Welcome to the 2024 Mini Raceday Rolls Report! Thanks to the preparation and very cooperative weather this year, the teams had built up some impressive speed this fall season.The weather was a little chilly but we still had some impressive rolls, read on to see!

Spirit race on Hill 5

• Saturday was the main event for Mini Raceday. We had 5 entering teams. A confluence of events with the Greek organizations meant only independents participated this year. It did mean many chances for teams to get times logged! Robobuggy and Atlas were out early before sunrise but were not timed. Atlas is reported to have stopped early on the course. Maybe most notably: Mini Raceday proceeded with no incidents! At the end of rolls, Sweeps was heard cheering: “Nothing happened!”
  

Robbobuggy starting off Mini-Raceday

• Sunday was colder and started a full hour earlier thanks to Daylight Savings time ending. A few minor incidents were reported (including a very stubborn group of 30 joggers crossing the road 3 times) but we still got through the roll order many times.

Additional barricades were added to prevent further incursions

• And now for the Mini Raceday results: the fastest roll of the weekend went to SDC’s Vice on Sunday with a time of 2:21.5. SDC’s Vice also had the top spot on Saturday at 2:33.2. Mapambazuko was close behind with a 2:34.5 for Spirit.

Very Speedy Minion

• The fastest recorded Women’s division time goes to Fringe’s Baltic with a 3:15.5, closely followed by CIA’s Kingfisher at 3:18.3. For the All-Gender rolls, Vice once again had the top spot at 2:51.0. CIA rolled a 2:51.2 with Emperor to just be edged out by SDC.

• Our detailed results list is here ; note that this is sorted by the fastest time each team/buggy had, per split (including the full time). Each split will not necessarily add up to the final time listed. Beyond the numbers, the timers noted that SDC and Spirit both had the best rollouts after the chute, although their lines were erratic at times (as noted below). Fringe and CIA were close behind. Full data can be found here.

• Apex. Apex made their usual enthusiastic showing, albeit a bit off the pace of the leaders on Mini Raceday. It was a weekend of clean rolls for them. Scorch in particular is rolling well for them, while Firefly continues to loose steam on the freeroll.

Scorch with an in-flight finishing pusher

• CIA. CIA put up respectable times on Saturday with a strong turnout, especially Emperor with the second-fastest free roll of the day. Sunday they may have been resource challenged as they only rolled one buggy each time through the order. Perhaps the big story is Goldfinch not returning after her crash last weekend, maybe indicating more significant repairs are needed. But other than that they were rolling smoothly with no incidents on the weekend.

Emperor heading down Hill 2

• Fringe. Fringe was moving noticeably quicker than they have been this year, especially Baltic with a quick Women’s time on Saturday. On Sunday, Burnout had a visibility issue past Panther Hollow Rd. and stopped. Other than that, the rolls were smooth.

Blackbird

• SDC. SDC stole the show this weekend in the minds of buggy nerds with an Inviscid costume for Lust. Take a look at these photos! Avarice also had a visibility-related stop on Sunday (perhaps a foggy windshield). They were consistently the fastest team on the weekend, rolling out well.

SDC’s Spirit cosplay

• Spirit. Spirit was right behind and close to SDC in speed on the weekend. On Sunday, Kingpin had an incident in the chute with a very wide chute turn scraping the bales to come to a stop. She recovered, almost continuing but Sweeps wisely called a stop just to check it out. The driver was extracted and cleared, and then the driver could be heard yelling in triumph each subsequent roll as she made it through faster and cleaner.

Who wore it better?