Welcome to Sweepstakes 2026! Dan Becerra, your duly elected rolls reporter, back for another year where I will do my best to report on the teams, the incidents, and the storylines leading up to Raceday (April 9 & 10!). This is the earliest calendar date for rolls since the BAA has kept records of this (back to at least 2008). Kudos to the five large independent orgs and Robobuggy making a quorum for this early first weekend. Read on to see which buggies came out this year including at least one not seen for a while!

Blue skies, empty lawns, and a group of people staring at one very specific patch of road – it’s buggy season!

• Road Conditions- As this is the first roll of the year, we take a long look at the roads to see what surprises Pittsburghers have left us over the summer. This year, we had several asphalt patches that were sticking up aggressively near the approach to the stop sign. These seem to be avoidable or have been ground down enough by this weekend. We also now deal with the continued deterioration of the bollards to mark the bike lane through Schenley Drive and Frew Street. Several have worn out such that the city had to bolt them down (which delayed rolls on Saturday as we searched for the right tool to remove them). And there there was a mysterious, fibrous something stuck to the road by the stop sign. Flora or fauna, no one was sure. But brooms, plyers, towels, and hands were all necessary to remove it.

Most of these have been flattened by the pothole fairies

• It’s not all bad, you can see in the above photo the main part of the road was repaved, from the end of Hill 2 up to the stop sign. The very beginning of the freeroll might get more interesting if folks want to stay on the new asphalt for longer. Barricaders were relatively busy as the fall runners were out in force, but no one came close to causing any issues.
  

First roll of the year went to Robobuggy

• Teams were very efficient getting up to speed for the returning drivers and bringing out new drivers. Saturday with the road cleaning we didn’t start until 7:50, but Sunday we got through the rolls order 7-8 times! And 7 new drivers (from 3 different teams) earned rolls this weekend. Congrats to the new drivers! And there were nearly no incidents with that many new drivers, doubly impressive. Well done, driver trainers!

At least one pusher from SDC was taking things seriously!

• Apex. Apex had a combo of 4 buggies over the two days. They got rolls for 3 new drivers in Solaris, Molotov, and Scorch respectively. Saturday, Solaris (with 4 bags) nearly caught Helios (with 2 bags) in the chute. All bags are clearly not created equal. Helios was moving quicker by Sunday & bagless. Molotov had many bags, and was removed from the course each time after the freeroll. Mechanics were there to collect it in the chute, and extract the driver. As BAA Events Chair James Wong said- it was a throwback to the old days- a chute pit stop!

Helios Hill (H)five

• CIA. They rolled smoothly as they started getting drivers up to speed. By the end of the weekend Kingfisher, Starling, and Goldfinch were all bagless. CIA brought out an impressive number of pushers for the very first rolls of the year.

Starling’s pushbar taking this pusher airborne

• Fringe. Fringe brought the surprise of the weekend, with the return of Blind Faith, last raced in 2021 (although seen on the course in Spring Rolls 2023). A new driver was caped in Blind Faith and got her first roll Saturday. Good to see Fringe reaching into the Froom for the depth. Blackbird and Baltic rounded out the roster this weekend.

no photo of blind faith, we will work to correct that

• Robobuggy. Robobuggy was rolling both days, and they resumed their position in the regular rolls order. Each time around the course they would have a pusher jog all the way around the course behind their buggy, before removing it from the course at the bottom of Hill 3.

NAND starting things off

• SDC. SDC was out with 2 returning drivers. Lust and Paranoia both shed their bags by Sunday and were moving very well, quick enough to see just the hint of the characteristic SDC fishtail on Paranoia one roll. SDC is already working on lines as evidenced by their filming crew out in the chute, recording their own rolls. By later Sunday they had 3 videographers down there with the alumni.

Lust Let Go

• Spirit. Spirit introduced 3 new drivers to the course this weekend. It was evident when a new driver was rolling as you could hear the cheers from the follow car as they navigated the chute! Only one incident was reported, a stop in the vicinity of Panther, presumably one new driver still getting the hang of the turn timings.