturday, May 1 – Saturday will begin with a normal session of Rolls from ~6:15-7:45AM. 3 teams – Apex, CIA, and PiKA – will be in attendance during the regular rolls session. At 7:45AM, Apex and CIA will pack up and go home to prepare for Sunday. In their place, Spirit will attend and will collect their official times from 7:45-8:45AM. PiKA will remain on the course at that time but will not have their times recorded on Saturday. Instead, they will collect additional practice rolls in preparation for their timed runs on Sunday (keeping them in the order will also give Spirit a breather between races).
Sunday, May 2 – Sweepstakes will be timing heats all morning, beginning at ~6:15AM. 6 teams – Apex, CIA, Fringe, PiKA, SDC, and SigEp – will be in attendance, and each of them will be competing for the grand prize (along with Spirit’s times from Saturday). Each team will have their Women’s push team go first, one at a time, until the roll order has been completed. Once the order has been completed, then each Women’s team will push a second time. Once all of the Women’s teams have gone, those pushers will leave and be replaced by the Men’s teams (and for certain teams, buggies and drivers will be swapped as well). The process will then repeat for the Men’s teams. Each roll will be 5-6 minutes gun-to-gun. The roll order (which is based on the heat selection order) will be as follows:
- Apex
- SigEp
- Fringe
- CIA
- PiKA
- SDC
Once all of the rolls have occurred and the times are in, Sweepstakes will officially crown the 2021 winners. And if you can’t attend, just stay tuned to cmubuggy.org, where you’ll get all of the highlights and results from the day.
So with that, who do you think will win Raceday 2021? How do you feel about a year of time trials, after all of the back-and-forth about it in the past? Do you have any questions about the set-up? Let us know if the comments below or on Discord.