Rolls Report – Truck Weekend

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 8 Comments on Rolls Report – Truck Weekend

Sweepstakes was able to pull off two successful days of rolls this weekend, despite some delays. Many organizations were able to complete their qualifications for Raceday.

Saturday, April 11 – all orgs present (Saturday’s pictures here)
Sunday, April 12 – all orgs but Beta present (Sunday’s pictures here)

While the proposed start time of rolls was 6:20, rolls did not officially begin each day until approximately 6:50. By some mis-communication, Pittsburgh Police did not think rolls were taking place this weekend. This delayed closing the roads until CMU Police could send 1 or 2 officers and organizations could send volunteers to man the four sets of outer barricades. Saturday was further delayed by a sprinkling of rain at 6:55. It cleared quickly, and rolls were able to start at 7:05. Continue reading →

Rolls Report 4/4 and 4/5

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 21 Comments on Rolls Report 4/4 and 4/5

The last regular weekend before truck weekend was a pretty good one, nice and long with 2:20 of daylight and temperatures starting in the low 30’s but the sun warmed things up quickly.

Saturday
In Attendance (11 Orgs, 26 Buggies)

  • Beta: Problem Child
  • Spirit:Fuko, Haraka, Seraph
  • Fringe: Banyan, Brazen, Bedlam
  • PiKA: Chimera, Knightfall, Zeus, RD09
  • SDC: Psychosis, Envy, Malice
  • KDR: Perun, Powder, Polaris
  • AEPi: Kamikaze, Camo
  • SigNu: Skua
  • SAE: Rubicon
  • CIA: Firebird, Mirage, Conquest
  • SigEp: Pandora, Barracuda
  • PhiKap: Svengali, Schadenfreude

Observations
Continue reading →

Rolls Report 3/28

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 5 Comments on Rolls Report 3/28

I’m guessing a lot of people went to sleep thinking that rolls would be canceled Saturday morning, but Sweepstakes found a way to make it happen.  The light rain didn’t stop until around midnight, but the roads were only a little damp by 7am.  Orgs were required to bag buggies their first time through the roll order to keep speeds down to a safe level while things continued to dry.  Safety conscious Pioneers skipped their first 2 times in the roll order while CIA scratched for the entire day.  The slower speeds with the bags seemed to confuse some drivers, as buggies were consistently turning earlier and sharper than usual at the Chute flag during the early rolls.

Observations (check out the full gallery from Saturday here)
Continue reading →

Rolls Report 3/21 and 3/22

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 6 Comments on Rolls Report 3/21 and 3/22

First, sorry for the delay in getting these posted. Going out at night and getting up for rolls both days in a weekend is tough to maintain when I can’t just sleep all day in between like I did back in the day.

New Buggies Galore
With five more buggies coming out for the first time this weekend, we’ve reached a total of 7 in the buggy class of 2009, the  most since 2004, when there were 8. Continue reading →

Buggy Times, 3/21/09

Posted on | by carsenkline | 7 Comments on Buggy Times, 3/21/09

Aside from the Rolls Report, here at Buggy Alumni HQ we’re coming up with ways to feed your inner gambler. One way we’re doing this is by taking times at various spots on the course to give a cross section of team performance. Today we give you times from down in the chute: transistion to chute flag, chute flag to window 0, and a ratio of the first time over the second time. We recorded as many times as our crude stopwatches would let us. Here’s today’s sampling. It was a pretty slow day overall, with SDC and PiKA well off the pace.

The ratio is a number we’re throwing out there to give some idea of how well the buggy maintains its speed in the turn. For example, Mirage came into the chute flag nearly 0.8 s faster than Psychosis, yet Mirage had only a 0.3 s advantage after the chute. Where’d the half second go?

Tomorrow we’ll be looking at a different part of the course.

Freeroll Practice 2/28/09

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 6 Comments on Freeroll Practice 2/28/09

After holding off on the semester of rolls for two weeks because of lower-than-desired temperatures, sweepstakes gave it a try on Saturday at 27 degrees and things worked out just fine.  Sunday was forecast to be colder so they canceled again, although it turned out to be dry and 29 degrees at 7am.

In attendance
PiKA – Zeus, Knightfall, Chimera
Pioneers – Chaos
KDR – Powder, Perun
SigEp – Pandora
PhiKap – Svengali
SDC – Rage, Addiction, Psychosis, and Raceday09
Fringe – Brazen, Blizzard, Banyan, and NewBuggy09
CIA – Mirage, Firebird
Spirit – Haraka, Seraph Continue reading →

Fall rolls end with anticlimax

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 5 Comments on Fall rolls end with anticlimax

Fall rolls 2008 came to a cold and boring end with a pair of cancellations and no mini-raceday for the men’s teams. I know I usually call the current kids wimps for canceling because of cold, but it was 16 degrees, windy, and icy this morning. Fair enough.

Some end of the semester stats :

  • There were 355 total rolls over 6 days (4 days canceled)
  • Sweepstakes averaged 30.6 buggies around the course per scheduled hour of rolls
  • 12 orgs rolled a total of 32 different buggies
  • Fringe (74) and SDC (63) send the most buggies down the hill, while KDR (10) and SAE (8) took the fall a bit easier.
  • The most active buggy-driver combo was Fringe’s Jess in Blizzard with 18 rolls
  • According to one timing source  (additional sources of data welcome), orgs stacked up like this according to their fastest freeroll of the semester
    Continue reading →

Freeroll Practice 11/15-16/2008

Posted on | by kfcrawford | 2 Comments on Freeroll Practice 11/15-16/2008

Nov 15: Rolls cancelled due to rain.

Nov 16: It was cold, but not enough to keep everyone inside. Seven orgs rolled, Spirit had a crash, and Fringe won Women’s Mini-Raceday.

Rolling Orgs (buggies): SDC (4: Psychosis, Addiction, Envy, Rage), Pioneers (1: Chaos), Fringe (4: Bristol, Banyan, Blizzard, Brazen), PhiKap (2: Svengali and Shadenfraude?), CIA (2: Mirage and Firebird), Spirit (2: Haraka and Kingpin?), PiKA (2: Knightfall and ?)
Not Rolling: SAE tried to come out, but were missing their driver.
Continue reading →