After a rainout on Céilidh weekend, this past Sunday was designated as our official fantasy buggy showdown. 41 people entered our first ever fantasy buggy game to take their shot at the $250 “ticket to carnival” grand prize sponsored by NumberFire.com. Fringe and CIA timers helped out to collect times that could be shared publicly so we also got some of our best data so far of the season.
Jake Mohin (SigEp mechanic, ’10) outfoxed everyone else, taking home the grand prize with a total time of 550.2. He made the best of his inside info, picking SigEp as a backhill team while the rest of the top 5 picks had them for the freeroll. Jake adds,
“I knew our chairman was pushing pretty hard for our guys to make a strong showing in terms of pushing so I made a gamble and left us off the free rolls list to give us the #1 Back hills. In terms of roll number, I banked on 3rd free roll always being fastest. Pushers are usually slow on third first run from being sleepy, fast on their second push, and exhausted on their third.”
There were a number of surprises on the weekend that may have affected the results. KapSig and SN haven’t made it back out, so we only had 7 teams. Because it ended up happening after daylight savings time, most teams got 5 rolls, but we had restricted it to the first 3. For what it’s worth 14 of the top 20 overall times were in rolls 1-3. Picking the right Spirit roll was probably critical as Fuko wasn’t out, Haraka never finished a roll, and Seraph. I was surprised to see that the winning strategy was to pick most of the fastest teams for the downhill as I thought the spread on the backhills would be larger. I guess pushers were giving it their all across the board.
The end of daylight savings meant Saturday was a super short day while Sunday was nice and long, leaving time for a full mini-raceday-esque event. Weather was in the low 30s but nice and sunny which is better than we might expect for November. Zach Waldman and Ben Matzke covered the rolls report while I was out of town so thanks to them, and no thanks to me for taking this long to get it posted! Fantasy buggy times were collected on Sunday and the winner will be announced very soon.
34 degrees at sunrise; now we’re talking real hardcore rolls weather, and it seems it was too real for 4 of our teams, but DeltaForce wasn’t scared and joined the roster of rolling orgs. Warm sun made it seem warmer than it was and a lack of wind kept the leaves off the course. Saturday was cancelled in advance to allow some mid-semester break relaxation, and Sunday was only 80 minutes long (as the sun rises later and later) but managed to fit in plenty of excitement.
CMU has decided “homecoming” is way too mainstream for a campus that spends more time pushing small women down hills than we do watching our football team. Get ready for some 
Fall continues to cooperate, giving teams another dry weekend to get their routines down. We’re definitely into hoodie weather now though, and leaves were blowing across all parts of the course like crazy. SigNu was absent but a new team called Delta Force came close to joining the ranks of the rolling. Read on for the nitty gritty.
The weather this week made up for the total rain-out last weekend with two gorgeous sunny mornings in the 50s. The Zoo made it out on the course, so we’re up to 8 teams. This was another week of collaborative rolls-reporting, and the much of the same crew came through this time. Many thanks go out to Ben Matzke, Zachary Waldman, Andrew Hundt, and Katherine Crawford for notes, pictures, and radar gun data. That’s right, radar gun data. Keep reading for the numbers on the early-season speed demons and a number of incidents and conflagrations.
2 weekends of rolls in the books and we’re up to 7 orgs, we’re seeing some speed, and also the usual assortment of challenges to overcome. This also marks the first edition of our collaborative rolls report format. I was out of town and a these fine folks stepped up and got the job done for us: Ben Matzke, Zachary Waldman, Hannah Rosenblum, and Andrew Hundt. I also very much appreciate everyone who contributed pictures (either by uploading them which is still a bit tedious, or by sending me a link to their collection). Without further ado or any editing on my part …