How do you know it’s late March in Pittsburgh? 1) It was 20 degrees or less at rolls 2) 8 of the 11 orgs put up their fastest time of the semester this weekend (and the other three were the 1 buggy orgs). The cold was killing walkie-talkie batteries, fogging windshields, and fogging my brain, but impressively the buggies were flying.
In Attendance (buggies newest to oldest, all buggies qualified with at least one driver)
| Org | Saturday | Sunday |
|---|---|---|
| AEPi | Robobuggy | Robobuggy, Kamikaze |
| CIA | Ascension, Frejya, Renaissance, Quasar | Ascension, Renaissance, Firebird |
| Fringe | Bonsai, Borealis, Bedlam, Blizzard | Bonsai, Borealis, Blizzard, Brazen |
| KapSig | Apache | |
| PiKA | RD2011, Nemesis, Knightfall, Zeus | RD2011, Nemesis, Chimera, Knightfall |
| Pioneers | Chaos | Chaos |
| SAE | Rubicon | |
| SDC | Bane, Avarice, Malice, Psychosis, Rage | Bane, Avarice, Malice, Psychosis, Rage |
| SigEp | Mamba, Pandora | Mamba, Peregrine, Barracuda, Pandora |
| SigNu | Skua | Krait |
| Spirit | Mapambazuko, Seraph, Fuko, Haraka | Mapambazuko, Seraph, Fuko, Haraka |
Observations (Saturday gallery) Continue reading
All of a sudden spring break is behind us and we’re in the 4 week sprint to raceday. We stodgy alumni thought the kids were taking a bit of a gamble not scheduling rolls for either weekend of spring break, but it seems to have worked out pretty well for them. The first weekend of the break would have been entirely rained out anyway, and the skies were clear this weekend so it’s all good. Saturday was one of those super slow days with no clear culprit, but everyone shook off the rust by Sunday and put nearly twice as many buggies down the hill in the same amount of time. We’re up to 11 rolling organizations, and 5 new buggies in the class of 2011 (plus Apache from the late fall); raceday must be near.
Melting snow and rain kept teams off the course on Saturday, but Sunday was exciting enough to make up for it. Pika joined the new buggy 2011 club (with a standard tryke no less!) and Spirit entertained the chute crowd with a hat trick of spins and a rarely seen mechanical failure. Enough intro, let’s get to the details.
The cold finally showed up for Halloween weekend with rolls temperatures around 37, and with daylight savings time still in effect we’re down to about 60 minutes on the course. Sunday was cancelled in advance to make way for parties, so we’re still batting an impressive 9 for 10 so far this semester against inclement weather. Only 6 orgs made it out, so an hour was enough to get through the roll order 3 times. If I’m not mistaken, this was the first day of the year with no incidents at all, that’t not very ghoulish.
Teams must have read the 
Orgs decided that there would be no rolls on Sunday because of mid-semester break, and even Saturday was a minimal crew of the most dedicated folks (or maybe the folks least skilled at planning something fun for mid-semester break). SDC took the weekend off, and most teams had fewer buggies than normal except CIA whose 4 rolling buggies represented 25% of those on the course. The fall weather is starting to kick in as it was about 40 degrees out there, but we’re still getting lucky on the precipitation.
More perfect fall weather set the scene for a solid weekend of rolls with a SDC, Spirit, SigEp, AEPi, and the citizens of Pittsburgh stepping up and giving us some things to talk about.
One part fog and one part rain made for an interesting but brief weekend of rolls. Fog is usually an issue at daybreak that then burns off as rolls proceed, but on Saturday it was backwards. Rolls started clear and then pressed on through a thickening blanket. Sunday’s rolls were cancelled on Saturday night in light of the oncoming rain which did materialize from 5-8am.