The weather this week made up for the total rain-out last weekend with two gorgeous sunny mornings in the 50s. The Zoo made it out on the course, so we’re up to 8 teams. This was another week of collaborative rolls-reporting, and the much of the same crew came through this time. Many thanks go out to Ben Matzke, Zachary Waldman, Andrew Hundt, and Katherine Crawford for notes, pictures, and radar gun data. That’s right, radar gun data. Keep reading for the numbers on the early-season speed demons and a number of incidents and conflagrations.
In Attendance
| Org | Saturday | Sunday |
|---|---|---|
| AEPi | Kamikaze | |
| CIA | Ascension, Freyja, Renaissance, Quasar | Ascension, Freyja, Renaissance |
| Fringe | Bonsai, Borealis, Banyan, Blizzard | Bonsai, Borealis, Banyan, Bedlam |
| KapSig | Apache | |
| SDC | Bane, Malice, Rage | Bane, Malice, Rage |
| SigEp | Mamba, Barracuda | Mamba, Barracuda, Pandora |
| SigNu | Skua | Skua |
| Spirit | Zuke, Seraph, Fuko, Haraka | Zuke, Seraph, Haraka |
Saturday Observations (Saturday Gallery) Continue reading
2 weekends of rolls in the books and we’re up to 7 orgs, we’re seeing some speed, and also the usual assortment of challenges to overcome. This also marks the first edition of our collaborative rolls report format. I was out of town and a these fine folks stepped up and got the job done for us: Ben Matzke, Zachary Waldman, Hannah Rosenblum, and Andrew Hundt. I also very much appreciate everyone who contributed pictures (either by uploading them which is still a bit tedious, or by sending me a link to their collection). Without further ado or any editing on my part …
I hope the rolls report faithful weren’t too distraught today given the lack of rolls report following an exciting truck weekend. As you may remember, after truck weekend the large and well compensated BAA staffers spend the night producing an in depth and comprehensive report for our generous supporters: the Members-Only Raceday Preview. Lucky for you, there’s still time to become a member or renew your membership via our 
SAE had a gnarly wheel failure while entering the chute on Saturday. It looked familiar in many ways to the failures Spirit and CIA had and it ups the expectation that the road quality will inflict some casualties this raceday. SAE has their act together though, and they whipped up a spare in time for rolls on Sunday.
Fringe and CIA both lost rear hatches in the chute. Figure out those tape strategies before next week everyone! On a general note, chairmen, take a moment and remind everyone in your org how they can avoid DQing the team. Sounds simple right, but every year there are tons of DQs for stupid stuff. Don’t be in the stupid club next week.
SigEp had some cool looking transponders on their buggies. I’m guessing they were GPS or accelerometers of some sort. Barracuda was flying all weekend so I’m guessing the data looks good no matter which variables they were measuring.
Fans in the chute were fairly well entertained this weekend. Not to be lowbrow about it though, there was lots of speed on display and some thrilling driving. Both SDC and PiKA’s RD2011 are routinely drifting through the turn at full speed. PiKA was losing big chunks of rubber in the process but rolling out well. AEPi hit the inside curb after the hay bales in what looked like a visibility issue. SN’s Skua ended the semester of rolls with a distinctly squirrely entrance line and then a pretty quick spin that sent her into the bales tail first. SDC took the cake for most exciting incident without even stopping when Avarice swung out all the way outside and tapped the bales with her outside rear wheel with enough force to throw some hay in the air. The recovery was truly impressive though as she got back on track and managed to roll out a number of windows. Youtube of those three below.
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.
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.