Even though orgs were definitely more short-staffed than usual, teams brought out their best holiday spirit and had both students and buggies dressed in costumes. Read on for all the details, plus catch the video report here!
Mini Raceday is coming up and slated for November 14 and 15 — if you’re in Pittsburgh and want to help out with collecting timing splits, reach out to Rob (robsiemborski@cmubuggy.org)
| Org | Saturday | Sunday |
|---|---|---|
| Apex | Helios, Kerosene, Molotov | Scorch, Molotov, Kerosene |
| CIA | Goldfinch, Roadrunner | Emperor, Roadrunner |
| Fringe | Baltic, Beetle, Blind Faith | Blackbird |
| Robobuggy | Short Circuit, NAND | — |
| SDC | Vice, Lust, Avarice | Bane, Lust |
| Spirit | Inviscid, Zuke, Kingpin | Inviscid, Zuke, Kingpin |
Photos: Saturday Gallery (upload)) | Sunday Gallery (upload))
General Observations
- The birds migrate south — or wait, is it north? This weekend CIA’s flock (and Apex) relocated their staging areas to the bottom of Hill 1. Meanwhile, the Canadian Geese began encroaching on the road by transition flag on Sunday.
- Daylight Savings Time has ended, so while we had a very short day of rolls on Saturday, we had a full 135 minutes of rolls on Sunday. This combined with having fewer buggies overall after Halloween meant we got through the rolls order a full 9 times
- However, the weekend festivities also kept as many students from coming to rolls on Sunday — according to the Sweeps chair: “you can tell its Halloweekend, usually I have 100 people on Zello and today I have 57”
Team Observations
- Apex — Apex has been improving over the past several weeks of rolls and is currently sitting as one of the teams to watch going in to Mini Raceday. In addition to maintaining 3-deep buggy rosters over both days (resorting to using alumni and ironmen to balance the pusher deficit on Sunday), their buggies have been rolling well and without issue. They’ve also improved on pace, now keeping up similar speeds and roll ups to Spirit.
Apex brought an eclectic mix of costumes with their buggies, and we’re still trying to figure out if that was a canonical Duo.
- CIA — While Apex seems to be on an upswing, CIA seems to be trending the opposite direction. Emperor put up good speed, but Goldfinch was running slower than usual on Saturday. CIA usually carries out a pretty deep roster, but we’ve seen the number of students thin as the semester goes on. They may just be winding things down as the weather gets colder, but hopefully we see them back in full force soon.
For costumes this year, CIA brought out a classic — the stop flag — along with a partner costume that was missing its match.
- Fringe — On the short Saturday, Fringe brought out 3 buggies, and worked to get all of them pass tested throughout the morning. This makes them the 2nd org behind Apex to get all their buggies to do so. Sunday, Fringe only rolled Blackbird, but made effective use of the longer day and fewer buggies. With a different driver from last weekend, former Sweeps chair Rebecca Dettmar was able to rack up 9 rolls, enough for carryover into the spring. Rumor on the street is that they’ll be driving the students in the Sweeps v BAA heat…
For the most part, Fringe leaned into the “dress your buggies as other teams buggies” theme
- Robobuggy — We saw Robobuggy on Saturday in a similar state to where they were last weekend. They continued to have some abrupt control issues at the end of the chute, which almost looks like a spin. This week their Hill 3 pusher got dragged along, doing a somersault when their buggy ended up facing the curb. Short Circuit trouble further up the back hills as well, hitting the curb. No costumes from Robobuggy 😔
- SDC — We aren’t quite done with new buggies making their return to the course. On Sunday, SDC brought out Bane, which hasn’t been out since Raceday 2025. Meanwhile, we saw all the buggies that they rolled this weekend at least once without bags (including Bane). This means we get a chance to start to compare their speed and times against the other teams, which will be even more informative with Mini Raceday coming up.
SDC pulled off the most cohesive group costumes of all the org, dressing each buggy up as a My Little Pony
- Spirit — This year, Spirit has started strapping more items down the spine of their buggy. On Saturday, they had a loss of mass when one of their boxes fell off — luckily, there was a break in the rolls order between them and Fringe for their follow car to retrieve it. For the rest of the news from this weekend, I fear I’m starting to sound like a broken record. Both Zuke and Inviscid rolled well, while Kingpin continued to struggle. While last week they had difficulty with the windshield fogging, this weekend they had issues with goggles fogging. Towards the end of Sunday, KP also scratched against the curb before turning in to the chute, but didn’t stop and finished out the roll.
Spirit went for a “things that fly” theme
Thanks to Guillermo and Rob for pictures, video, and notes this week!
If you’d like to come out to gather notes or pictures during rolls, feel free to sign up here. Links to upload photos are there, and if you would like to be credited, reach out via email (data@cmubuggy.org) or on Discord (@Barsham). Additional notes and corrections to this report are welcome, reach out via email (jameswong@cmubuggy.org) or on Discord (@jamestwong)