Shana Tova to those who celebrate! This weekend marked the start of not only Year 5784 on the Hebrew calendar, but Year 103 on the Buggy calendar! That’s right – We’re back for the 2023-2024 Buggy Season! And what a weekend it was. It was a mix of new and returning this weekend – new and returning students, new and returning teams, new and returning wildlife, and new and returning road hazards.
As we get ready for freerolls to begin, the BAA needs the help of folks local to Pittsburgh. We don’t currently have a rolls reporter, but want to continue to bring updates to the rest of our community. To that end, we’re hoping to get notes and photos/videos from anyone local who can show up to Rolls.
So, if you are local a few things you can do to help:
First, join our buggy-watchers mailing list — this will get updates about when rolls are and are not happening.
Second, in the #assignteam channel on our Discord, claim the Pittsburgh Local rank by sending a message of “!rank Pittsburgh Local“
Finally, sign up for days on which you can provide notes and/or photos on this sheet.
We’re hoping to have at least 1 notetaker and 1 photographer out each day that students are rolling. You don’t have to create Rolls Reports themselves or anything extensive — we’ll handle that. We just need your insight into anything interesting that is happening on a given day.
The Finals Lead Truck Auction is now live! You can click the below link to bid. Please note that this auction will close at the end of tonight’s Buggy Bash at 9pm, so get your bids in quickly.
This auction has closed. Look forward to our finals auction after prelims.
The BAA is once again holding our lead truck auction this year! It’s the one chance you (or a, parent, a spouse, a friend, or any buggy fanatic in your life) have of being right in the middle of the action on Raceday. You’ll sit in the back of the lead truck for whatever race(s) you can win! Proceeds help with all the costs of putting on such a spectacular Raceday, including the BAA’s sponsorship and various broadcast and other improvements.
The auction will go live on Monday at Noon ET. Most things are the same as 2019 (and a description of how it works is below), but with one main change – the auction for the Prelims Heats and the auction for the Finals Heats will be two separate online auctions. The auction for Prelims Heats will open Monday at Noon ET and close Wednesday at 8pm ET. The auction for Finals Heats will be much shorter – it will open after Finals Heats are selected on Friday afternoon, and will close at the end of the Buggy100 Buggy Bash on Friday at 9pm ET. Come join your fellow buggy alumni at the Buggy Bash to share your Raceday experiences, enjoy some refreshments, play some trivia, win prizes, and more! The Buggy Bash begins at 7:00 p.m. ET on Friday, and requires advanced registration. More details will be posted to cmubuggy.org.
But don’t worry – if you’re at the Buggy Bash and you want to participate in the auction, the auction site is mobile-friendly and we’ll have plenty of reminders throughout the night. And unlike the past couple of years, the Finals Auction is being held online, not in person. So you do not have to attend the Buggy Bash in order to participate in the auction.
Click on the button below to access the auction site:
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).
So here we are, at the end of the 100 Years of Buggy History. The goal of this series was to help celebrate the 100th Anniversary of Buggy at Carnegie Mellon by diving into the history of the sport a little deeper than you might otherwise find in the “History” tab on this site. It’s one thing to see that Beta won in 1935 with a course record, and it’s important for the legacy of the sport. But this series wanted to go beyond that. What buggy did they use? Who were the teams that they were battling against? How many heats were run? How close was the finish? And did you know that someone actually tried to sabotage them before the race?
Reminder: Along with these 2010s posts, we’re also doing a Raceday Rewatch, so you can join us at this link on Friday at 5pm ET (or rewatch it on your own later): 2019 Rewatch
This week, the 100 Years of Buggy History series has finally reached the most recent real life Raceday, its original end point. After 99 years of racing and 8 months of articles, we’ve made it to 2019. And what a year it was. In one of the closest battles in history, SDC managed to break the record for longest winning streak, by taking their 8th straight Men’s title, but it wasn’t easy for them as they lost the all-time winningest buggy in the process. We’ve also got some faculty racing, some mascot racing, some wheel-to-wheel racing, some autonomous racing, some incredibly bad luck, and a faceplant for the ages.
Reminder: Along with these 2010s posts, we’re also doing a Raceday Rewatch, so you can join us at this link on Friday at 5pm ET (or rewatch it on your own later): 2018 Rewatch
This week, the 100 Years of Buggy History series reaches all the way back to…2018. The sun shown brightly, but the temperature didn’t follow, concluding a particularly cold and wet winter that limited the number of rolls. SDC romped again, with a record-tying 7th consecutive Men’s victory, and plenty of DQs and DNFs led to a sizable gap from first to second.
Reminder: Along with these 2010s posts, we’re also doing a Raceday Rewatch, so you can join us at this link on Friday at 5pm ET (or rewatch it on your own later): 2017 Rewatch
This week, the 100 Years of Buggy History series dives into 2017. Rain fell early, but not enough to prevent 2 days of racing. And what a 2 days it was, as 2017 ended up as one of the two fastest Racedays of all time, ending with course records (all of which still stand today) in all 3 buggy divisions: Men’s, Women’s, and Autonomous Buggies.
Reminder: Along with these 2010s posts, we’re also doing a Raceday Rewatch, so you can join us at this link on Friday at 5pm ET (or rewatch it on your own later): 2016 Rewatch
This week, the 100 Years of Buggy History series heads to 2016. Newly paved roads and good weather led to lots of practice rolls, which helped some teams on Raceday, but not others. Spring Carnival moved to the buggy course, a missed pushbar decided a winner, and can you guess how many buggies PiKA entered this year? Go Fish.
