Can you believe it, Buggy fans? Raceday 2017 is a mere week away! Much like our buggies, time seems to be speeding up as we approach the pinnacle of buggy-lover activities. Every org but one was out and getting in those last few rolls before Truck Weekend. Though, it seems that several teams are waiting on their duct tape orders to arrive. Ethan G (report writer and radioman extraordinaire) amassed quite the collection of hatches and various buggy bits that came loose in the chute.

If you arrived at rolls before 6:30 on Saturday, you’d have seen about 100 vehicles on the course as EMS borrowed our closed roads to do some training for their drivers. Rolls scheduled to start earlier this weekend were delayed on Saturday by course works and confusion on the roads as we scrambled to get the flaggers to their positions before their buggies were rolling. There was a little chaos and many teams were not prepared as Sweepstakes called for first roll.

Triple Buggy Spin – The major incident on the course this weekend occurred Sunday during a joint PhiDelt and Apex Roll. After passing Panther Hollow bridge and the transition flaggers the driver of the lead PhiDelt buggy felt, or heard something that upset her enough to put on the brakes. After applying the brakes the buggy went into a spin and came to a stop in the middle of the roadway. Unfortunately they were being closely followed by 2 Apex buggies ‘Ember’ and ‘Kyle’. Upon seeing stop flags Ember applied the brakes and pulled left, spinning around and coming to a stop against the sidewalk. ‘Kyle’ seeing this attempted to steer to a wide right of the pileup and applied the brakes as she headed towards the monument. ‘Kyle’ at this point also spun around and came to a stop leaving 3 buggies facing the wrong direction just upstream of the monument. EMS cleared all the drivers for be pushed through but this very unexpected turn of events results in a significant rolls slow-down.

In Attendance 

Observations (Saturday Gallery | Sunday Gallery) Continue reading →

As promised (and only a day late), here is the timing data as acquired and analyzed by Shafeeq. As a reminder, this system works by taking a video and extrapolating speed as a buggy passes through two designated points in the frame. “Steps” refers to the steps towards the end of the Freeroll between the monument and chute flagger. “Meter” refers to a point approximately half way though the Chute. % Speed Lost is a estimation of the amount of speed a buggy bleeds off making the Chute turn. It is not terribly surprising that the fastest teams into and out of the Chute (in order) are: SDC, Fringe, Spirit, and CIA. Based on these preliminary numbers, SDC’s Malice will be the buggy to beat in two weeks.

With only 16 days until Raceday 2017, spring has officially appeared to have sprung in the ‘Burgh giving us warm but often rainy weather. Saturday rolls were cancelled due to excessive precipitation, but Sunday was upper 30’s and sunny. The cooler temperature resulted in slower roll times all around, but teams were still taking practice seriously. While we were missing several Greek teams due to Greek Sing, 6 human teams and 2 robotic buggies were out and rolling this weekend. 

In anticipation of April Fools’ Day one of our more dedicated reporters prepared a number of possible report openings and post titles. Despite not rolling on the first, they were too good to share:

• Rolls consisted of drivers pushing the follow car down Frew street where unsuspecting flaggers were forced to catch them and send them back up Schenley drive.
• Flush with success from greek sing a triumphant AEPi returned to buggy claiming to be the only fraternity capable of winning the triple crown. Kamikazi was caped and ready to roll.  
• A belligerent Sam Swift appeared at this roll with Blackjack demanding to be let onto the course insisting that the BAA was a legitimate team and this was always why he made the organization.
• SDC PAINTED A BUGGY IN 2 COLORS!!!!
• PIKA PAINTED A BUGGY SOMETHING OTHER THAN BLACK!?!?
• FRINGE BUGGY WITHOUT A ‘B’ NAME?
• AEPi NEW BUGGY?

Back to more serious things:
The ‘trench’ in the chute continues to dramatically slow buggies down as it tosses the lighter vehicles and drivers, since this Quick Crete conduit cover spans the entire roadway it is totally unavoidable. While some of the heavier buggies seem unaffected, it’s sure to be a good test if you have all your hatches in place. Make sure your drivers are wearing their mouth guards -this one will jump right up at you.

Buggy alumni were out in droves this weekend trying to get not one, not two, but three timing systems working. Ben M. teamed up with Lou C. to get the laser-based system created by Mark Estes functional. They continued to run into some issues getting all the transmitters to talk to each other, but are hopeful to have the system up and running in time for Raceday. Ben Brown was out getting his speed trap tested, but didn’t have much luck with his system. Finally, Shafeeq S. was manning his battle-tested photo-based system. We have data from Shafeeq, which will be posted on Wednesday. 

In Attendance 

Observations (Sunday Gallery) Continue reading →

Spring has sprung! Since hanging up the stop flags and climbing harnesses in November for the long winter, we’ve had only one occasion to roll thanks to a lack of attendance, freezing temperatures, and various forms of uncooperative weather. We went from having to cancel rolls for sub-freezing temperatures to waking up Saturday and Sunday morning to sixty five degree weather, before dawn. Leave the coats at home, let’s roll some buggies!

The Safety Chair politely reminded the teams that starting their pass testing earlier rather than later was a good idea. Consequently, Sunday’s rolls could have made for excellent day time TV: You get a pass test, and YOU get a pass test! EVERYONE ATTEMPTS A PASS TEST! There were pass-tests all day today cumulating in 7 successful passes.

Buggy alumni were out timing this weekend trying to grab some empirical data for the imminent heat-selection. We were tweeting about the efforts, but some data is more impenetrable than others. Take care not to disturb the trip-wires too much during rolls, this data collection is for your benefit.

In Attendance 

Observations (Saturday Gallery | Sunday Gallery) Continue reading →

Rolls were canceled late Friday night with an unfortunate message regarding Sweepstakes leadership health. Sunday morning got underway still lacking Sweepstakes Chair Enosh, who has a bad case of Pokérus brought on by the the recent update to Pokémon (Here is Enosh at the Dallas Regional).

It’s looking warm for the start of Spring Rolls this semester. It was a brisk 40 degree low as everyone climbed out of bed for the first time since the winter hibernation. T-shirts were seen on many pushers while those with more stationary jobs were still forced to bundle up. Temps climbed to 50 degrees with the rising sun.

While it didn’t rain overnight the few orgs in attendance were treated to a sopping wet road surface. Speculation abounds about the cause; high pressure fronts, temperature differentials, sabotage by the shadow government, regardless rolls were delayed until 7:10 to give the streets some time to dry out.

In Attendance

Observations (Sunday Gallery)
Continue reading →