The rain held off for long enough to squeeze the women’s finals run starting earlier than scheduled at 8am. A quick downpour doused the crowd waiting for the men’s heats to begin, and sweepstakes called it. SDC takes both the Men’s and Women’s crowns for 2012.
More wrap-up later! Enjoy the rest of carnival!
Prelims were pretty awesome. We’re hoping Finals will happen and be awesome despite the threat of rain. Here’s the deal with what happened and what is scheduled to happen.
| Heat | Lane 1 | Lane 3 |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | SigEp A | SDC C |
| 2 | SDC B | Spirit A |
| 3 | SDC A | CIA A |
| Heat | Lane 1 | Lane 3 |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | PiKA A | SDC C |
| 2 | SigEp A | Fringe B |
| 3 | SDC B | Spirit B |
| 3 | Fringe A | SigEp B |
| 3 | SDC A | CIA A |
Our 4th annual lead truck auction will draw to a close tonight at 9pm, so get your bids in early and often to secure your ride. We do have a “reserve bid” system if you want to set a maximum and let the computers do the work.
We’ve raised a total of $471.38 so far (all future bids in whole dollars please, wise guys), and here are the current prices.
Heat 1 $1 by yanetut (CIA, '98): SDC C CIA C FringeC 2 $1 by joe (Beta): Spirit A SDC D Apex A 3 $0 by nobody: SigEp A Fringe B CIA B 4 $20 by twood (PiKA): Pika A DF A SigEp B 5 $0 by nobody: SDC BCIA D Spirit B 6 $1 by joe (Beta): Fringe A SigEp C SAE A 7 $5 by CRStengel (SDC): SDC A CIA A Aepi A
Heat 1 $10 by ziolko (Fringe, '00): Fringe B SigEp C Spirit C 2 $25 by twood (PiKA): Pika B SDC D CIA D 3 $26 by joe (Beta): Spirit A Apex AF ringe D 4 $11 by mark_estes (SN): SDC C SigNu A CIA B 5 $1 by ATHundt (Fringe, '09): SigEp A Aepi B Fringe C 6 $2 by lchomas (CIA): SDC B SAE A CIA C 7 $100 by twodd (PiKA): Pika A SigEp D Spirit B 8 $25 by pdesiderio1780 (CIA): Fringe A CIA A DF A 9 $5 by Perrypierce (?): SDC A Aepi A SigEp B
Order of selection 1st $10 acharters87 2nd $2 hopke 3rd $2 hopke
Order of selection 1st $100 twood (PiKA) 2nd $31 mark_estes (SN) 3rd $30.00 abigailsullivan (Spirit) 4th $27.69 ATHundt (Fringe) 5th $26.69 ipmcc (SN)
If you’re a member you should have found our legendary Members-only Raceday Preview in your inbox by now. Enjoy it. If you didn’t get a copy, you should know that it’s not too late. Join up, forward us the gift receipt to join@cmubuggy, and we’ll hook you up pronto. If you thought you were a member, maybe we don’t have your email or have it wrong or something, let us know. Lots of people plan on joining while they’re on campus, but we’ve got some serious ground to cover to match last year’s membership total, so don’t be shy.
Can you believe this is our 4th time putting on the lead truck auction? It seems like just the other day that we announced the first iteration of our biggest fundraiser of the year. It continues to be a fan favorite, so we’re back at it again. If you haven’t ridden in the lead truck before, you should definitely get in the mix and snap up a heat you like the looks of. If you’re a veteran, you know that it’s a great way to mix up your raceday experience. Bidding starts tomorrow morning at 9am and will run for 36 hours until 9pm Wednesday. Full description of the rules can be found on the auction page. We’ve got a new version of our home-grown auction software this year. We hope you like it! (and that it doesn’t break!).
It’s the time of year when exciting buggy things start happening pretty much every day. I hope you’re not trying to get any work done, because today is one of those days.
Since we unveiled cmubuggy.org 2.0 just over a year ago, the video section has been one of the less talked about, but most used new parts of the site, tallying 47,300+ videos watched. The deal we have with cmuTV is that we wait a year before we add their excellent coverage to our ever-lasting online archive. Hopefully many of you have already bought a DVD from CMUtv to add to your personal collection, but now we’ve also got them all organized, online, and for the most part integrated with our history database. Without further ado, I give you:
If you prefer the native youtube experience, you can find the full Raceday 2011 playlist here.
Sneak Preview of upcoming excitement …
Teams took advantage of two full days of brisk but dry weather to close out the “regular season” of freerolls. Most teams got all of their drivers qualified and are ready for truck weekend which is coming up fast. Thanks this week to Ben Matzke and Shafeeq for the notes on rolls as I was out of town again. If you’ve got pictures or additional observations (especially from Saturday), don’t be shy, share!
In attendance
| Org | Saturday | Sunday | Qualification Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| AEPi | Kamikaze | Kamikaze, Zephyrus (6 rolls + PT) | |
| Apex | Insite | Insite | Insite (1 roll + PT) |
| CIA | Orca, Ascension, Freyja, Firebird, Quasar | Orca, Ascension, Freyja, Firebird, Quasar | Orca, Ascension, Freyja, Firebird (2 drivers), Quasar |
| DeltaForce | Perun | Perun | |
| Fringe | Bissa, Bonsai, Borealis, Bedlam | Bissa, Bonsai, Borealis, Bedlam | Bissa, Bonsai, Borealis, Bedlam |
| PiKA | Raptor, Chimera, Zeus | Raptor, Chimera, Zeus | |
| SAE | Rubicon | Rubicon (3 rolls + PT) | |
| SDC | Bane, Avarice, Malice, Rage | Bane, Avarice, Malice, Rage | Bane, Avarice, Malice, Rage |
| SigEp | Mamba, Peregrine, Pandora | Mamba, Peregrine, Barracuda | Barracuda, Mamba, Peregrine (1 roll), Pandora (2 rolls) |
| SigNu | Krait | Krait | Krait |
| Spirit | Zuke, Seraph, Haraka | Zuke | Zuke, Seraph, Haraka |
Observations (Saturday Gallery | Sunday Gallery) Continue reading
It may have been April 1st, but there’re no pranks here, rolls happened on Sunday, they were fun, and we’ve got the details for you. Saturday was rained out, but in one day we got more headline material than the last couple of weeks put together. One new buggy, one radical renovation, one new team on the course, one new animal-theme paint job, and a spin for good measure. Lots of alumni in the chute and following along with our live streaming broadcast was just icing on the cake.
In Attendance
| Org | Sunday |
|---|---|
| AEPi | Kamikaze, Zephyrus |
| Apex | Insite |
| CIA | Orca, Ascension, Firebird, Quasar |
| DeltaForce | Perun |
| Fringe | NBXII, Bonsai, Borealis, Bedlam |
| PiKA | Raptor, Chimera, Zeus |
| SDC | Bane, Avarice, Malice, Rage |
| SAE | Rubicon |
| SigEp | Mamba, Peregrine, Barracuda, Pandora |
| Spirit | Zuke, Seraph |
| No-Shows | SigNu |
Observations (Sunday Gallery) Continue reading
After almost two full weeks of ridiculously beautiful weather while the kids took two weekends off for spring break, Pittsburgh slapped the reality back into us with a cool down and enough rain to cancel Saturday’s rolls. Sunday was still overcast but dry, and 8 of our teams made it out the morning after greek sing for four cycles through the order. I was out of town on Sunday, so big thanks to Zatch and Vincent who supplied the bulk of the narrative and all of the multimedia. Read on for the details of a Fringe buggy out of retirement, some new PiKA wheels, and a couple of chute mishaps, but no new buggies!
In Attendance
| Org | Sunday |
|---|---|
| AEPi | Kamikaze |
| Apex | Insite |
| CIA | Ascension, Freyja, Firebird, Quasar |
| Fringe | Bonsai, Banyan |
| PiKA | Raptor, Chimera |
| SDC | Bane, Avarice, Malice, Rage |
| SigEp | Mamba, Barracuda |
| Spirit | Zuke, Seraph |
| No-Shows | Delta Force, SigNu |
Observations (Sunday Gallery) Continue reading
This idea has been in the works for a while, but now it’s happening, and just in time. When we helped introduce Jumbotrons to the course in 2009, it was a fun experiment. Now it’s practically a necessity. Can you imagine not being able to see what was going on in the chute while you’re at hill 2? Actually, most of you probably can because you were around before 2009, but I think we can agree it’s a pretty awesome addition.
The only problem is that Jumbotrons and other pro-spectator efforts like our printed Raceday Guide don’t come cheap. A pair of jumbotrons for the weekend is in the neighborhood of $10k. Printing 2,000-3,000 color copies is more than most people can pull off on the sly at work. We’ve kicked in $1,000 each year from our Lead Truck Auction, and Alumni Relations has contributed, but much of the rest has basically just put Sweeptakes into the red each year. That’s not sustainable.
Luckily, raceday is an exciting event with lots of eyes from high quality demographics, and we think that there are lots of companies out there who would love to help support buggy and be part of such an important event at CMU. We will be introducing a number of sponsorship opportunities this year for the first time, and we hope your company wants a piece of the action. Most notably, both jumbotrons will have sponsorship banners flanking the screen, and our printed raceday guide will carry sponsored logos.
Some of the spaces are already sold, but we’re looking for more support. Download this PDF and show it to someone in your company who makes these decisions. It briefly explains what buggy is and has rates for the different placement options.
You might notice that raceday is not that far away and that we need commitments even sooner (2 weeks from today!). We realize corporate decisions don’t always happen this fast. We hoped to have this together quite a while ago, but it’s our first time in this arena. If your company loves the idea but can’t make it happen, we understand. If you can make it happen … awesome, let’s do it!
After two weeks off for spring break, we find ourselves right in the heat of things with just 4 weeks to go. Push practice started this week and has enjoyed absurdly comfortable March temperatures. Rolls are scheduled for all 8 remaining days before raceday, so lets hope the good weather continues unabated. So that’s how our 10 (hopefully 11, SAE?) orgs are preparing, what are you doing to get in shape? Nothing yet? Don’t worry, we’ve got some ideas for you:
We’re making T-shirts for the first time since 2008, and I think you’re going to want one. They will be available at carnival and we got a great deal which we’re passing on to you:
