For what has so far been a disappointing start to the year, Pittsburgh finally decided to cooperate and give us our first clear days of rolls.
Despite being incredibly cold, Rolls happened and come Sunday, some teams had already kicked it into high gear. Despite this, both days were a little slow going with some teams going slower than usual, and others having steering difficulties getting through the chute. Overall, everyone was excited to have rolls going again and with only two regular weekends left, teams will need to work hard to make sure everything is in tip-top shape for Raceday.
In Attendance
(The new roll count list hasn’t been posted, so this list might be inaccurate.)
| Org | Saturday | Sunday |
|---|---|---|
| Apex | Phoenix | Phoenix |
| AEPi | Kamikaze | |
| CIA | Ascension, Orca | Impulse, B1r, Orca, Ascension |
| Fringe | ||
| PiKA | RD2013, Chimera | RD2013, Chimera |
| SDC | Vice, Bane, Avarice, Malice | Vice, Bane, Avarice, Malice, Rage |
| SigEp | Pandora the Explorer, Peregrine, Mamba | |
| SigNu | Bungarus Krait | Krait |
| Spirit | Kingpin II, Seraph, Haraka, Fuko | Kingpin II, Haraka, Fuko |
| No-Shows | ROTC, SAE | AEPi, ROTC, SAE |
Observations (Saturday Gallery | Sunday Gallery) Continue reading
It’s the last weekend of fall rolls and from what I can tell it was a flurry of activity both days. The teams will now have a chance to sleep in on the weekends instead of sleeping in the afternoons, and make up all those assignments they neglected. By assignments, I of course mean builds, and from what I hear, there’s the potential for several this year. Only time will tell who will come out with new buggies when.
To follow the weather, the teams decided to match the weather and showed their own version of bipolar. There were no incidents on Saturday and having forgotten my tripod for the stream, I was able to get a lot of different pictures from around the course. The continuous rolling made the frigid morning a bit more bearable. With the warm weather on Sunday, teams seemed to lose their cool and we saw a few crashes and spins.
It was Homecoming this weekend which brought back buggy alumni from around the area. Some new along with some veteran made for a fun Sunday morning after a rained out Saturday. Unfortunately, Sunday saw its own issues delaying rolls until 8:00am, after which, everything went about as well as it ever has.
Saturday saw a flurry of activity from the orgs, and also the Pittsburgh community. No new and exciting wildlife this time, just a pack of bikers, flock of runners, a car, and a police bike that sat and watched from the curb. The car came through from panther hollow and took a quick right down towards the pond. Word on the course is that the bikers came through the Westinghouse barricade. Fortunately, none of it was out at the same time as a buggy and if anything just caused some minor delays. The newest addition to the course was what I can only guess to be a Phipps staff member sweeping up trash on all the parking spaces. He seemed very calm though all of it and was only called off the road when he started to stray close to potential buggy lines.
PiKA made their return this weekend and joined the other orgs to make it 6 for the day. All orgs have been picking up speed and some people are taking advantage of the extra practice that comes with so few buggies on the course. This will hopefully make for an exciting show come Cèilidh next weekend.
Sunday was the only day of rolls again this weekend, but this one is thanks to the diabetes walk that happens every year, so it’s not like we didn’t see this one coming. Next week we only have Saturday and from then on we should be back to the full weekend. With so few scheduled days to start with, and fewer still that will likely happen due to Pittsburgh doing what Pittsburgh does best, I’m interested to see how this will affect the spring, if at all.
Sweepstakes (I assume it was them) also made some nice giant signs to help alert people of the weekend closures.These signs allowed Sweepstakes to get things running on Sunday and things ran well. Aside from the typical shenanigans that accompany the first day of rolls, everything ran incredibly smoothly and some drivers are already maxing their fall rolls. It was an exciting day for everyone and the surrounding wildlife, so lets get into some of the details.