The weekend started on a sour note as Saturday got cancelled on account of snow early in the morning. Fortuantely, someone still got use of the roads as the crash test SURG project was able to test their setup by running a weighted mock buggy into the haybales at speed. There was no data gathered, but the results were still spectacular. Sunday was frigid, but lacked snow allowing teams to roll. Many drivers seemed to be having trouble with sun glare going up the backhills. Teams have only one regular weekend left before Truck to get the rolls they need. We can only assume that there will be several more exemptions than normal this year, the only hope being that it doesn’t also cause an increase in incidents.
In Attendance (Qualified with at least one driver)
| Org | Saturday |
|---|---|
| AEPi | Kamikaze |
| Apex | Ember, Phoenix |
| CIA | Equinox, Icarus, Orca, Impulse, Ascension |
| Fringe | NBXV, Bissa |
| PhiDelt | Perun |
| PiKA | Banshee, Raptor |
| SDC | Vice, Bane, Avarice, Malice |
| SigEp | Kraken, Barracuda, Pandora |
| SigNu | Bungarus Krait |
| Spirit | Inviscid, Seraph |
Observations (Sunday) Continue reading
Finally able to kick off the year, all teams were out on Saturday for the first Day of Spring rolls. After weeks and weeks of cold and icy roads, the weather finally cooperated long enough for Saturday. For some reason there were no permits for Sunday, so even though the weather was nice enough, teams were forced to sleep in and/or stay warm. As it happened, this Saturday was also Greek Sing which made it even more impressive to see the teams (including the frats) in mostly full force. Clearly the teams understand what needs to get done in this extremely short lead-up to Raceday.
With Saturday being sub 20 degrees, rolls were cancelled by Friday afternoon, but Sunday warmed right up and made for a surprisingly pleasant last day of rolls. Rolls were delayed early on due to wet roads and some teams were a little more hesitant than that and waited to see how everyone else did before giving it a go.
Now that teams have some extra daylight savings time, they got a chance to square off against each other and compete in a slightly early Mini-Raceday. Sweepstakes managed to get timers out for all splits around the course and teams got to get a rough time for front hills, Freeroll, backhills, and overall (if they did all 3). Some teams seemed burned out by Mini-Raceday and Sunday quickly turned into a free-for-all of roll-arounds for the teams willing to put in the effort. Teams that rolled both days were rewarded with a relatively warm morning after a quite frigid Mini-Raceday.
Saturday was called off for all the Halloween shenanigans leaving teams only with the extra long, daylight-savings-adjusted Sunday. Despite there only being 6 teams out, they managed to rack up a full 90 rolls around the course. After a smooth start to the morning, things got more hectic as teams scratched for a break in the madness causing a cascade of scratching as teams weren’t ready for the quick turn around.
After a few weeks of smooth, calm rolls, taking the midsemester weekend off seemed to undo all of that with several spins and some scary crashes. On top of that a truck made it onto the course and an ambulance was called for the second time this year. Teams are moving faster and apparently drivers are still working on keeping their control through the chute in some cases, and in others drivers continue to race through or spin out while stopping for flags when they’re thrown. There are 4 potential weekends left for teams to make their move, but after a weekend like this, we are looking to see who returns and who might not.
It was another one day weekend for buggy this time because of the conflict with the Great Race that consumes most of the length of Forbes ave. Not to be deterred, teams made a fantastic showing on Saturday with a few surprises from some of them. Like the first weekend, everything rolled smoothly with only one major mishap early in the morning and even that is hard to call major.