Rolls Report: Sept 16 – First day of Rolls

Posted on | by ben | 5 Comments on Rolls Report: Sept 16 – First day of Rolls

Welcome back to Buggy for this Raceday 2013 season!

RIP Sam Swift

For those of you that don’t already know, Sam Swift has moved on from Pittsburgh and with that has passed along the reins of the Rolls Reports to current Pittsburghers. In particular I (Ben Matzke) have taken over the organization of getting these out to you every week. Since I feel I don’t have (or yet have) the same dedication/time that Sam had, I’ll be asking for collaboration from any alumni or current students that attended rolls each weekend. If you are in the Pittsburgh area and attend rolls on any given weekend, please send any interesting notes, funny stories or overheard rumors to me. With that out of the way, lets get into what you’re really here for.

Rolls were slated to start on Saturday, but ran into issues with the new parking meters and their lack of NO PARKING signs. Many buggy fans were disappointed to have a similar start 2 years in a row. Because of this, the Police made some of their temporary signs and taped them to the meters for Sunday.

Sweepstakes (I assume it was them) also made some nice giant signs to help alert people of the weekend closures.These signs allowed Sweepstakes to get things running on Sunday and things ran well. Aside from the typical shenanigans that accompany the first day of rolls, everything ran incredibly smoothly and some drivers are already maxing their fall rolls. It was an exciting day for everyone and the surrounding wildlife, so lets get into some of the details.

In Attendance

Sweepstakes hasn’t posted their roll counts for the year yet, but this is what I remember. And with my memory suspect from those late nights of buggy building, there’s likely to be something wrong.

Org Sunday
AEPi Kamikaze
CIA Ascension, Freyja, Firebird, Quasar
Fringe Bonsai, Borealis, Bedlam, Banyan
SDC Bane, Avarice, Malice, Rage
SigEp Peregrine, Barracuda, Pandora
Spirit Zuke, Seraph, Fuko, Haraka
No-Shows Apex, PiKA, SAE, SigNu

Observations (Sunday Gallery) Continue reading →

Whoa! Rolls start in 2 days, time to get the BAA back in action!

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 5 Comments on Whoa! Rolls start in 2 days, time to get the BAA back in action!

Sweepstakes and the teams are on the ball and the 93rd season of buggy is scheduled to kick off this Saturday at 7:01am.  Are you ready?  Are you excited?  Is this the last thing on the list telling you that you have to admit that summer is over?

Well get ready, and get excited, because it’s time to stuff the smallest ladies in Pittsburgh into carbon tubes, send them flying down the hill and then push them back up to the top.  If it doesn’t put a smile on your face to think about our most peculiar sport ramping back up for a new season … your smile must be broken because you’re on this website, who are you kidding!

So, what does it mean to start a new season?

  • Our highly-esteemed rolls reports will resume next week, with weekly coverage of the weekend’s action usually hitting the interwebs on Monday morning to give you  something to look forward to as you start your week.
  • Our fall activities are coming up.  We’ll be running a welcome table at Cèilidh to meet and greet, Tom Wood will be giving his history of buggy talk, and we’ll be running the 2nd annual game of Fantasy Buggy scheduled around mini-raceday at the end of the fall season of rolls.
  • Now is the time to start working on projects to make buggy bigger, more popular, and more fun for alumni and current students.  Ideas tend to come up in March when the buggy buzz is really getting strong, but it’s tough to pull off the big projects in a month.  If you’ve got a big idea, throw it out in the Project Zone and rally some troops to get it done.  We don’t raise money for our retirement accounts, we raise it to fund fun projects.  Let’s do it!
  • It’s time to re-up on your BAA membership.  BAA membership is an annual affair so any contribution now until the end of May makes you a 2013 supporter.  A contribution of any amount >$1 gets you on the roster for the year and gives you the happy feeling of knowing that you enable the BAA to support buggy and make it cooler than it was the year before.  Check out our membership page to see the past year’s rosters and for details on the money stuff.
How are we going to pull off this exciting new year of BAA activity?
  • Well, that’s an interesting question.  The BAA is at a bit of a turning point.  The BAA will celebrate its 5th birthday at carnival 2013 and many of the folks who founded and have led this awesome organization have new, probably less awesome things vying for their time (babies, jobs, living in different cities, whatever).  As a result, we’ve got opportunities aplenty for alumni with energy and ideas on how to continue to contribute to the sport of buggy even though you’re no longer paying your student activities fee.
  • Janice Schneekloth is stepping down as chairwoman after 2 great years at the helm, and that is the primary role we need to fill.  The BAA is a group effort.  We work on things the community thinks are worthwhile and interesting and we try to do it by including everyone who can contribute.  Still, we need one person to make the tough calls (there aren’t many) and keep the organization hanging together and moving forward.  We also need more people to be part of the committee and adopt specific parts of the BAA operation and make them their thing.  This post from May outlines the jobs that need doing.
  • I am also one of the people who has been forced to move on a bit because I physically moved to Chapel Hill, NC this summer.  Blackjack is already hung on our new wall, so I won’t forget about buggy, and being part of the beginning of the Buggy Alumni Association has been one of my favorite CMU experiences.  This is my 147th post on cmubuggy.org, and I’m sure it won’t be my last, but I don’t think I’d do a very good job with the rolls reports from 500 miles away.
  • So Ben Matzke (CIA chairman, 2011) is going to be taking over to start things off on the news front, but he could use your help.  I’ll let him do the coordination, but rolls reports is an ideal job for a 2 or 3 person rotating team.  You’d be surprised how nice it is to get out of the house early, go see some buggy, and then start your Saturday.  That, and telling the ladies you write for cmubuggy.org works like a charm every time, trust me.
  • So, for the next 8 days we will be accepting nominations for Chairman of the BAA and volunteers for the other myriad of  roles that need filling.  Next Friday, we will either announce the new 2013 BAA committee, or (if we have more than 1 candidate for Chairman) a ballot .  Please comment on this post or email admin@cmubuggy.org to get involved.  Get involved, you’ll love it, I definitely have.

Elections! Candidates wanted!

Posted on | by Janice (Golenbock) Schneekloth | 1 Comment on Elections! Candidates wanted!

It’s that time again…BAA committee members are stepping down, and we’re looking for candidates NOW. This is a call to action for serious volunteers who want to see the BAA through the next couple years of growth. The main position open this spring is Chairman, but we’re also looking for new people to join the committee in more task-oriented roles like web master and treasurer.
If you’re interested, please comment on this news post with the position you want and, if you like, a campaign spiel. You can also send email to admin@cmubuggy.org if you’re too modest to speak out here.

Elections will be via an online poll early next week! in the fall

Here are some example criteria:

  • Someone who has been vocal on the forum with good ideas and creative input.
  • Someone who likes what we do and wants to be more involved.
  • Someone who has plenty of time in the Spring to work on BAA stuff.
  • Nominees do NOT have to be Pittsburgh locals.
  • You can nominate someone else if he/she agrees.

Here’s a slice of what we do:

President

  • Act as primary contact with Alumni Relations for deadlines, event coordination, reservations, alumni contacts, membership lists.
  • Attend AIG (Alumni Interest Group) meetings at Alumni House or by conference call.
  • Hold occasional meetings with execs to prioritize and act on projects or new initiatives
  • Find volunteers, increase involvement of members, delegate chunks of projects and follow up or save the day as needed.
  • Work with the Treasurer to keep tabs on income and spending.
  • Have a grasp on the big picture and general scheduling of things. Communicate frequently with other execs and volunteers to get publications out on time, reserve space for events, etc.

Other tasks

  • Work to make sure the lead truck auction is ready to go, including coordinating with Sweepstakes and keeping tabs on winners.
  • Work with Sweepstakes on safety issues where the BAA’s huge knowledge of history can be of service. Be the primary Sweepstakes contact to exchange ideas on how to improve the sport.
  • On-Campus Liaison – someone on campus (or at least in Pittsburgh) to be present at planning meetings, transfer physical stuff from A to B, be in touch with campus and course changes and news
  • News Editor – compile and post rolls reports, always be thinking of content and news to keep people engaged with the site and our org, manage social media presence
  • Rolls Reporter(s) – someone out at rolls to observe and collect info by talking to people, take pictures, make observations about what is going on that is interesting
  • Publications – someone to take primary responsibility for publishing our annual products:  raceday guide, raceday preview, news letters, potentially much more
  • Finances – recording membership and handling membership communications, knowing how much money we have and whether we can afford to do XYZ,  communicating our finances to the rest of the committee and to our members, dealing with the school on financial details
  • Special project leader – the BAA should always be looking to do new and awesome things for buggy, someone to generate and vet new ideas, and then push projects forward
  • Raceday Timing – if we are going to keep doing things (as opposed to hiring someone), someone will have to … do it
  • Web-Development – improve website code, add website features, manage server-type stuff
  • Web-Management – updating content, moderating user-generated content, entering new data, obsessively checking analytics

Men’s Finals washed out, SDC Sweeps 2012

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 8 Comments on Men’s Finals washed out, SDC Sweeps 2012

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!

Final results:

Prelims awesome; finals waiting on weather

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 17 Comments on Prelims awesome; finals waiting on weather

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.

Prelims Results

Women’s Finals

Heat Lane 1 Lane 3
1 SigEp A SDC C
2 SDC B Spirit A
3 SDC A CIA A

Men’s Finals

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

12 hours left in Lead Truck Auction. Bid now!

Posted on | by Sam Swift

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.

Women’s Prelims

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

Men’s Prelims

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

Women’s Finals

Order of selection
1st $10 acharters87
2nd  $2 hopke
3rd  $2 hopke

Men’s Finals

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)

cmubuggy.org/auction 

Truck weekend mini-report and Raceday hype

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 26 Comments on Truck weekend mini-report and Raceday hype

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.

 Lead Truck Auction

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!).

Truck weekend Continue reading →

2011 Raceday videos now online!

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 24 Comments on 2011 Raceday videos now online!


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:

cmubuggy.org/video#’11

If you prefer the native youtube experience, you can find the full Raceday 2011 playlist here.

Sneak Preview of upcoming excitement …

  • Sat & Sunday : Truck weekend
  • Monday : Members-Only Raceday Preview is emailed to supporting members
  • Monday 10pm : Heat selection meeting
  • Tue 9am : Lead Truck Auction begins
  • Wed 9pm : Lead Truck Auction ends
  • Thur : Design Comp, Carnival starts, …. woooooo!

Rolls report: April 7 & 8 (last weekend of regular rolls)

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 29 Comments on Rolls report: April 7 & 8 (last weekend of regular rolls)

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 →

Rolls Report: April Fool’s edition

Posted on | by Sam Swift | 35 Comments on Rolls Report: April Fool’s edition

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 →