Rolls Report: March 23 & 24 – New Buggies Galore

Posted on | by Natalie McGuier | 5 Comments on Rolls Report: March 23 & 24 – New Buggies Galore

After two weekends off thanks to spring break and missing permits, Buggy was back on this weekend. However, the Pittsburgh police did not grace us with their presence on either Saturday or Sunday. While the rules now state that Rolls can go on without them, it made for increased traffic at the chute barricade. Interestingly, as we understand it, the police feel it necessary to be at evening push practice, and their absence has caused cancellations of push practice. To quote one of our local alumni “what gives?”

Saturday was clear, dry, and cold with temperatures in the upper 20s. Sunday was a much “better” day weather wise with less wind and temperatures above freezing. Ben Brown out with a modified speed trap design at the monument getting some great results that we hope to share with you soon.

Sweepstakes had a nearly full dance card this weekend, with everyone but SAE out on Saturday and the full horde out on Sunday with a couple new buggies to boot. Several teams were putting in full Hill 1’s and 2’s in preparation for the rapidly approaching Raceday. While this is about when we would expect teams to breaking out the full push-offs, buggies just aren’t going as fast as we might predict. As the temperatures rise, we hope that speed will too.

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Carnival Events Schedule – A Guide for Buggy Fans

Posted on | by ben

We are rapidly approaching what’s bound to be another awesome Carnival weekend and if you haven’t already, take a moment to register and sign-up for all the great events that are being set up for you! Scrolling through the Spring Carnival schedule, you might notice that a few regular buggy events aren’t listed there… Well that’s what THIS POST is for! Below you’ll find a list of every important buggy event and BAA activity happening this weekend. We know Carnival is a busy weekend with a lot going on, so we hope to see you at what you can make, and if you’re looking to connect with your old team, email us (admin@cmubuggy.org) and we’ll do what we can to connect you!

A brief plug: These races happen because of the generosity of volunteers who are willing to donate an hour or two of their time. Please consider helping us this year and let us know via THIS FORM.

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Ending their Term #2 – Meet our Head of Communications

Posted on | by ben
Just a few days ago, you met our Head Reporter, but she’s not the only one completing her term and with nominations now open let’s take a moment to learn about another of our amazing officers! The BAA operates solely on the generosity of the alumni and the few who donate their time for a couple years to keep things running. If you are interested in any of these roles, would like to challenge someone’s position, or know someone who would fit the role, nominate by clicking the button below!

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Ending their Term #1 – Meet our Head Reporter

Posted on | by ben
Since the end of the year right around the corner, and all the excitement of Raceday building up, we’d like to take a moment to learn about some of the positions with officers who will be rolling off the board this year. To kick things off, in place of the rolls report while the kiddos are still on spring break, let’s learn a bit more about what it takes to be the Head Reporter.
With this post, nominations for next year’s officers are also now open. The BAA operates solely on the generosity of the alumni and the few who donate their time for a couple years to keep things running. If you are interested in any of these roles, would like to challenge someone’s position, or know someone who would fit the role, nominate them via the form below!

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Raceday is coming and the BAA wants you!

Posted on | by Natalie McGuier | 4 Comments on Raceday is coming and the BAA wants you!

Raceday is upon us and as the students scramble to get in those last precious rolls, perfect wheel treatments, and finish paint jobs, the BAA committee is working to organize services and events that you have come to love during Carnival. But, none of it is possible without the amazing volunteers like you!

We are looking for volunteers to participate in the WRCT pre-Carnival broadcast (Wednesday April 10 at 8pm), participate in the Design Showcase panel (Thursday April 11 at 12:30pm), and volunteers to help us around the course during preliminaries and finals (Friday April 12 and Saturday April 13).

If you can donate even an hour of your time, please sign up. Volunteers will be rewarded with our eternal gratitude, the satisfaction of making Raceday great, and a small but tangible token of the BAA’s appreciation.

 

Click the button and let us know what you can help us with!

 

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Author’s Note: If my Photoshop skills were better, there would be a great image of Ben Matzke wearing stars and stripes angrily pointing a finger at you.

 

Rolls Report: March 2 & 3 – Why is there still snow?

Posted on | by Natalie McGuier | 7 Comments on Rolls Report: March 2 & 3 – Why is there still snow?

It was a cold Saturday morning, with temps were hovering just around freezing and overcast skies hid the sun. Road conditions have not improved as the freeze-thaw cycle of a typical Pittsburgh winter continues to chew up the concrete around Flagstaff Hill. Sweepstakes appeared to resort to drying the course with a roll of paper towels prior to rolls.

Teams seemed to be scared away by the low temperatures and attendance on Sunday with only PiKA, SDC, Fringe, CIA, Spirit and Robobuggy turning up to roll. In addition all the teams were generally sticking with 1 – 2 buggies per roll. With all those factors we completed a whopping 8 full roll-orders.

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Rolls Report: Feb. 23 – Above Freezing

Posted on | by Natalie McGuier

It was another beautiful winter-turning-to-spring weekend last week in Pittsburgh. Temperatures creeped to just above freezing to reach an almost comfortable 33F. Unfortunately, Sunday Rolls were cancelled due to wet forecasts. It did rain between Saturday and Sunday, but high winds ended up being the real danger on Sunday.

With Raceday just 6 weeks of questionable weather patterns away, teams are beginning to take a serious look at their Hill 2 push offs. Unfortunately, the pot holes along the hill make it exceedingly difficult to get much definitive information. Perhaps next year we can introduce a new sport: Buggy Slalom Races.

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99th Raceday is Around the corner + Sweeps & BAA Updates!

Posted on | by ben | 3 Comments on 99th Raceday is Around the corner + Sweeps & BAA Updates!

Hey there buggy fans! Spring semester has sprung and already first rolls have kicked off as you might’ve seen. There are a number of important things happening in the buggy and BAA world that we want to tell you about, so let’s dive right in!

Sweepstakes Leadership Update

We might’ve mentioned this at the start of the year, but the fall Chairman (Hunter) has now graduated and the then Assn’t Chair (Joyce) has taken over for the Spring. To fill her place, the first chairman’s meeting included a near unanimous approval of the new Assistant Chair, Willie from Pi Kappa Alpha. The interesting component here is that Willie requested to be allowed to push on Raceday. Under the expectation that additional past sweepstakes members will be on hand during the Races, Willie will remove himself from any judgments regarding the men’s races.

BAA Leadership Terms Ending

We’ve mentioned this before, but a reminder never hurts, this year we will have 3 officers ending their second 2 year term and a few others finishing up their first. After Raceday this year, we will be looking to elect new people to be our: Head Reporter, Communications Lead, and President. At this point, we have a solid team where each person only has a couple responsibilities throughout the year so if you have any interest in what we do behind the scenes, please feel free to reach out and we’d be happy to tell you more!

The BAA only exists thanks to our devoted membership and the few that are willing to put in a little extra for just a couple years, and thanks to these people, our impact has made huge differences in the sport that we all love!

Carnival Registration is now OPEN

That’s right, if you’re headed back for Carnival this year, you can now register HERE. We’ve got another slate of great events for you this year as well as a few surprises in the works for #99! Here are a few highlights for you to whet your appetite:

  • Showcase Panel is back! – Last year’s panel was a great success, and we can’t wait to hear more stories, keep an eye out for when we put out the call!
  • Finals Auction in Person – We tried this last year and, though low attended, was enough fun for those that made it that we’re giving it another go.
  • Tom’s History of Buggy – The perennial favorite, Tom Wood will be back with his fantastic talk with focuses on each of the reunion years.
  • Reunion Races – We are working to coordinate a new race this year between the major reunion years, so if you’re headed back for your 5, 10, or 25th reunion, we would like to hear from you!

 

That’s all for now, more great info to come soon!

Rolls Report: Feb. 17 – Chilly Return to Rolls

Posted on | by Natalie McGuier

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s that time of year we’ve been waiting for since that time last year: spring rolls are here! Sort of.

Wintry weather on Saturday had Buggies in hibernation for one extra day this past weekend. By Sunday the temperatures had warmed just enough to coax 6 teams out to the course. The first roll was in a chilly 21F, but by the end of practices it was a balmy 24F. Our on-scene reporter relayed that it was “quite chilly if you didn’t have a wind breaker.” So, take that as you will.

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Rolls Report: Nov. 18 – Mini Raceday!

Posted on | by Natalie McGuier

This weekend saw some wet weather and Mini-Raceday! Rain and unsafe road conditions thwarted Saturday Rolls, but the demon Pittsburgh weather gods smiled on the undergrads, gracing the course with a balmy 35F and dry conditions for Sunday morning.

Sunday started with a long delay, as Sweepstakes became aware just after chairmen’s meeting that the entire second row of hay bales were missing from the inner Chute. The organization assigned to this chore had put out only one row. The delay lasted until approximately 7:18 with Sweepstakes and other organizations proving additional hands to get bales in place. Despite these delays we made it through the roll-order five times nearly without any incidents.

For Mini-raceday, Sweepstakes was timing the first Buggy of every org, timing from the crosswalk, Hill 3 line, and finish line. We don’t have the official times from Sweepstakes, but we can say that Fringe had two of the three fastest times of the day and was rolling slightly faster than SDC, CIA, and Spirit. From SDC, Malice was the only Buggy rolling fast, but none of those out had times resembling Raceday speeds. Spirit was by far the most consistent team rolling, with each of the Buggies moving at fair clips. CIA might have put up fast times all around if they were racing Equinox and Emperor up Hill 1. The proximity prevented the trailing Buggy from driving her course. All-in-all the teams performed how we might expect. We’ll be looking to Fringe, SDC, Spirit, and CIA this spring to starting tearing up the course.

Unrelated: Best pusher nickname of the morning: “Daddy Long Legs”

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