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.
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): 2015 Rewatch
This week, the 100 Years of Buggy History series takes a look at 2015. Paved roads helped a bit, but a lack of practice rolls plus a deteriorating Frew Street and a rebuilding year led to a shock on the Women’s side and the closest (and slowest) race on the Men’s side in roughly 40 years. Meanwhile, more bad accidents led to an increased focus on buggy safety, while wheel experimentation reached it proverbial peak.
Before we start, it’s Carnival Weekend! And even though we can’t all meet in person for Raceday 2020 this year, Sweepstakes and the BAA have put together a VIRTUAL RACEDAY 2020! Virtual Raceday 2020 will run from noon-3:30pm ET, and will include Race Showcases (including some videos that you’ve never seen before), Live Commentary from all of your favorite broadcasters, an Alumni Panel, Live Trivia (with prizes!), Class of 2020 Recognition, Interactive Content, and plenty more! So join us on Saturday at Noon ET in our Zoom webinar here, or in our live simulcast at cmubuggy.org/live.And if history is more your thing (and if you’re reading this, maybe it is), Tom Wood will be giving his annual History of Buggy presentation on Sunday at noon ET as part of Virtual Carnival 2020. You can register for his presentation here, or visit cmu.is/carnival for more information.
One more 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): 2014 Rewatch
This week, the 100 Years of Buggy History series focuses on 2014. It’s the 100th anniversary of Carnival! But a scary crash cast a pall over Raceday, while poor road conditions and wet weather led to tons of craziness on the day.
A quick reminder that along with these History of Buggy posts, we’re also doing a Raceday Rewatch! The 2013 Raceday Rewatch will begin at 5pm ET on Friday, April 10, and you can join us live on YouTube at this link (or rewatch it on your own later): 2013 Rewatch
This week, the 100 Years of Buggy History series focuses on 2013. Rain caused plenty of confusion this year, once again leading to a single official day of Men’s racing and an interesting answer to a trivia question. In addition, the number of Women’s teams had grown large enough to expand the Women’s Finals.
Last week, we added a companion to this 100 Years of Buggy History Series – a Raceday Rewatch! While many of us are stuck at home, we will be continuing to do these weekly Rewatch events. This week’s Rewatch of Raceday 2012 will take place at 5:00pm ET on Friday, April 3, and you can join us here. If you were around for Raceday 2012, let us know and we’d love to get you onto the stream as well (rather than just chatting along). If you’re curious, last week’s Rewatch of Raceday 2011 is available here.
This week, the 100 Years of Buggy History series takes an in depth look at 2012. What was expected to be another close race didn’t quite turn out that way, as SDC began a stranglehold on the top trophies that would continue for the rest of the decade, including a record or two in the process. Plus, as one independent organization leaves for good, a group of freshman decide to start one of their own.
PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania, April 1 – Following last week’s mysterious and unlikely predictions actually coming true, Sweepstakes made the emergency decision to move Raceday 2020 up 2.5 weeks, and the races were completed this morning.
As you may recall, last Wednesday a man claiming to be a future version of CMU President Farnam Jahanian requested that, for the sake of humanity’s future, Raceday 2020 needed to be moved to the beginning of April. The Sweepstakes Committee, skeptical of this claim, demanded proof in the form of 3 upcoming events that would normally be unlikely to occur. But after all 3 incredibly unlikely predictions – that the Pittsburgh Penguins would lose a game, that the Pittsburgh Pirates would win a game, and that Harry Styles would shave his head – all came true over the weekend, Sweepstakes had no choice but to heed Future-Farnam’s warning and move Raceday.
Farnam Jahanian of the year 2040 showed up on CMU’s campus to warn that, for the sake of humanity, Raceday 2020 needed to be moved up. After some other unlikely predictions came true, Sweepstakes made the move.
cmuTV and WRCT were both on the scene for Raceday, providing audio and video coverage of the races. Unfortunately, a squirrel who had a run-in with Fringe’s Blind Faith earlier in the semester finally got his revenge, as he snuck into the production truck as soon as Raceday was about to begin and chewed through the wire that enabled the audio and video feeds to be broadcast over the internet. The damage also prevented cmuTV from recording the video for future broadcasts, leaving the general public with no audio or video footage of Raceday. Only those on the course were able to see the races. Luckily, this reporter stumbled out of bed at 3am for a leisurely stroll around Flagstaff Hill and managed to catch all of the races, to be able to bring this report to you! I was joined by intrepid Raceday photographer Men Batzke, who was able to capture a few photos from Raceday to share. Below is a recap of Raceday 2020.
This week, the 100 Years of Buggy History Series hones in on 2011. 2011 unfortunately brought with it a large buggy exodus. But 2011 also had an incredibly surprising battle at the top between the defending champion and the would-have-been defending champion, and all it took to win was the fastest recorded freeroll in history.
Well, the disappointing news to come out this week is that Raceday 2020 has been cancelled (more on that here). But while we originally planned for this series to take us right into Raceday, the cancellation doesn’t mean that the 100 Years of Buggy History will stop. Instead, it gives us more time to get through the last 10 years. So we press on, but instead of combining 4 years into one post, now we’re going to stretch out these last 10 years (the BAA Era) to let them breathe a little more. This week, we’ll take a look at 2010, which saw a couple of new additions to the course, some work by the BAA to make Raceday more enjoyable, and of course, one very controversial decision by Sweepstakes that toppled what was arguably the deepest roster to ever compete in Buggy.
