Carnival and Raceday 2019 are upon us! Pittsburgh’s weather has finally picked a season and it should actually feel like a Spring Carnival this year. The warm, dry weather was a boon for teams scrambling to get in their last few rolls this past truck weekend. Hopefully, the rain will hold off just long enough for an amazing Raceday.

This coming weekend we will see 9 organizations battle it out with 24 women’s teams and 28 men’s teams. A complete listing of the 10 women’s heats and 13 men’s heats can be found here.

Following tradition, you won’t be getting the details of last weekend’s practice as we are sending out the much anticipated Raceday Preview tomorrow. This year our dedicated team at the BAA has compiled team summaries, photos, alumni interviews, predictions, and other buggy-goodness into one amazing document. You may be asking yourself how you can get your hands on such an amazing piece of Buggy Awesomeness. The answer is simple: pay your BAA dues ($10)! BAA dues go a long way to helping us keep you up-to-date on the latest buggy news as well as provide critical support to the current students. Plus, you get the Raceday Preview; that alone is worth the $10. You can join the BAA or renew your membership here.

We would feel bad if we kept all the news from Truck Weekend from you, though. Below you’ll find the attendance from Rolls and timing data from a video-based system.  We’ll let you pore over the numbers and make your own predictions for RD2019!

In Attendance

Org	Saturday	Sunday
Apex	#lit, Azula, Phoenix, Firefly	#lit, Azula, Firefly
CIA	Equinox, Tempest, Icarus, Aurora	Emperor,Equinox, Tempest, Icarus, Aurora
Fringe	Blueshift, Bumper, NB19	Blueshift, Bumper, Boson, NB19
PhiDelt	Argo	Argo
PiKA	NB19, Cliodhna	NB19, Banshee, Cliodhna
SAE	Eileen
SDC	Bane, Vice, Vanity	Bane, Vice, Vanity
SigEp	Kraken, Barracuda, Beyonce, Hydra	Kraken, Barracuda, Beyonce, Hydra
SigNu	Krait	Krait
Spirit	Kingpin, Seraph, Inviscid	Kingpin, Seraph, Inviscid

Observations (Saturday Gallery | Sunday Gallery)

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After two weekends off thanks to spring break and missing permits, Buggy was back on this weekend. However, the Pittsburgh police did not grace us with their presence on either Saturday or Sunday. While the rules now state that Rolls can go on without them, it made for increased traffic at the chute barricade. Interestingly, as we understand it, the police feel it necessary to be at evening push practice, and their absence has caused cancellations of push practice. To quote one of our local alumni “what gives?”

Saturday was clear, dry, and cold with temperatures in the upper 20s. Sunday was a much “better” day weather wise with less wind and temperatures above freezing. Ben Brown out with a modified speed trap design at the monument getting some great results that we hope to share with you soon.

Sweepstakes had a nearly full dance card this weekend, with everyone but SAE out on Saturday and the full horde out on Sunday with a couple new buggies to boot. Several teams were putting in full Hill 1’s and 2’s in preparation for the rapidly approaching Raceday. While this is about when we would expect teams to breaking out the full push-offs, buggies just aren’t going as fast as we might predict. As the temperatures rise, we hope that speed will too.

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It was a cold Saturday morning, with temps were hovering just around freezing and overcast skies hid the sun. Road conditions have not improved as the freeze-thaw cycle of a typical Pittsburgh winter continues to chew up the concrete around Flagstaff Hill. Sweepstakes appeared to resort to drying the course with a roll of paper towels prior to rolls.

Teams seemed to be scared away by the low temperatures and attendance on Sunday with only PiKA, SDC, Fringe, CIA, Spirit and Robobuggy turning up to roll. In addition all the teams were generally sticking with 1 – 2 buggies per roll. With all those factors we completed a whopping 8 full roll-orders.

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It was another beautiful winter-turning-to-spring weekend last week in Pittsburgh. Temperatures creeped to just above freezing to reach an almost comfortable 33F. Unfortunately, Sunday Rolls were cancelled due to wet forecasts. It did rain between Saturday and Sunday, but high winds ended up being the real danger on Sunday.

With Raceday just 6 weeks of questionable weather patterns away, teams are beginning to take a serious look at their Hill 2 push offs. Unfortunately, the pot holes along the hill make it exceedingly difficult to get much definitive information. Perhaps next year we can introduce a new sport: Buggy Slalom Races.

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Ladies and gentlemen, it’s that time of year we’ve been waiting for since that time last year: spring rolls are here! Sort of.

Wintry weather on Saturday had Buggies in hibernation for one extra day this past weekend. By Sunday the temperatures had warmed just enough to coax 6 teams out to the course. The first roll was in a chilly 21F, but by the end of practices it was a balmy 24F. Our on-scene reporter relayed that it was “quite chilly if you didn’t have a wind breaker.” So, take that as you will.

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This weekend saw some wet weather and Mini-Raceday! Rain and unsafe road conditions thwarted Saturday Rolls, but the demon Pittsburgh weather gods smiled on the undergrads, gracing the course with a balmy 35F and dry conditions for Sunday morning.

Sunday started with a long delay, as Sweepstakes became aware just after chairmen’s meeting that the entire second row of hay bales were missing from the inner Chute. The organization assigned to this chore had put out only one row. The delay lasted until approximately 7:18 with Sweepstakes and other organizations proving additional hands to get bales in place. Despite these delays we made it through the roll-order five times nearly without any incidents.

For Mini-raceday, Sweepstakes was timing the first Buggy of every org, timing from the crosswalk, Hill 3 line, and finish line. We don’t have the official times from Sweepstakes, but we can say that Fringe had two of the three fastest times of the day and was rolling slightly faster than SDC, CIA, and Spirit. From SDC, Malice was the only Buggy rolling fast, but none of those out had times resembling Raceday speeds. Spirit was by far the most consistent team rolling, with each of the Buggies moving at fair clips. CIA might have put up fast times all around if they were racing Equinox and Emperor up Hill 1. The proximity prevented the trailing Buggy from driving her course. All-in-all the teams performed how we might expect. We’ll be looking to Fringe, SDC, Spirit, and CIA this spring to starting tearing up the course.

Unrelated: Best pusher nickname of the morning: “Daddy Long Legs”

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No, you’re not reading the post title wrong, there were indeed 2 days of Buggy this week. Teams graced the course both Saturday and Sunday getting in some chilly practice before ice and snow descend upon the ‘Burgh. Whether it was due to uncomfortable wind chills (< 28 F) or internal reasons, only 5 teams, including Robobuggy, made it out on Saturday. By 7:30am, the small number of Saturday teams couldn’t keep up with the designated roll order and organized chaos replaced the roster. While the temperature still sat below freezing on Sunday, the wind had died down and the course was dry.

One of the more entertaining events of Saturday (from a spectator’s view) was Sweepstakes trying to remove 2 patches of ice from the Chute. After kicking and scraping at the ice failed, they turned to leaf blowers. Unfortunately, leaf blowers only pump out slightly-warmer-than-ambient air. They were eventually able to defeat the ice using a combination of hand warmers and hot packs. The effort was well-worth it as we saw no accidents in the Chute. The Saturday breeze was strong and regular enough to shove the barricades onto the course at both ends of Schenley drive (Hill 2 and Chute turn)

To give an idea of the chill in the air, one reporter overheard a pusher grumbling “I think my earrings are frozen to my ear.”

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And we’re back! Due to some unfortunate weather patterns, absentee alumni, missing permits, and Halloween, Buggy reports have been on hiatus for the better part of the last month. Despite the ever dropping temperatures, Buggies finally found their way back to the course and we had a full weekend day of rolls!

Saturday practice was cancelled, but not for lack trying on Sweepstakes end. The call didn’t come until 1am when it was clear that the weather wasn’t going to cooperate. The dreary weather failed to dampen the teams’ spirits and spectators were treated to some mechanics and pushers dressing up in the spirit of Halloween. The wet weekend was a ghoulish nightmare for the sweepers, who had to put in some extra elbow grease to remove soggy leaves from the Chute. This caused a slight delay in the start time.

I have a note here from our reporter on the scene that the quote of the day was: “Only the Friwizard can wear the hat!” Not sure what that means, and sadly we don’t have a picture to go with the quote. 

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Apologies for the delay in reporting, folks. The usual writers for the weekly Rolls Report all became terribly distracted with our real jobs…

Due to lacking permits, Buggies were only rolling this past Sunday, but the teams just packed a full weekend of enthusiasm into one day. Pittsburgh’s weather was still functioning on its own calendar and by 6am it was a balmy 74F. Though, the warm temperatures allowed some teams to pick up some decent speed and impressive roll outs for this early in the season.

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