{"id":10977,"date":"2025-03-31T17:03:56","date_gmt":"2025-03-31T21:03:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/?p=10977"},"modified":"2025-04-01T07:58:51","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T11:58:51","slug":"compubookie-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/2025\/03\/compubookie-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Compubookie 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Editor\u2019s Note: Compubookie\u2019s predictions do not reflect the opinion of the BAA. Looking for better insight and analysis, including MechaJockey? You\u2019ll find them in the 2025 Raceday Preview, which you can get with your membership<\/a>!<\/mark><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greetings, Buggy fans. I had a vision of a Raceday, but not a good one. If the rottenness of the weather takes its evil elsewhere, you\u2019ll all get to see it in person. The teams have had so little time to practice that it\u2019s clear we cannot expect high speeds. The Greeks in particular made the brilliant decision to sit out the fall, banking all their race preparation on four miserable days of spring rolls. For the likes of SigNu and SAE, this is the usual plan, and it will not affect their rote march to an underwhelming time. The mirror to this is Fringe, who have gotten plenty of practice and built a decent new buggy, but still show up to slow ride. DG is rumored to have built their own riff on a classic Fringe B-name, but supposedly some super secret probation was used as an excuse to hide it from the world. They\u2019re lucky Insite performs well and that they can attract strong pushers, but they lack the organization to make any accomplishments of note. Speaking of new buggies that won\u2019t see the light of day, SAE\u2019s got one that goes squish, so it\u2019s a Scratch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apex is giving us a Pioneers throwback with a reused name and a pushbar of dubious quality. They\u2019re not sick, but they\u2019re not well, and their preference for \u201chot\u201d names is self-explanatory. In a field full of poor engineering decisions, they manage to scrape the depths. Their windscreen placement continues to test the \u201cwindsock\u201d approach to vehicle aerodynamics, so it\u2019s no wonder they have the slowest freerolls. Since they\u2019ve run out of KDR\u2019s old wheels, don\u2019t expect any improvement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moving on from the vast bottom of the field, we find in the middle lonely PiKA. It took them an entire semester to find someone willing to drive for them. They\u2019re only rolling their 14-year-old proof-of-concept buggy because the ones they raced for the last 10 years never actually met modern safety standards. This year, they made the smart move to go back to what their frat does best, and started copying other successful teams again. Inexplicably, though, they plan to pull a Beta and treat their wheels for the first time at Raceday, which never ends well. Look for their lack of practice at speed and poor judgment to result in a big skid, saved only by driver talent and luck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spirit is ever the wildcard. Their push teams are greatly improved, but they were regularly shafted at rolls. They are the only team to not get a roll at the last day of truck weekend, and the only one to not cheat the system and double up the weekend before. They\u2019re always liable to spin out, and their A-team buggy is drinking age now, so don\u2019t be surprised if the mechanical failures start. Still, if they make the best of what they have, they are a real contender. Also looking competitive is SigEp, who repaired \u2018cuda and are proving that it\u2019s just as fast as it used to be. Plus their push teams are the strongest on the course. Their B and C team will get their usual DQs, but their A team is regularly one of the safest bets to make it through the chute if they keep all their wheels on. Expect a strong performance, and a long overdue visit to the top of the podium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perennial villain SDC has plenty of potential to squander. Their mechanics are disorganized, leaving their horde of fast pushers and experienced drivers with suspiciously poor rollouts. Their brakes are somehow both not good enough and too good. They\u2019re the first team in ages to waste time building two buggies in a year, with enormous wooden Gluttony burning a pointless hole in their alumni\u2019s pockets. They still think everybody\u2019s coming to get them, with their other build\u2019s name leaning into their most annoying quality. Their women are in their own class, but the men\u2019s races are too tough for them to run away with a win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CIA\u2019s newest buggy, whose name is an apt nod to an unsavory satellite internet company given their unscrupulous use of finances, is a clone of their prior build. Unfortunately for them, their mechanics lack the confidence to inspire fast pushers to join the team, so they are not going to repeat last year\u2019s performance. Expect their greatest accomplishment of the year to be not getting run over by the Pittsburgh police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that, Buggy fans, is your definitive look at Raceday 2025. It will be a tight and exciting competition this year, so if you’re bored then you’re boring. I can\u2019t wait to see this year\u2019s races, but you\u2019ll never meet me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Men’s:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. SigEp A<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. SDC A<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. CIA A<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. SDC B<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. Spirit A<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  6. PiKA A<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Women’s:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \n
    1. SDC A<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    2. CIA A<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    3. Spirit A<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    4. SDC B<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    5. CIA B<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    6. SigNu A<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

      All-Gender<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

        \n
      1. PiKA Men’s B, ruining the fun<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      2. Loading into a buggy as a Juno position<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      3. Gluttony, filled with chairmen like a clown car<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      4. The safety chair, piloting a 12\u201d PVC tube BUG-gy<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      5. Several police cruisers, Attempting to Crush Any Buggy
        Procrustean gender norms, driven by lead-poisoned boomers (DQ – BS)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      6. AEPi, once again asking for a driver<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

        The Field<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

        Apex –<\/strong> Nadir
        CIA –<\/strong> The dog that caught the car
        DG –<\/strong> Too busy doing the \u201cHand Jive\u201d to place
        Fringe –<\/strong> Firmly relegated to the t-shirt competition
        PiKA –<\/strong> Mid
        SAE –<\/strong> Too bad the kiwis don\u2019t make shells, too
        SDC –<\/strong> Strife be with you
        SigEp –<\/strong> Solid monopoly on the competitive fraternity team niche
        SigNu –<\/strong> You would smoke the competition if any of you could run
        Spirit –<\/strong> Your biggest talent has always been A-team DQs
        Robobuggy –<\/strong> Your buggy is the perfect prison for MechaJockey
        Atlas –<\/strong> Still chasing the elusive 5-minute barrier<\/p>\n\n\n\n

        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        Editor\u2019s Note: Compubookie\u2019s predictions do not reflect the opinion of the BAA. Looking for better insight and analysis, including MechaJockey? You\u2019ll find them in the 2025 Raceday Preview, which you can get with your membership! Greetings, Buggy fans. I had a vision of a Raceday, but not a good one. If the rottenness of the weather […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[40],"class_list":["post-10977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest-buggy-stuff","tag-predictions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10977"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10992,"href":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10977\/revisions\/10992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}