No, you’re not reading the post title wrong, there were indeed 2 days of Buggy this week. Teams graced the course both Saturday and Sunday getting in some chilly practice before ice and snow descend upon the ‘Burgh. Whether it was due to uncomfortable wind chills (< 28 F) or internal reasons, only 5 teams, including Robobuggy, made it out on Saturday. By 7:30am, the small number of Saturday teams couldn’t keep up with the designated roll order and organized chaos replaced the roster. While the temperature still sat below freezing on Sunday, the wind had died down and the course was dry.
One of the more entertaining events of Saturday (from a spectator’s view) was Sweepstakes trying to remove 2 patches of ice from the Chute. After kicking and scraping at the ice failed, they turned to leaf blowers. Unfortunately, leaf blowers only pump out slightly-warmer-than-ambient air. They were eventually able to defeat the ice using a combination of hand warmers and hot packs. The effort was well-worth it as we saw no accidents in the Chute. The Saturday breeze was strong and regular enough to shove the barricades onto the course at both ends of Schenley drive (Hill 2 and Chute turn)
To give an idea of the chill in the air, one reporter overheard a pusher grumbling “I think my earrings are frozen to my ear.”
Conditions around the course this Sunday morning were mostly good; warm for rolls and the roadway remained in much the same condition that it was during Raceday. However, the inclusions of construction around the Posner building displaced CIA to the bottom of Hill one. In addition, three dumpsters on the back hills required some extra bales to be distributed and the pushers to be more awake than usual. Well, just awake anyway.
Our new Sweepstakes chairpeople for this year have developed a rotating system of overseeing Rolls. The new chairman, Hunter Rideout, was absent this weekend, but some familiar faces were present: Elyce Milligan, last year’s Assistant Chairman, has returned as Safety Chair, at least for the Fall Semester. Joyce Chen, the SDC chair RD18, has taken the mantle of Assistant Chairman for Sweepstakes. Jasio Santillan is back running things, but we aren’t quite sure of his official position. All of them grooming are “Bonnie” for the safety chair role she will fill in the spring semester. It’s all a little unconventional, but given the breadth and depth of knowledge at the top of the hill, we predict smooth rolling.
The first Roll was scheduled for 7:00am, so the 7:10 start due to some frantic last-minute Chute sweeping was not bad at all. The delay also gave Atlas a chance to sneak in an early Roll. We started the Roll order with 9 teams present, missing only SigNu and SAE from the predicted list. Hopefully we’ll be seeing those teams later in the semester.