Less than 1 week until raceday, which means that we at the BAA are busy preparing your Raceday Preview for RD 2024.
In order to make sure you recieve the 2024 Raceday Preview, as well as all other BAA communications in the leadup to raceday, we wanted to push a few gentle reminders:
If you have already renewed your membership but are not getting our BAA Membership newsletters (most recently, our Winter newsletter on Dec 27), it’s possible that we have an out-of-date email address on file. Please use our Membership Update Form to let us know, and we will get this corrected.
If you haven’t already re-upped your BAA membership for 2024– now is as good a time as any! If you are renewing within the couple of weeks before raceday, please also use our Membership Update Form to let us know, so that we can get you on our membership list ASAP.
Other things you can do to satisfy your Raceday prepper needs:
Join our discord to talk about the race with your fellow fans. Alumni, students, and all other buggy fans are welcome!
Check out our Podcast. Season 5 of CTS has some amazing episodes covering topics from the new Sweepstakes advisor, to how the video broadcast got its start in the early 00s.
For our last full Rolls Report of the year (if you want the full Truck Weekend report next week, make sure that you’re a member so that you get the Raceday Preview), we’re pleased to report that we finally got a full weekend of Rolls in! The threat of weather was looming all weekend, and rain on Saturday afternoon and evening did leave the roads a little damp on Sunday morning. But for the first time this Spring, orgs rolled on both Saturday and Sunday. And not only did they roll both days, but they were incredibly efficient. In fact, the 10 human-driven organizations that came out this weekend combined for 163 total rolls across the weekend. And while there were a couple of issues, for the most part teams put themselves in great position for full speed ahead on Raceday.
Rolls were so busy this weekend that even Flat Stanley was trying to get qualified.
PITTSBURGH, PA – After a contentious, four-hour long debate at a Chairman’s meeting today, Sweepstakes Chair Ale Bonacini announced that “Raceday 2024” has officially been renamed to “Buggy Day 2024”. Raceday, the traditional name used to describe Carnegie Mellon’s Sweepstakes race held during CMU’s Spring Carnival festivities, had been in use since by students, staff, and alumni for several generations, with its first reported use in writing going back to 1965. Planning was well underway with the “Raceday 2024” branding for the upcoming April 12-13 event. But after a tense meeting and a 7-6 tiebreaking vote, the Chairpeople decided to buck that trend and set out on a new course.
The motion to rename the races to “Buggy Day” was initiated by Fringe. “We believe that Buggy would be better off by branding the bout between bitter rivals with the best alphabetical beginning, best it be bestowed the byname Buggy Day”, said Fringe Chair Winona Wang. The motion was quickly seconded by SigNu, whose representative stated that “our alumni have been way too involved, telling us about how much better things were in the old days. We need some independence, and what better way to do that then to wipe the slate clean and rebrand the race?” SigNu’s rep wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal by their vengeful alumni.
The discussion then turned a little more heated, as PiKA and SDC voiced their objections to the proposal. SDC Chair Matthew Garcia made a point that seemed to resonate with several teams, stating that “we already ordered our shirts that say ‘Raceday 2024’ and there’s not enough time to get a new design printed and shipped!” “We’ve been racing since 1921, and we’ve been calling it Raceday since 1921” said PiKA Chair Christian Lanuza. “It’s Raceday. That’s what it is. ‘Buggy Day’ sounds like something that a person who was attending their first Chairmen’s meeting ever would say!”
Teams seemed to fall into one of two camps, with newer teams favoring the name change and more established teams favoring tradition. As AEPi Chair Elijah Cohen put it, “the only reason we stopped doing Buggy was due to confusion – our brothers thought ‘Raceday’ was referring to the Mobot races, so we’ve been dominating that for several years. With the name ‘Buggy Day’, we’ll be back to racing buggies!”
After several hours of debate, Sweepstakes officially took a vote, with Fringe, SigNu, AEPi, Apex, and DG supporting the name change and Spirit, CIA, SigEp, PiKA, and SDC opposing. Teams spent another hour lobbying the remaining teams, and each side believed that they had crafted a convincing argument. When the votes were tallied however, more chaos ensued. The Spirit-led group pushing to keep the name Raceday had convinced SAE to side with them, but the Fringe-backed group pushing for the name “Buggy Day” had convinced newcomer Frontier. This left the vote deadlocked at 6, at which point Sweepstakes no choice but to leave the decision up to Sweepstakes Advisor Stacie Gardner, who ultimately decided to approve the name change. With her decisive vote, Stacie stated that “for years, people have been mocked, ridiculed, and slandered for mis-stating the name of the day when buggies race around CMU’s campus. Today, we put an end to buggy bullying. From now on, the day that buggies race will be known by the name that everyone expects it to be called – ‘Buggy Day’.”
The name change is set to go into effect today, April 1, 2024. Sweepstakes has already announced, however, that they are looking into voting irregularities involving SAE and Frontier, so stay tuned. Regardless, we at the BAA are here to keep you up to date on both this year’s Buggy Day activities and historical Buggy Day Results.
With less than 3 weeks to go until Raceday, teams were full steam ahead this weekend trying to get everything up to speed. This meant that, for the first time all year, every single team was on the course on Sunday. Of course, 2 days would have been even better, but the Pittsburgh weather gods decided that’s not allowed this Spring, and brought rain on Saturday morning. Sunday was clear and nice…except that the temperature was in the mid-20s. But that didn’t scare off the 12 orgs and 24 drivers from getting in as many rolls as they could on Sunday. And for the most part, things went pretty smoothly.
Spring break has come and gone, and with students back on campus, this weekend brought Buggy back to CMU! After a few weeks off for weather and Spring Break, this weekend brought warmer weather on Saturday…and then a rain storm early Sunday morning that caused Rolls to be cancelled (only to be filled with sunshine throughout the rest of the day). But it wasn’t just the buggies that had been rolling before Spring Break that were out. We saw a few brand new buggies make their debuts, as well as a couple of older buggies making their return to the course for the first time this year.
This picture-filled Rolls Report is brought to you by…the fact that no one uploaded photos to our gallery. Please upload them if you have them!
Can you feel the excitement? — we’re about a month out from raceday!
If you’re going to be in town, we could certainly use your help. Volunteers are essential to making raceday happen, wether it is helping to staff the BAA table, assist with timing, or working as commentators. If you’ll be around we need your help to make raceday a success!
With the last weekend before Spring Break, mother nature decided to play a cruel trick on teams. Sunday rolls were cancelled early in the week due to expected temperatures in the low 20s, but teams decided to brave the upper 20s on Saturday to get some practice in. Unfortunately, teams couldn’t get as many trips through the roll order as they probably hoped. Scratches, stops, and snow led to a short, cold day of rolls for 8 racing orgs (and 1 robot).
It was a “proper pushing attire is a winter coat” kind of morning.
Punxsutawney Phil didn’t see his shadow last week, which can only mean one thing – Buggy is back! While you were preparing to watch the Chiefs battle the 49ers, or Usher’s Halftime Show, or Super Bowl Commercials, or Taylor Swift, buggy organizations were waking up early and ringing in the Spring semester with some Rolls! The plan was for 2 days, but a last-minute rainstorm on Saturday morning caused Rolls to be cancelled. But things cleared up for Sunday, allowing for 7 organizations to come out and get well on their way to qualification for Raceday 2024.
No shadows and a bunch of flags means that Buggy is back!
Spring Freerolls are starting up again. Here’s the best ways you can stay informed about what is happening:
Join us on our discord and you’ll see a few real time photos, as well as occasional discussion.
We expect to continue to post rolls reorts, either join our Discord to get notified by chat, or subscribe to baa-news to get them in your inbox.
If you’re in Pittsburgh, 2 more things just for you:
The buggy-watchers list is the best way to find out about times and cancellations, so you can attend to watch in person.
If you’re there, we’d love to hear your notes and observations, as well as share any photos you take. Doesn’t need to be super detailed — every little bit helps! Details at https://cmubuggy.org/rollsreporters.
Finally, we’d love to have a dedicated rolls reporter coordinator. You do not need to be local to do this! If you’re interested in helping compile notes and photos, get in touch on discord!
