Raceday '08

So in its age old tradition of copying anything that beats it ... Pika is paying close attention to Fringe's aero stylings but does the rear tailcover strike anyone else as a huge drag inducing wart? my inner-charlatan couldn't be quelled anymore ...

Posted by tommy k on Wed Mar 26 19:45:44 2008

Nice website

Thanks for posting these!!!!!! I've been hoping to catch a peak at Raceday!!!!!

Posted by Steve Curtis (PiKA PTC '07) on Wed Mar 26 21:50:56 2008

RE: Raceday '08

Tommy... that was nearly 7 years ago.

Posted by JT on Tue Apr 1 18:11:21 2008

aero-charlatanism

So when can we use Boeing's wind tunnel and some PSP to see which buggies are the most aerodynamic?

http://www.iat.jaxa.jp/res/arg/0b02.html

Posted by tommy k on Thu Apr 3 18:01:08 2008

Old news

PSP. That's so 20th Century. Crystalic Fusion is where it's at today, man.

Posted by Bordick on Fri Apr 4 08:09:08 2008

Who's to say that hasn't been done, TK?

Posted by ShootTheDog on Fri Apr 4 10:14:19 2008

Improving Design Comp

Too bad Spirit is largely irrelevant these days ... how about taking the design competition out of the dark ages and the closet (literally) and put them through some legitimate objective tests. Weight, traction, relative slip angle and rolling resistance tests are all doable in the insanely boring 4 hours we have to sit around a stinking gym ... didn't we go to freaking carnegie mellon? designing and implementing an aerodynamic testing program for all the entries into design comp would make a great class or surg grant or senior project. Maybe pika would stop being afraid of losing something so subjective and bother entering. Besides it would be fun to see empirically how much worse sig ep's original pile of spaghetti, spit and spunk matches up against the sleek machines of Fringe, Pika, Zoo. No precious 'secrets' revealed, just a quantifiable benchmark, then old pikes can stand around and brag about how small their favorite buggy's coefficient is instead of tying to come up with the next flywheel rumor.

Posted by tommy k on Fri Apr 4 15:53:07 2008

Eh...

Winning buggy isn't due to buggy design. Design certainly helps, but our best designed buggies haven't won crap while the buggy we underbuilt so poorly we ended up wet-wrapping it and shimming with a <cough> driver with a structural ass won in back-to-back years (rolling A-team while our design-winning buggy rolled B... to qualify it's slow ass for design). Design comp is just about showering off the stink of the buggy room, dressing up pretty and pimping your engineer porn (while hiding the duct tape).

Posted by Carl Nott on Fri Apr 4 18:07:55 2008

Proof

IF
winning races != winning design comp
&
winning races > winning design comp
THEN
PiKA != trying to win design comp

Posted by Steve Curtis (PiKA PTC '07) on Sun Apr 6 15:47:50 2008

Legacy Buggy

So does Zeus represent the pinnacle of Pika design? Or just all that Pika needs to succeed? Jackal and Jupiter appeared to be replicas, Brimstone is often the scariest thing out there ... how many Pika buggies have rolled on the course less than a dozen times before they were shelved? and Zeus is still beating the latest generation's effort...

If you want to talk about how Pika wins buggy there should be a website called joinerismyhero.com or howmanyyearsismayeseligibletopush.com or runfasterorwewillbrandyourasswithapikalogo.com

Brazen was fast enough for Fringe to win but successive generations have pushed the design envelope to new levels. Banyan is almost 3 seconds faster today than Brazen ever was. Bring back the horsepill poppin, three-a-day, speedsuit monsters from '01 and Fringe would be knocking on 2:05.9's door. Pika and Spirit's all-stars could only hope to repeat their best day given their team's lack of advancement.

Fringe uses design trophies and wiffle ...

So does Zeus represent the pinnacle of Pika design? Or just all that Pika needs to succeed? Jackal and Jupiter appeared to be replicas, Brimstone is often the scariest thing out there ... how many Pika buggies have rolled on the course less than a dozen times before they were shelved? and Zeus is still beating the latest generation's effort...

If you want to talk about how Pika wins buggy there should be a website called joinerismyhero.com or howmanyyearsismayeseligibletopush.com or runfasterorwewillbrandyourasswithapikalogo.com

Brazen was fast enough for Fringe to win but successive generations have pushed the design envelope to new levels. Banyan is almost 3 seconds faster today than Brazen ever was. Bring back the horsepill poppin, three-a-day, speedsuit monsters from '01 and Fringe would be knocking on 2:05.9's door. Pika and Spirit's all-stars could only hope to repeat their best day given their team's lack of advancement.

Fringe uses design trophies and wiffle balls to play pong and its deserved because right now our buggies are slapping pika down the course. When pika drops a few seconds on their downhill on raceday they do it at their driver's peril for expecting her to adapt to a new speed during the most pressure filled minutes of her racing career. I

This site is partly about proving there is very little reason to act like an idiot on the course about 'secrecy' and it chafes my ass when SDC dipshits tear off their shirts to cover a spun buggy before asking if the driver is ok or Zoo spaceheads form human walls blocking air and access or Pika tosses a spun buggy in a truck before the safety chair arrives ... all at the expense of the most important thing in buggy, which is not winning, its drivers. duh.

Zeus rocks. Build something faster already.

tom
ps i'm missing buggy for the first time in 10 years and it sucks. even in hawaii.

Posted by tommy k on Tue Apr 8 21:28:31 2008

and don't forget to check out www.5consecutivewinssincejoinergraduated.com

PS - scoreboard

Posted by Dave Decker on Tue Apr 8 22:57:12 2008

Re: Innovaion

I pushed buggy for so long that you could consider me a buggy scientist. As a scientist, I feel you overlook something in your criticism of Zeus. First, there has been little incentive from others to truly innovate. I haven't seen a buggy threaten Zeus. Second, if you know you have a go to buggy, why not try wild and crazy things with the new builds, things that may or may not work in practice? If anything, I think we've seen a lot more diversity, at least relatively from our kids because they have Mr. Hendrix's Ace in the hole.

However, I won't deny that 2000 was one of the most athletic push teams in a while. And we didn't need the HGH your homies were using. But, I'll give them credit on using it way before the general public knew of it.

ps. I was eligible to push from 96-01 and 03-04 (grad student, but retired).

Posted by Jon Mayes on Wed Apr 9 10:34:04 2008

That can more accurately be written as "I haven't seen another Pika buggy threaten Zeus." Or even more accurately, "I haven't seen another bale-proof Pika buggy threaten Zeus."

Look at the times from last weekend. Banyan, Bantam, and Psychosis are all humiliating Zeus, and that won't change on raceday. The pushers are just going to be faster.

It's a good buggy no doubt, but that's just from taking an age-old design and not building it like a bunch of retards.

Posted by ShootTheDog on Wed Apr 9 11:24:06 2008

Pushers vs. Buggies

PiKA was a lot more graceful about getting crushed by a team with faster pushers and slower buggies than most other organizations were. Of course PiKA is the devil, but they didn't whine. Much. They just recruited faster pushers.

Posted by Carl Nott on Wed Apr 9 11:47:55 2008

Recruitment

I'd also like to add that, at least back then, we never "recruited" for buggy (except for driver, of course). If a person didn't fit in with the house, they didn't make it. Our record team are all consummate Pikes, i.e. athletic booze bags. I'd challenge anyone else to finding 5 guys who were better beer bowlers, wave racer 64'ers, mario partiers, and general intramural athletes. Despite the fact that we have to pay for our friends, we actually really liked each other.

The indie's can just take anyone that is willing to show up once in a while but there isn't the full emotional investment (pushers, not mechs). I had guys like Thomforde to look up to. The foads were my neighbors and roommates. I saw what they put into it and I was motivated at least in part by the fact that I didn't want to let them down. I don't think you can get that kind of emotional investment with the free agent recruitment process. I think you also lose any practical pushing tricks and techniques which the...

I'd also like to add that, at least back then, we never "recruited" for buggy (except for driver, of course). If a person didn't fit in with the house, they didn't make it. Our record team are all consummate Pikes, i.e. athletic booze bags. I'd challenge anyone else to finding 5 guys who were better beer bowlers, wave racer 64'ers, mario partiers, and general intramural athletes. Despite the fact that we have to pay for our friends, we actually really liked each other.

The indie's can just take anyone that is willing to show up once in a while but there isn't the full emotional investment (pushers, not mechs). I had guys like Thomforde to look up to. The foads were my neighbors and roommates. I saw what they put into it and I was motivated at least in part by the fact that I didn't want to let them down. I don't think you can get that kind of emotional investment with the free agent recruitment process. I think you also lose any practical pushing tricks and techniques which the indie's have made apparent year after year (see: Loudest F bomb ever, 2004).

Posted by Jon Mayes on Wed Apr 9 13:04:38 2008

Competition

I chuckle when Pikes and Zoos whine about recruitment, its the nature of their own secretive, exclusive and tight knit clubs that make up their own rules about membership. I remember Nicklaus complaining about hordes of non-members wanting to come to their parties as if it were 'club PiKa' and not having much problem turning them away for whatever reason they saw fit. The independents purpose of existing is including people in the Carnival experience, which at Fringe, SDC and Spirit means at a highly competitive level. That we offer that chance to people that don't have the desire, opportunity, or prediliction for exclusive and expensive brotherhood and group alcoholism ... would Zoo really be happy if they won with a team comprised of 'buggy only' level of memebership?

The fact that Pika soaks up all the talent by targeting athletic but not meathead fraternity types has created the longest standing problem for the livelihod of buggy which is ... competitiveness.

The 'free agent'...

I chuckle when Pikes and Zoos whine about recruitment, its the nature of their own secretive, exclusive and tight knit clubs that make up their own rules about membership. I remember Nicklaus complaining about hordes of non-members wanting to come to their parties as if it were 'club PiKa' and not having much problem turning them away for whatever reason they saw fit. The independents purpose of existing is including people in the Carnival experience, which at Fringe, SDC and Spirit means at a highly competitive level. That we offer that chance to people that don't have the desire, opportunity, or prediliction for exclusive and expensive brotherhood and group alcoholism ... would Zoo really be happy if they won with a team comprised of 'buggy only' level of memebership?

The fact that Pika soaks up all the talent by targeting athletic but not meathead fraternity types has created the longest standing problem for the livelihod of buggy which is ... competitiveness.

The 'free agent' system has definitely resulted in less preparation, training and intensity than is required for the success rate of Pika, but it has suceeded in producing at least a few competitors to Pika's dynasty... and without that most of Pikes wins would ring awfully hollow ... (yay, pika wins by 12 seconds over Zoo ... again). The win in 2001 took a lot of effort, intensity and training (including making sure our hill 3 knew to stay in his lane when Pika C, whose hill 1 beat Pika B hill 1 by almost 2 seconds tried to take out his ankles, real sportsmanlike) ... the rules ban being intoxicated while touching a buggy, but say nothing about performance enhancing products ... don't even think about calling the french press.

Posted by tommy k on Wed Apr 9 14:59:56 2008

Who's Whining?

I wouldn't interpret Jon's comment as "whining" about independents' ability to recruit. I think the point is that a bunch of drunken frat guys has so far outperformed efforts to unite nerdy engineers and top athletes on campus.

Posted by Dave Decker on Wed Apr 9 15:38:49 2008

I certainly wasn't whining about recruitment. If anything I was saying that is PiKA's strength. When Spirit was good, it was because they too had good recruits who were Spirit for life. Your 2001 team had that as well, with Dave, Quadzilla, et al, growing up from plucky dark horses we cheered for to perenial contender, together.

What I would suggest is getting back to that. There is no reason you can't build your own team like you used to. What does it say to the sophmores and juniors who worked hard to get better when you go out and recruit Beta (really)? Why bother trying when you might never get your turn? You need to building your team up from within. Create a pusher lore/mythology. Having people get cut from A team one year, then busting their ass to blow everyone away the following year. I feel this is what really has given us the edge. (see 2000, hills 1, 2, and 5)

Re 2001
Maybe you have roll and hill times from 2001 you'd like to share since I'm not...

I certainly wasn't whining about recruitment. If anything I was saying that is PiKA's strength. When Spirit was good, it was because they too had good recruits who were Spirit for life. Your 2001 team had that as well, with Dave, Quadzilla, et al, growing up from plucky dark horses we cheered for to perenial contender, together.

What I would suggest is getting back to that. There is no reason you can't build your own team like you used to. What does it say to the sophmores and juniors who worked hard to get better when you go out and recruit Beta (really)? Why bother trying when you might never get your turn? You need to building your team up from within. Create a pusher lore/mythology. Having people get cut from A team one year, then busting their ass to blow everyone away the following year. I feel this is what really has given us the edge. (see 2000, hills 1, 2, and 5)

Re 2001
Maybe you have roll and hill times from 2001 you'd like to share since I'm not privy to that sort of stuff. I vaguely recall some drunk foad saying there may have been some flaw for A team and B team that made C roll faster. Maybe the data would bear that out (or prove that 7 year old drunken memories aren't to be trusted). Also, if that C1 pusher was Will Bennett, then it can easily be explained as he was a classic underachiever. Trust me, we certainly didn't think we'd need to do anything to stop you. We thought we were cracking :07 again.

Posted by Jon Mayes on Wed Apr 9 15:41:36 2008

Rosters

I suppose I lumped in the sentiment about 'just taking anyone' and the other comments floating around about Beta and Track team powered Fringe buggies with the political efforts by Zoo and Pika in recent years to add earlier deadlines to rosters, open up funding to frats for buggy programs from student activites fees and I think maybe even trying to allow frats to have non-members on rosters (I heard that through the grapevine from the kids a year or two ago but am not sure how valid that is). I do know that ever since we dumped the bizarre relationship with Sig Ep in '98 we've taken a large degree of pride in not having official relationships. Besides, if you were a Beta would you really want to push a buggy whose wheels are purposefully replaced with jello on raceday?

I did find it ironic that you described it as a 'free-agent' system as if independents have the ability to entice recruits with gifts, monetary compensation or the promise of 40 virgins should they win (isn't that what a...

I suppose I lumped in the sentiment about 'just taking anyone' and the other comments floating around about Beta and Track team powered Fringe buggies with the political efforts by Zoo and Pika in recent years to add earlier deadlines to rosters, open up funding to frats for buggy programs from student activites fees and I think maybe even trying to allow frats to have non-members on rosters (I heard that through the grapevine from the kids a year or two ago but am not sure how valid that is). I do know that ever since we dumped the bizarre relationship with Sig Ep in '98 we've taken a large degree of pride in not having official relationships. Besides, if you were a Beta would you really want to push a buggy whose wheels are purposefully replaced with jello on raceday?

I did find it ironic that you described it as a 'free-agent' system as if independents have the ability to entice recruits with gifts, monetary compensation or the promise of 40 virgins should they win (isn't that what a winning A-team Pike gets?) The pitfalls of indie recruiting are many and varied ... see Nick Miller getting his nose broken at Beta the night before raceday, see any year UAAs is on the same weekend as raceday (although if we get them early we can usually convince them by senior year that buggy is wayyy better than track, Liu, JustinVanDenen et al).

We also have the joy of turncoats and malcontents like Tomas and NaziChris taking our buildbooks to Pioneers or SDC planting 'booth volunteers' that also happen to be mechanics, not to mention obsessive alumni like Carlos stealing keys and pissing himself all over our buggy room.

Revo and Stratis are keepers of our precious data, I may have pulled 2 seconds out of my ass but it sure seemed like he was as close as he could to beating Liu up hill 1. Incidentally I hear Fringe has a sub 17 hill 1 lined up this year and at least 2 more studs. What I don't get is why we so often neglect 4 at the expense of an awesome 2 ... the shove into 5 is just as important and gave us '01.

The best chance indies have of matching pika's intensity and comraderie is either through a unique generation with tight bonds hitting its climax ('01 '04 '07), or through greater campus awareness that brings more attention, interest and participation. Tom Woods' history lessons, Dr John Farris' engineering talks, awesome TV converage with continued better radio announcing (now that I can't do it, hopefully Sam will again) are all great contibutors, but as long as its viewed by the greater populace as just an insane distraction from the crushing workload of CMU done mostly by prideful frat boys ... things will probably stay pretty much the way they are.

Posted by tommy k on Wed Apr 9 17:15:34 2008

Rewards

I'm going to agree with Mayes here on the need to build a push team from within. The 2001 team comprised a core of guys who saw a sure-fire trip to second day vanish with a spin in '99, then went on to take a our first ever 2nd place in 2000. The moment they took 2nd had two years of emotions built into it, and it was not only a great reward for the mechanics who built Bachi, but for the whole team, who knew these guys and hung out with them on a semi-regular basis. Fringers for life. That felt great.

As for recruiting from Beta, it's a mixed situation. There is plenty of motivation on the mechanics' side of things to pair the fastest buggy on the course with a win, whatever it takes. We had ATO in '89 giving Barrier a 2:14, unsurpassed by us until 2000. Build a fast buggy, get a race trophy. It's nice, and yes, it beats a design trophy. I do feel a little bad for the Fringetypes who are busting their asses all year without a shot at A team, but the fact is, they don't live together, and it's ...

I'm going to agree with Mayes here on the need to build a push team from within. The 2001 team comprised a core of guys who saw a sure-fire trip to second day vanish with a spin in '99, then went on to take a our first ever 2nd place in 2000. The moment they took 2nd had two years of emotions built into it, and it was not only a great reward for the mechanics who built Bachi, but for the whole team, who knew these guys and hung out with them on a semi-regular basis. Fringers for life. That felt great.

As for recruiting from Beta, it's a mixed situation. There is plenty of motivation on the mechanics' side of things to pair the fastest buggy on the course with a win, whatever it takes. We had ATO in '89 giving Barrier a 2:14, unsurpassed by us until 2000. Build a fast buggy, get a race trophy. It's nice, and yes, it beats a design trophy. I do feel a little bad for the Fringetypes who are busting their asses all year without a shot at A team, but the fact is, they don't live together, and it's hard to convince at least 5 of them that they can be Michael Johnson some day. It's a pool of eligible students that are pushing, and the mechanics deserve the best they can get.

Posted by Carsen Kline on Wed Apr 9 17:28:47 2008

Time Out

Wow. What's with this intelligent meaningful conversation stuff? I thought this site was just supposed to trash PiKA. As Mayes has posted on one of our sites "There is no room for good sportsmanship on the internet".

Hi Carsen. How you doing man?

Quick story I stole from one of our ex-chairman regarding something tommyk said:

"Highlight from last years seed meeting:

At the end of it, Sig Nu tried to make a stink about not being to have non-sig nu's push for them, stating that Fringe had an easier time finding pushers since they could recruit anyone. Closing argument "As Independants can pick anyone from campus to push for their organization, we think the competition is severely biased towards them." At this point a Beta stands up and says "Really? I was just looking over my records here, and guess whos won the past 2 times in a row? I'll give you a hint, it begins with Pi Kappa..." Everyone laughs, argument over"

Posted by Jim Statile on Wed Apr 9 17:42:06 2008

obsessive alumni? I can't even begin to fathom such a problem.

Posted by Jon Mayes on Wed Apr 9 17:45:42 2008

Is true; as a hate website this has kind of failed. Fringe isn't full of hate tho. They're all lovable Frisbee-throwing goofballs. Man, speaking of hate, I need to find my hat. Damn.

Posted by Carl Nott on Wed Apr 9 17:53:00 2008

Intervention

Moving 5,000 miles away is the first step in my rehabilitation program.

Posted by tommy k on Wed Apr 9 17:55:51 2008

Carl likes the rainbows at PHIbar

The Boss tells me you are going this year Carl - pour a little red out for me.

Posted by tommy k on Wed Apr 9 17:59:58 2008

Rgr that. You would be proud; I actually shook hands with Paul Warren when I ran into him at PHI last year. Had an eerie moment at Design Comp too while I was standing around with Felmley and saw Woods pointing us out to his little FOAD's-in-training. Then Anne Wichner introduced Tom Woods to me. Hehe.

I do miss it tho. Word to the wise: If you do move 3k miles away to escape buggy check the local industry of the city you move to. I feel like an alcoholic who moved from Milwaukee to Munich. There's a place called 'Fiberglass Mart' that I drive by every freaking day to work. I've only been in twice (swear).

Posted by Carl Nott on Wed Apr 9 18:10:15 2008

Surfing Industry

You can buy epoxy and filler at the 7eleven here... the familiar sight of the Fiberglast logo is enough to get me high. May have a go at it or possibly try an all carbon racing sea kayak or canoe ...

Posted by tommy k on Wed Apr 9 18:18:25 2008

Peace and love, mon.

Hate should be reserved for Carl's hat and SDC. They're the only ones I would ask to die in a fire. Ok, maybe not all of them, just a few dozen. And how is it that f#@*!$% Rage still has the "Kurt shine"? I can't wait for sdcfuckswhorecorpses.com. Sam?

Jim, good to hear from you. Nice to see all the old FOADs coming out of the woodwork.

Posted by Carsen Kline on Thu Apr 10 00:26:06 2008

Spoony love

Man, I can really feel the love in here. I, personally, would love to see more competition in buggy. It's really too bad that more org's don't get involved.

By the way, back in the day, we didn't have HGH, we stole roids from the farmers out east. I took them too, but a giant wrist from twisting wood screws by hand doesn't make the buggy any faster.

Posted by Bordick on Thu Apr 10 10:28:35 2008

People doing buggy.

Yeah, I'd like more folks to do buggy and beat PiKA. Except SDC, since they've always sucked (tho they sucked slightly less when I was in SDC). I think part of the problem is that originally most independents were 5-10 guys hanging out in a garage drinking beer and having a good time. Then with success everyone thinks that you need to be hard core and evil and that drives away the people that want to hang out and have a good time. It doesn't help that mechanics are typically borderline sociopathic alcoholics with strong fetishes towards small women and bondage and yet these bozos are the ones who end up in leadership roles. It's no wonder pushers (and sane people) tend to avoid teams with fast buggies (and buggy in general).

Posted by Carl Nott on Thu Apr 10 12:28:01 2008

Amen to that. Surely there are some dorks and geeks in Beta that could build better a buggy than Thundersuck or Unforgivable. Spirit isn't angry or hard-core enough these days. And Zoo, well. I don't know. Their buggies haven't progressed as fast as Fringe's or PiKA's, so they've got some catching up and exercising to do. Who else can stick it to the Pikes, besides Fringe and the evil spawn of Solitro? Maybe KDR can eek a few more seconds out of their Brazen replicas...

Posted by Carsen Kline on Thu Apr 10 12:56:35 2008

re: 2001

mayes, it's bad enough i have to talk to you on a daily basis to make sure you keep a tenuous grasp on reality, but now i have to check fringe websites to see if you're discussing me?

2001 c team h1 was nickell. i can see how you got confused, with the similar physiques and all. and h3 was shek i think. he's always been a devious tripping bastard*.

*this was a joke. shek loves all god's creatures, including down-year buggy winners.

Posted by will bennett on Thu Apr 10 13:19:13 2008

Pushers.

Folks just need pushers to come out. Fixating on buggies is a red herring and leads to unhealthy buggy rooms and teams. Instead of machining that carbon fiber steering tower so that we could win Design I should have been hanging out and getting more folks to come out. It's not like Haraka was the fastest buggy in freeroll in '97 or '98; our pushers were a good 5 seconds faster than PiKA.

I mean, think about it: Should I have spent hours fine tuning bearing lube to get a 0.1 second faster freeroll time or spent that time playing center for the Spirit IM football team (we was robbed in the championship game, eff you Beta) and getting a faster hill 3 pusher to come out and cut a second off of our pickup/push/transition?

Posted by Carl Nott on Thu Apr 10 13:27:57 2008

Ya gots to have a dedicated, motivational, likeable, and fast push captain. If you are, above all else, a mechanic, chances are you don't have that convincing, athletic look about you that says, "Hey, fast guy, you should push for me." I thought Jerry lit a decent fire under those guys' asses. I doubt Carl the Center would have gained more ground than Carl the Carbon God. Football might prevented some of the dreaded carbon sickness, though, and I'm sure the wife would have supported that just a wee bit more.

Posted by Carsen Kline on Thu Apr 10 14:28:38 2008

I'd like to think a good chairman could attract both talented mechanics and talented pushers. Look at me, tall, skinny kid. Looks fast enough. Until you watched my D-team hill 4 effort (yes, we ran D team, which I only made because they felt too guilty to NOT allow me to push). The coup de grace was my Hill 1 vs. the Beta chair. He was a bit larger than me yet smoked me up hill 1. My saving grace was juicing up Mach II (and aggressive, bumping by Rachel) so we beat them on the roll.

Lastly, Pika Rules. Boo Ya.

Posted by Bordick on Thu Apr 10 16:59:27 2008

PiKA sucks. I jerked it into the men's trophy in '98, FYI.

While that seeps in (nice choice of words, no?), Simpson at Beta told me that he had a bitch of a time getting brothers to come out for buggy. I assume that is not the case at PiKA, but I am curious how much work the PiKA chair has to do to get folks to come out. That was always the independent's beef: 'We have to recruit people to do crap jobs! Frats can just tell pledges to flag/sweep/whatever!'.

Posted by Carl Nott on Thu Apr 10 18:58:10 2008

A good chairman can attract them, but he's the link between pusher and buggy. Somebody's got to make the pushers into athletes, and someone else has to give them something awesome to push. Now, I consider myself a decent chairman, but without Stratis, I, myself a skinny kid, could not have unleashed Quadzilla, Meter-Maid Gustin, or Ballet Dave Liu.

Posted by Carsen Kline on Thu Apr 10 21:17:27 2008

wasted energy

I beat off on a lot of things in 1998. You may have heard of the international tube sock shortage that year. You're welcome.

If you guys spent as much time training/building/recruiting as you do fantasizing over reasons you continually lose, you probably wouldn't, you know, continually lose.

Posted by will bennett on Fri Apr 11 10:10:49 2008

It's clear what is wrong with buggy

Not enough dropping pushbars.
Also, I prefer more whore corpses with my SDC wheel failures.

Posted by Aiton Goldman on Fri Apr 11 11:00:38 2008

Wasting energy.

That's all buggy is really about anyway. Plus sticking it to The Man.

It was also a good excuse to grab a lot of ass. Top-loading buggies are for fags; y'all don't get to tuck ass and fish around for biners.

Posted by Carl Nott on Fri Apr 11 11:48:24 2008

Congratulations Sam...

Your website made the Compubookie article. Check it out.

http://www.thetartan.org/2008/4/14/sports/buggy

Posted by Jim Statile on Mon Apr 14 10:49:45 2008

That is odd.

You'd think they'd remember beating PiKA in '97, at least.

Posted by Carl Nott on Mon Apr 14 13:28:45 2008

WTF all over again

SigEp showed up on race day '98 wearing their house shirts. I was incredibly pissed off. This is not the kind of shit that Tim, Kelly, and Eric need right now. One way or another, though, Fringe is going to annihilate and dominate. My prediction: PAIN.

Posted by Carsen Kline on Mon Apr 14 17:39:01 2008

I think the guys who are pushing for Fringe understand completely what the deal is. On the flip side, you wouldn't expect a sorority pushing for a fraternity to not wear their sorority shirts.

Truthfully, that email makes me want to join in with them. I would love to see Binge dominate Pika.

Posted by ShootTheDog on Mon Apr 14 17:54:47 2008

Binge

excellent combo-name by the way, if I was funny I'd make some greek-related joke involving Feta

i'm not saying the Beta's involved should not be proud of whatever place they come in whether its 1st or 15th. All I'm saying is Beta shouldn't view this as Beta doing anything, any credit for Fringe's performance should be directed towards their organization (Fringe) and the individuals who contributed, regardless of affiliation. I just don't think Beta should take any claim for the efforts of 3 (if my sources are correct) of their members combined with all of Fringe's work for the last however many years Fringe has been doing buggy. Fringe singing on our porch with above mentioned Betas would be "reasonable" to an extent i guess...but all of Beta singing on our porch because they are pissed about losing IMs two years in a row would not.

i'm all about some good-natured BS and trash talk when it comes to buggy, but credit should be given where it is due. If Binge loses, how many...

excellent combo-name by the way, if I was funny I'd make some greek-related joke involving Feta

i'm not saying the Beta's involved should not be proud of whatever place they come in whether its 1st or 15th. All I'm saying is Beta shouldn't view this as Beta doing anything, any credit for Fringe's performance should be directed towards their organization (Fringe) and the individuals who contributed, regardless of affiliation. I just don't think Beta should take any claim for the efforts of 3 (if my sources are correct) of their members combined with all of Fringe's work for the last however many years Fringe has been doing buggy. Fringe singing on our porch with above mentioned Betas would be "reasonable" to an extent i guess...but all of Beta singing on our porch because they are pissed about losing IMs two years in a row would not.

i'm all about some good-natured BS and trash talk when it comes to buggy, but credit should be given where it is due. If Binge loses, how many Betas do you think will thank Fringe for the opportunity to work with their organization?

also, we definately get sorority girls pushing in PiKA shirts

Posted by Steve Curtis (PiKA PTC '07) on Mon Apr 14 18:33:10 2008

Binge?

I assumed the conglomerate's name would be Freta...

I predict this will cause controversy along the lines of Tastes Great/Less Filling.

Posted by Dave Decker on Mon Apr 14 18:36:39 2008

Second Hand Info

Beta had other, faster guys that showed some interest in pushing for Fringe but didn't stick it out through all the practices. Only the guys that really got into it are on the team and those are the kind that I would usually consider Fringetypes ... people who are willing to participate in an insane distraction for the fun, team spirit and sake of competition. My prediction: Beta does what they do every year (booze themselves into a state of general buffoonery) and Fringe brings another quality team to the races to challenge Pika's nearly fumbled attempt at besting the consecutive wins record.

Posted by tommy k on Mon Apr 14 19:12:20 2008

Second Day Rain

In 2001, 2004 and 2007 Fringe was seeded first after the preliminary heats (first AND second in 2004).
Weather.com 10 day forescast:

Fri Apr 18:
Partly Cloudy 72°

Sat Apr 19:
Few Showers 69°

Posted by tommy k on Mon Apr 14 19:22:02 2008

first AND second?

wow. that's almost like when PiKA won first and second in 2006. almost.

glad to see Freta hoping for rain already...

Posted by Dave Decker on Mon Apr 14 21:37:46 2008

re: Second Day Rain

yeah, but we were also rained out in 06, after a disappointing friday and 4th seeding, so i could argue either way.

from what i've seen this year, nobody's hoping for rain. fringe wins (hopefully with a 2:08:26 or higher haha) and SDC spins.

-Justin

Posted by Justin Van Denend on Tue Apr 15 00:57:41 2008

Freta...

So, according to this Beta email, it's Beta's trophy if you guys pull off the win this weekend? That should be interesting... maybe Beta is planning on singing to Fringe after their big win as well.

Personally, my favorite part is the fact that they can't spell "Daiquiri". It's a microcosm of everything they represent.

Posted by JT on Tue Apr 15 09:59:13 2008

It's going to be difficult to demoralize an independent organization by reminding them that they have diversity in their recruitment. Beta understands, I am sure, that 3 pushers does not mean you get to keep the trophy. They are most interested in reminding Pika that their success is due to lack of competition and a poor grasp of the pushbar rule.

Hilariously, every move Pika has made this year has been to attempt to squelch that competition. Shane actually proposed a rule to bar members of fraternities from pushing for independents. Doing it with a straight face must have required hours of practice and intense mental discipline.

6-peats simply don't matter when you're only racing the clock, and losing. Even with significantly better technology, Pika hasn't come close to an 8 year old house record, or to a course record set 20 years ago by people bigger and blacker than Basil will ever be.

If they really wanted to matter in 5, 10, or 20 years, they would encourage...

It's going to be difficult to demoralize an independent organization by reminding them that they have diversity in their recruitment. Beta understands, I am sure, that 3 pushers does not mean you get to keep the trophy. They are most interested in reminding Pika that their success is due to lack of competition and a poor grasp of the pushbar rule.

Hilariously, every move Pika has made this year has been to attempt to squelch that competition. Shane actually proposed a rule to bar members of fraternities from pushing for independents. Doing it with a straight face must have required hours of practice and intense mental discipline.

6-peats simply don't matter when you're only racing the clock, and losing. Even with significantly better technology, Pika hasn't come close to an 8 year old house record, or to a course record set 20 years ago by people bigger and blacker than Basil will ever be.

If they really wanted to matter in 5, 10, or 20 years, they would encourage participation rather than attempt to suppress it. Otherwise, the sport will continue to decline until Pika can rightfully call themselves the winningest team in a race nobody cares about but them.

Posted by ShootTheDog on Tue Apr 15 11:30:13 2008

Frats + Indies

I would really rather not have buggy degrade into 'PiKA vs. CMU All-Stars'. That's fairly pathetic.

Blending of frats and indies is nothing new. My concern is with the health of buggy overall. If frats stop doing buggy and start sending their pushers to indies I think a lot fewer people are doing buggy, which is not cool. Plus, again, it's pretty freaking pathetic. PiKA is one house. They can be beaten (trust me).

Posted by Carl Nott on Tue Apr 15 11:50:21 2008

Fringetypes?

Oh, and I forgot to comment on this statement from tommy k about the Beta pushers:

Only the guys that really got into it are on the team and those are the kind that I would usually consider Fringetypes...

Yeah. Try calling those Betas "Fringetypes" in public. Just be sure to make cuts in your underwear beforehand to minimize the damage...

Posted by Dave Decker on Tue Apr 15 13:25:41 2008

Despite, not because ...

Juvenile demonstrations of low self-esteem and insecurity through physical altercation ... frat boy mentality at its finest. Every friendship I've had with a greek has been despite their affiliation with an aged model of exclusive, historically bigoted, and institutionalized friendship. DTS is a great site, btw. Whenever I want a dose of debasing humor, ridiculous tech news, stories about things that go fast or things made out of carbon fiber, its my first stop.

Posted by tommy k on Tue Apr 15 17:22:22 2008

physical altercation?

I posted a comment on a website. Sorry if that was too physical for you...

Posted by Dave Decker on Tue Apr 15 19:35:51 2008

And Carl said that I had failed at creating a hate site. it's good to see nobody has gone soft. keep it up, only 4 more days before it's all settled in the non-internet world

Posted by Sam Swift on Tue Apr 15 20:00:46 2008

A little pre-carnival smack talk

Hypothetical wedgies for being on the only team to beat the pika men in ten years ... or don't you remember when hell froze over, pigs flew and pika went 0 to 60 in ... how fast? Fringe won in '01, was faster than pika in '04 and broke their own team record in '07 - beta is lucky to show up on any given raceday and its about time some of them felt a little embarassed about their buggy effort. They are joining a winning team because they want to win and because they want to beat you. Pika IS consistently the best and winningest team, and your continued arrogance will make it that much sweeter when the firetruck has to sputter and choke back to the garage with sullen faces to cases of unopened champagne.

Posted by tommy k on Tue Apr 15 20:18:11 2008

hate!!!!

1. Sam, your password recovery system is terrible. I might, in fact, hate it.

2. I was there in 2001. Trust me. Those bottles get opened. It's a matter of internal vs external consumption.

3. Would a victory really be sweet for you? I mean, I like it when the kids win because the kids won't be in a shitty mood and much better odds for a good party and a Decker blue balls session. What's your stake?

Posted by Jon M on Tue Apr 15 20:45:53 2008

whats in it for the alums?

people that graduate from d1 schools don't stop wanting their teams to win because they're no longer there.

buggy is the same for people that are invested in it during undergrad, they like to continue to see their team do well/win.

Posted by Justin Van Denend on Tue Apr 15 21:58:39 2008

huh?

tommy k, maybe you should re-read my comment. The hypothetical wedgie came from the Betas pushers because I'm pretty sure they don't want to be called "Fringetypes."

I don't really care that you beat PiKA seven years ago. And I make no predictions about future races; I'm just amused by how some of the commenters on this site view the past.

I think you may need a time out. Count to ten. Take some deep breaths...

Posted by Dave Decker on Tue Apr 15 22:35:25 2008

Great Carnival Lead-In

I am glad this site came along. This is the most informed I have been going into Carnival since I graduated. I usually just stumble over to the Firetruck and ask around.

Also, I think the fact that the phrase "hypothetical wedgie" has been used on the site is fantastic.

And Mayes is right. We definitely open the champagne no matter what. There is no sense in wasting those delicious $4 bottles of Andre' champagne, which I think is made in Latrobe, PA. That is what it tastes like anyway.

Posted by Jim Statile on Wed Apr 16 10:20:53 2008

Prelim Heats

Using my campus resources wisely:

www.nanofab.ece.cmu.edu/news/prelimheats.pdf

Spirit B may have to dodge the wreckage of Psychosis if SDC can't work their line around the doubled haybales. Unsafe at any speed.

Posted by Carsen Kline on Wed Apr 16 13:49:17 2008

Carsen

Thanks bud. This site has been quite useful, honestly. Kind of a pisser that a buggy site with this much cross-organizational traffic is called Pikabuggy.com though. It shouldn't come as that much of a surprise though I guess.

Posted by Carl Nott on Wed Apr 16 14:12:41 2008

History of Buggy Part 1

As an FYI Tom Wood is giving a History of Buggy presentation on Friday, 1-2:30 in Baker Hall, Giant Eagle Auditorium. Or so I've been told.

Posted by Carl Nott on Wed Apr 16 14:30:30 2008

History

I recommend the Wood thing. He's got tons of good images in there and some cool videos. The pdf of the presentation is linked on the CMU buggy webpage. He burned me a DVD and I'm in the process of putting clips on YouTube. I've got 5 up already. I hope to not be too drunk to enjoy it live.

Posted by Bordick on Wed Apr 16 15:21:22 2008

Fanatic

I am a buggy fanatic and I became one when I realized, while living in Pittsburgh after graduating, that my favorite sporting event is held in my backyard every year and is absolutely free if you can handle waking up before 8am. The action is right in front of you, the competition is fierce and I was intimately familiar with what it took to win. I had inside connections to keep up to speed on the politics and athletic outlook. I was able to make it to enough freerolls to know which teams were looking good in the chute and which were looking downright scary (brimstone in '04, can't believe it made A team, whoops). Drinking with your friends on carnival is more fun when you can tell them how the race is gonna go instead of just telling stories of the glory days.

When I volunteered to do the radio announcing 2 years ago it was out of frustration with the absolute lack of knowledge and interest the taco floating morons brought to the broadcast. I get excited about buggy every year and I wanted...

I am a buggy fanatic and I became one when I realized, while living in Pittsburgh after graduating, that my favorite sporting event is held in my backyard every year and is absolutely free if you can handle waking up before 8am. The action is right in front of you, the competition is fierce and I was intimately familiar with what it took to win. I had inside connections to keep up to speed on the politics and athletic outlook. I was able to make it to enough freerolls to know which teams were looking good in the chute and which were looking downright scary (brimstone in '04, can't believe it made A team, whoops). Drinking with your friends on carnival is more fun when you can tell them how the race is gonna go instead of just telling stories of the glory days.

When I volunteered to do the radio announcing 2 years ago it was out of frustration with the absolute lack of knowledge and interest the taco floating morons brought to the broadcast. I get excited about buggy every year and I wanted other people to know more about buggy and get excited too. And not about half baked rumors that float around the wine and cheese mixers, but the real stuff that actually defines and determines the race. Listen to the call I made just before Fringe A's final heat last year and you'll get an exact summary of why we lost that year.

Yankees, Patriots, Ferrari, Arsenal, Pika ... these are the teams that people love to hate for their success and dominance year after year. If you were in Pittsburgh when the Steelers won, or in Boston when the Sox won, you know how crazy it gets when a long suffering underdog comes from behind to win. The schadenfraude of beating Pika in any year is very sweet to this sports fan.

Fringe is the second best team in buggy (pay attention decker, this is important) and has been for 8 years. A beta being on fringe is as if michael jordan played for the red sox instead of minor league ball in chicago (Pioneers?). He should be freaking honored and he should work his ass off to learn the technique, the rules and the dangers (pushbar, lanes, interference) so that he doesn't eff it up for a real contender. Spirit had this serial problem of latecomers that didn't learn all the ropes and tried to show up on raceday and just blaze people with raw athleticism. SDC suffered because of it last year (a 15 second hill one is useless if the hill two can't keep up with his shove). Pika knows how important proper training is to success, and so does Fringe.

If decker and the betas care more about the letters on their shirts defining who they are then about what they accomplish as individuals on a team, then they can hang out in the quad to see who can piss higher for all I care, but a Beta should not be ashamed or violent about pushing for Fringe, they should be proud. Show some respect for the team that has kept buggy relevant and made the last six pika victories meaningful at all.

Posted by tommy k on Wed Apr 16 16:24:59 2008

This discussion is hilarious. Did he just say schadenfraude?

Posted by JT on Wed Apr 16 16:34:54 2008

Schadenfreude

<sniff> I lost Design comp to Phi Kap and Schadenfreude. Luckily I had a 1st place men's trophy to catch my tears.

Tom, there are a lot of teams who won men's once and women's several times. There is not much that distinguishes Fringe from, say, CIA of the early 80's. There are a lot of teams that were almost the best for a period of time. Fringe needs to win. Win Win Win. Trying to claim the mantle of '2nd best team for the last 8 years' is retarded. Go out there and win.

Posted by Carl Nott on Wed Apr 16 17:25:23 2008

Betas vs Fringetypes

OK, OK, OK. I'm obviously not being clear. My fault.

I'm sure the Beta pushers are training hard and are happy to be on Fringe's team. I also think they will be good pushers. But I doubt they want to be referred to as "Fringetypes". I'll try a graphical demonstration for you:

Betas:
[picture of betas removed because it was freaking huge and messing up the formatting]

Fringetypes:


Hope that clears it up for you. Enjoy the races everyone, and good luck to those participating.

Posted by Dave Decker on Wed Apr 16 18:06:49 2008

Black Magic vs Brazen? Really? But more importantly ...

CIA of the '80s had one competitive generation. Fringe is on its 4th. But yeah, Fringe needs to win again in a bad way to have any kind of lasting historical importance beyond "the team that pika beat repeatedly in the '00s". Damn o-fries made me look effing pregnant ... are you saying betas are humorless, cookie cutter ambercrombie robots who don't like to eat paint? I always thought of them as meaty boozers who occasionally get belligerent and play football ... a reminder of how seriously beta takes buggy:



p.s. they have some old photos here including a few of the molds for the big hammerheads they used to roll.

Posted by tommy k on Wed Apr 16 20:08:05 2008

REcord BReaking DAy

Fringe A sets team record 207.86
Pika A BReaks Course Record 206.13
overshadowed by everyone's favorite team ever ...
SDC A breaking course record by a half second 205.66

Posted by tommy k on Fri Apr 18 11:39:17 2008

Speechless.

Except ... thank you for beating SDC.

Posted by tommy k on Sat Apr 19 11:15:04 2008

Recap

Really just an excellent year for Sweepstakes. Strangely enough if it were not for this site I doubt that it would have been nearly as fun (and I certainly would not have found out that [redacted] fucked [redacted] on the hood of his [redacted] (pictures to follow)).
But it was great seeing everyone, the History of Buggy was excellent, and had some interesting discussions with folks who, well, I knew but never talked to.
So, in closing, if I saw a Pike alumni on fire I would consider pissing on him to put him out. Perhaps. Oh, and I'm looking forward to sdcfucksdeadwhores.com. That should be fab.

Posted by Carl Nott on Mon Apr 21 16:14:32 2008

Carl I blame you for all these times. When you opened Quantum Leap at design comp you let out all the record breaking spirits (no pun intended). It was like the Ark of the Covenant.



Grats to Spirit for the 2:09 (and the women's 2:37!) by the way.

Posted by ShootTheDog on Mon Apr 21 16:54:52 2008

Fantastic Carnival

For those of you not in on the joke, CARL IS KIDDING. I can not emphasize this enough. I repeat, CARL IS JOKING about the Alfa Romeo thing. I can't even bring myself to type the rest of his statement.

I never would have thought I'd see the day when a Spirit driver would get into a PiKA buggy. For those of you not at Tom Wood's presentation, you missed a good time.

Posted by Jim Statile on Mon Apr 21 17:31:44 2008

QL

Actually I'm fairly certain that PiKA, after seeing QL at design comp, switched to a derby in the back (which is what powered them to victory 2nd day).

Then again, pushers may have been a factor.

Posted by Carl Nott on Mon Apr 21 17:50:47 2008

Fantastic Carnival

I have to agree...this weekend was fantastic. 2008 was possibly the best Carnival ever.

Posted by Dani Barnard on Mon Apr 21 18:02:16 2008

Wow

This forum contains the worlds largest collection of comments on my ass. Not sure if that's a good thing...

Bordick - Ryan says that if you don't explain the wood screw thing he's going to blow his non-thinking head off. (I think that's both of them, really)

Posted by Abby Sullivan on Tue Apr 22 16:04:13 2008

Bottoms up

I think your ass is a good thing, baby... Now that I think of it, I don't know how Carl got those photos from my phone (possibly while I was, briefly, drunk).

Just bought the 2008 Buggy DVD from CMU TV and it says Tom Wood's presentation is on it...? 1) History of Buggy is awesome and 2) Tom Wood is dreamy.

Posted by Dani Barnard on Tue Apr 22 16:39:14 2008

Asses and asses

I'm pretty sure that my drunken heckling will be on the new DVD. Dani, let me know when it arrives.

Abby, I didn't hear what's in it for me? . . .I mean, I could be focusing so hard on something in my hand, that my tongue just might slip. . .

BTW, the fence is painted already. . .6 posts 2-0-6-.-3-5

Sweet.

Posted by Bordick on Tue Apr 22 21:36:42 2008

Luckily the house actually remembered the correct time for the fence:

(2:06.35 wouldn't even be a new record, Bordick)

Posted by Dave Decker on Wed Apr 23 00:57:00 2008

Hard Work

I know there may be a lot of animosity for many things that Pika does, but I can assure you of one thing; 98% of the house had to bust their asses for weeks to do what they did. It doesn't matter if a freshman was moving bales or timing or holding a flag. That freshman allowed pushers to sleep and mechanics not to.

Regarding that hard work. It's a huge pain in the ass to time the entire course with a small army of timers and Shane doesn't have to back up his claim with any data to anybody. The data has been made public. 2:04.35. If you want the splits, time it yourself.

Posted by Bordick on Wed Apr 23 18:11:11 2008

Asses

Bordick, as a creepy, married, old guy I'm guessing you spend a fair amount of time focusing on something hard in your hand.

Seriously, though, Ryan will tell you ANYTHING you want to know about how Spitfire was built.

Posted by Abby Sullivan on Wed Apr 23 22:47:23 2008

What's Spitfire?

Posted by Bordick on Wed Apr 23 22:48:50 2008

Ok, then...

That made ryan sad. He now says he'll tell you anything you want to know about how Haraka was built. I'm pretty sure you remember Haraka. Smoked you a couple of time, yes?

Posted by Abby Sullivan on Wed Apr 23 22:54:41 2008

They say extreme pain is deleted by the brain. Therefore, 1991, 1992, 1993 are very blurry. Look, I'm old, help a senior out, No? Really, what was Spitfire, that was a Spirit buggy, right?

Posted by Bordick on Wed Apr 23 22:58:00 2008

Spitfire is the sig tau buggy Ryan built by himself in his A tower room. It was really, um, red.

Posted by Abby Sullivan on Wed Apr 23 23:03:02 2008

Ah yes, that's why it's so blurry. I didn't relate Sig Tau to today. Look, I would love to help those guys get back into buggy. So would Ryan.

If you go to the buggy site, you will see my son pushing in my driveway. In about 3 months, you will see the same child pushing Mad Dog in my driveway. I am motivated to fix up that old POS.

Posted by Bordick on Wed Apr 23 23:05:51 2008

Haha that is seriously awesome Bordick.

Isn't "Folgers" the red one? I thought Spitfire was some other weird buggy?

Posted by ShootTheDog on Wed Apr 23 23:11:44 2008

Genuine ?

Anyone on Fringe want to comment about Beta's post race reaction? just curious if they ran off or extended any amount of gratitude for being given their first legit shot at buggy in some large # of years. (i still think its bullshit but they were the ones going off about how this was "beta buggy's year", so i'll take another pike victory over beta if thats how they want to view it)

next year's combo-Fringe buggies, KGB pushers

Posted by Steve Curtis (PiKA PTC '07) on Thu Apr 24 00:52:53 2008

No longer 'lurker only' status

Of all the things I could've commented on, the thing that finally gets me to post is Abby's comment about the hard thing in BorDICK's hand. Simply outstanding.

Great site. Great pics. Great talk. Don't know if we can keep it up for an entire year, but no doubt we'll kick it up a notch next spring when there will be at least 4 teams all legitimately competing for the top spot (including Spirit here with their first sub-2:10 in about a decade) since, well...STD has displayed enough historically accurate knowledge, maybe (s)he can comment on that. I'd say mid-80's pre-Spirit Pika/Beta/Zoo/CIA.

And I just don't know the origin of the Fringe-SDC hate. Specific indcident, or conglomeration of events? And what's with whore corpses? If this is secret and/or not for the public internets, perhaps I can entice a story with the promise of beer next Carnival. I can wait.

Posted by Rick Simmons on Thu Apr 24 10:41:10 2008

Haha I never noticed you can shorten that to STD... should have thought that one through. Actually, poor choice of party name to begin with.

I won't claim to have any intimate knowledge of history, and I certainly wasn't around for much of it, but I think competition like we have now goes on a year by year basis. It is tough to say that we are entering into an era of varied and strong competition because... 7peat.

It is also hard to find out when the last one even happened because the record keeping for this sport is so poor :( If SigNu and CIA used to make Pika scared at the same time, I'll have to take your word for it.

The whore corpses story isn't mine to tell. I'm sure Tommy still checks this site every nanosecond so I'll let him or someone else who was around for it. Suffice to say, I think SDC is friendlier this year than I've ever seen them, and Michelle is kind of hot.

Posted by ShootTheDog on Thu Apr 24 11:40:16 2008

Competition

Yeah, I know PiKA won AGAIN but I think this year we had two teams in the top tier and two teams in the 2nd tier. So many years the top team just buries the 2nd place team and those are the only teams that are close. This was a really exciting year.

Posted by Carl Nott on Thu Apr 24 11:55:44 2008

Get to work, Fringetypes

Why are there pictures of matte black buggies on the Fringe site that aren't here? Who is dropping the ball? Where's the complaint department?

Posted by Bordick on Thu Apr 24 13:59:34 2008

When you're this trafficed, you can make up words too.

I am the complaint department. We'll get to those pictures later.

In other news: we just passed 51,000 pageviews and 4200 visits. Thanks to everyone for making this the most visitingest website this contest has ever seen.

(20% of those visits came from DTS so thanks to them too)

Posted by ShootTheDog on Thu Apr 24 15:47:23 2008

Animosity

My memory on the 2001 whore corpses incident gets hazy because I was head mechanic at the time and distracted by the whole winning buggy thing. But the story goes something like this.

SDC gets loads of cash every year by walking into SDC commitee meetings, saying 'we need 10k to build a buggy and 10k to run the program but we won't tell you what it is actually for because buggy is secretive'. Of all the things to imitate Pika for the obsessive secrecy is a pretty lame choice. But that culture of ultra-confidential information was incredibly hyped at their organization and it began to cross the line of safety and concern for the driver's well being.

In 2001 Scott 'Revo' Ziolko, a former Fringe chariman, was safety chair and had a pretty outstanding relationship with most of the teams (including Pika) and to this day hasn't said a goddamn thing about what goes on inside a pika buggy. Doesn't help that he is kind of a quiet guy to begin with but his head is seriously a vault with no...

My memory on the 2001 whore corpses incident gets hazy because I was head mechanic at the time and distracted by the whole winning buggy thing. But the story goes something like this.

SDC gets loads of cash every year by walking into SDC commitee meetings, saying 'we need 10k to build a buggy and 10k to run the program but we won't tell you what it is actually for because buggy is secretive'. Of all the things to imitate Pika for the obsessive secrecy is a pretty lame choice. But that culture of ultra-confidential information was incredibly hyped at their organization and it began to cross the line of safety and concern for the driver's well being.

In 2001 Scott 'Revo' Ziolko, a former Fringe chariman, was safety chair and had a pretty outstanding relationship with most of the teams (including Pika) and to this day hasn't said a goddamn thing about what goes on inside a pika buggy. Doesn't help that he is kind of a quiet guy to begin with but his head is seriously a vault with no key. Can the same be said for Jeremy? Maybe I'll ply him with mai tais when he gets here in a week.

SDC however was suspiscious, arrogant, and downright pricks about the whole saftey process. They built a new buggy that year (we called it 'canoe' becasue it looked like if you flipped it the nose would resemble ... a canoe) and were also exploring 5-7 inch hard rubber wheel solutions. They hadn't discovered xooters as soon as we did (spirit was the first, we saw them in a sharper image store over thanksgiving, did a proof of concept on Bachi and then built Brazen around them) and had been working on some smaller, probably custom, probably crazy expensive cnc-milled solution that sucked. A week before truck they switch their new buggy to the new wheels, without re-safetying, re-caping, or even informing sweepstakes. Was it a mistake? Did they not understand the rules? Or was is it to keep other teams from knowing about their new technology.

The outcome was that Revo noticed they changed their wheels, they were belligerent about it and he DQ'd their buggy. The alums assumed it was out of partisanship and to prevent canoe from competing against fringe in design comp and decided that weraing home painted tee-shirts that read 'Revo fucks whore corpses' on raceday would be appropriate retribution. I think the frats got blamed for the shirts and fringe won (thanks to revo DQ'ing Canoe of course) and SDC continued to be winless in Men's.

It got much worse a few years later when Carlos Moreno, having already graduated, was living in SDC's new buggy room in New House. He somehow managed to get a key to our buggy room and had been sereptitiously sneaking in at night. Notes, materials, tire treatments, steering configurations, composite connections ... stuff that you can't find out by looking at a buggy on the course (even without emergency cover up tee-shirts) are all now likely in the hands of SDC. But cheating wasn't enough for Carlos, he also had to urinate all over the place.

I hear he was at raceday this year. He really shouldn't be allowed within 1000 feet of the course. He is the Pete Rose of buggy. SDC sucks.

Posted by tommy k on Thu Apr 24 16:00:41 2008

Nice.

They hadn't discovered xooters as soon as we did (spirit was the first...

Thanks for the shout out. Would you like to just kick me in the balls next time? Would you like to rephrase? Something like 'Actually Spirit was the first to bring out Xootrs but they couldn't figure out how to... what's the word? Oh yeah, 'win' with them.'.

Posted by Carl Nott on Thu Apr 24 16:28:47 2008

Deep in thought

OK, I'm going to break the line of shit talking here and ask everyone to think about a couple of things. There was much talk this weekend about promoting both participation and competition in Sweepstakes. By my guess, MAYBE 10% of undergrads participate. So I propose to start at the beginning.

How and when can interest in buggy participation be fostered among incoming students? How do most people end up doing it now? How can more interest be sparked during Sleeping Bag Weekends, Orientation, and Rush?

And is it better for people to join an organization and then start doing buggy, or is it better to convince freshman that they want to do it and then have them explore choices of teams?

From my limited knowledge, people tend to fall ass-backward into it, and that's probably not the best thing.

Discuss.

Posted by Abby Sullivan on Thu Apr 24 16:35:50 2008

re:

I won't argue that some of our past mechanics (me included) have been dicks. I think that's pretty much undeniable. But from what I've heard, the current kids all get along pretty well. Let's do them a favor and keep all the shit-talking amongst us old farts.

Posted by Josh Ayers on Thu Apr 24 16:44:42 2008

To Tommy: I think the assumption that they don't know how fast their buggy is going to go before raceday is a faulty one. Like the man said, the traditional metrics that most teams use may be faulty.

Worth noting, Pika has placed 3 teams in finals multiple times, including in '06 when they went 1-2 and in '07 when they went 1-3. They are usually a deep house, even when racing twice in the same heat (!). I think the only reason their B team kind of sucked this year is because Knightfall kind of sucks in general. Also, their C team seed is hosed now, so maybe we won't see that in the future. Overall though, I agree that it is quite the accomplishment to be as deep as Fringe was this year -- grats.

Lastly, SDC's line this year wasn't as unique as usual, but yes, their chute times can be attributed largely to the steering I think (as most chute times can).

To Abby: I don't know who you are, and that sucks, because your comments are my favorite. More kids...

To Tommy: I think the assumption that they don't know how fast their buggy is going to go before raceday is a faulty one. Like the man said, the traditional metrics that most teams use may be faulty.

Worth noting, Pika has placed 3 teams in finals multiple times, including in '06 when they went 1-2 and in '07 when they went 1-3. They are usually a deep house, even when racing twice in the same heat (!). I think the only reason their B team kind of sucked this year is because Knightfall kind of sucks in general. Also, their C team seed is hosed now, so maybe we won't see that in the future. Overall though, I agree that it is quite the accomplishment to be as deep as Fringe was this year -- grats.

Lastly, SDC's line this year wasn't as unique as usual, but yes, their chute times can be attributed largely to the steering I think (as most chute times can).

To Abby: I don't know who you are, and that sucks, because your comments are my favorite. More kids need to do this race, big time. Back in the 80's there were 16 full heats, and now there is less than half that. Everyone talk about this more.

To Josh: Uncharacteristically awesome response. Yeah the current batch of SDC mechanics are actually way nicer than they have been, so good job with that. And Michelle is still really hot. She can win anything she wants as far as I'm concerned. Like my heart <3 But you guys still have a lot of straight up hatred to overcome, which usually starts at home, so try to make it a habit to not be total dicks all the time. Hopefully the new kids won't have to deal with it and I can actually be stoked for you guys.

To everyone else, I can't believe my "visitingest" comment is off the front page already. That sucks.

Posted by ShootTheDog on Thu Apr 24 17:10:17 2008

Bringing people to buggy

I was a sleeping-bagger. The guys whose floor I crashed on were SDC mechanics. I went out with them to push practice at 1am and thought it was the coolest shit ever. My roommate was the SDC chair, my suitemates were a mechanic for Spirit and the safety chair who used to mechanic for SDC. My best friend was a driver for SDC.

So I did buggy as a freshman. Then I saw raceday and, like a lot of freshmen who do buggy, I got serious. Much like getting addicted to cigarettes you screw around with it for a while and then suddenly you find yourself thinking about it constantly.

Basically people who are doing buggy on campus need to embrace freshmen and get them to come out. They need to get their roommates to come out, you need to have buggy people who are RA's, you need to have parties and fun times with buggy. I mean, looking at where I was living and who my friends were I was going to do buggy. Look at Fringe. They were just like 12 people hanging out and having a good time who...

I was a sleeping-bagger. The guys whose floor I crashed on were SDC mechanics. I went out with them to push practice at 1am and thought it was the coolest shit ever. My roommate was the SDC chair, my suitemates were a mechanic for Spirit and the safety chair who used to mechanic for SDC. My best friend was a driver for SDC.

So I did buggy as a freshman. Then I saw raceday and, like a lot of freshmen who do buggy, I got serious. Much like getting addicted to cigarettes you screw around with it for a while and then suddenly you find yourself thinking about it constantly.

Basically people who are doing buggy on campus need to embrace freshmen and get them to come out. They need to get their roommates to come out, you need to have buggy people who are RA's, you need to have parties and fun times with buggy. I mean, looking at where I was living and who my friends were I was going to do buggy. Look at Fringe. They were just like 12 people hanging out and having a good time who decided that maybe they could build a wacky buggy and have fun and then they got serious. They went from 'those dorky guys who are always playing Frisbee' to winning in, what, 4 years?

But I dunno how to encourage these kind of 'buggy cells' other than buggy students taking it upon themselves to be RA's, to invite their friends and roommates to come out and have a good time drinking in the buggy room and maybe flagging or whatever. I suppose the university could require student orgs to have a certain number of RA's or something (tho, come to think of it, does CMU still have RA's?). But really I think that it has to come from the students. If they want to waste their time playing World of Warcraft or fashioning a 12-foot bong out of labware they stole from the Chem department instead of doing buggy, well, they won't waste it doing buggy. If the guys and gals who are doing buggy now make it a cool activity and get their friends and folks they know to come out buggy will continue.

Posted by Carl Nott on Thu Apr 24 17:21:54 2008

Abby

She is the last Spirit driver to win. She got 2nd place '96 in Shaka, 1st place '97 and '98 in Haraka and demonstrated insane driving skills multiple times. Oh, and she was the last driver to load into PiKA's Tiger Shark.

Posted by Carl Nott on Thu Apr 24 17:26:29 2008

Slower

If not the overburden of racing 3 teams and your own B-team then why did Fringe slow down on day 2? Was it psychological like last year? After Pika posted a time that was faster than the internal math showed they were capable of the A-team was totally despondent and slowed down ... was it the case again, seeing the record breaking time and thinking, 'there's no way we can beat that'.

The main recruiting tool for independents is carnival itself ... if baggers came on carnival weekend more would want to do it when they got here.

Posted by tommy k on Thu Apr 24 17:37:03 2008

I can only point to Pika's ability to handle the same situation as a counter-example. Far be it from me to presume how Fringe handles themselves internally on raceday, but based on the technology that I know you use, it is difficult to blame anything on coordination issues. I'd say this raceday was a triumph for Fringe, as was 2004 when they went 1-2. Fringe was eclipsed this year, but they didn't fail.

Can we just step back for one second and examine the fact that a 2:07 and 2:08 have to be explained? Cry me a river, guys. If your internal math shows Pika running significantly faster than they should be, your math requires revision and your pushers need to sack up. You are still doing everything else correctly.

Posted by ShootTheDog on Thu Apr 24 17:55:15 2008

Once again,

correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe PiKA raced after Fringe on both days. So, we can count out the mental psych-out.

Maybe if was the fact that Fringe's A team rolled against their C team. Maybe the mechanics devoted too much time to C team? Well that couldn't possibly be the case because Bristol saw the line with enough time to shoddily construct yet another Basssketcase before the race started.

Maybe it could be the fact that racing your own team doesn't provide the same motivation. PiKA B beat the Men of SDC A on their B team buggy over the hill last year. Spirit A put up some impressive times this year against PiKA's A team. That certainly lends some credence to the argument. Then again though, PiKA has gone 1,2 and 1,3 quite recently. Once again, we'll toss that.

What are we left with? Time and time again Fringe disappoints on the second day. Whether its missing the pushbar, getting the first seed and an organization record just to toss it all away ...

correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe PiKA raced after Fringe on both days. So, we can count out the mental psych-out.

Maybe if was the fact that Fringe's A team rolled against their C team. Maybe the mechanics devoted too much time to C team? Well that couldn't possibly be the case because Bristol saw the line with enough time to shoddily construct yet another Basssketcase before the race started.

Maybe it could be the fact that racing your own team doesn't provide the same motivation. PiKA B beat the Men of SDC A on their B team buggy over the hill last year. Spirit A put up some impressive times this year against PiKA's A team. That certainly lends some credence to the argument. Then again though, PiKA has gone 1,2 and 1,3 quite recently. Once again, we'll toss that.

What are we left with? Time and time again Fringe disappoints on the second day. Whether its missing the pushbar, getting the first seed and an organization record just to toss it all away on day 2, or this year, running a full second slower when the competition is running one or two seconds faster.

Maybe next year Fringe will borrow a page from their favorite - SDC - and finally learn to show up on the second day.

Posted by Screw the Environment on Thu Apr 24 17:56:15 2008

Baggers on Carnival

Ha! Good in theory, but can you IMAGINE dragging baggers around during carnival? Plus, they'd all drop out after one semester because they thought CMU was like that all the time...

OK, so do the fraternities build a buggy team from the brothers they have, or do you build brotherhood around the people you think would be good for the team?

Would like to hear from someone other than PiKA on this, as well. We know there are lurkers out there, so let's hear from you. It took a BorDICK comment to get Rick out of the closet (so to speak). I thought my offer to give up Haraka secrets would get the Spirit lurkers out. I know Ian McCullough is here somewhere. This is greater good, people!

Posted by Abby Sullivan on Thu Apr 24 17:59:12 2008

And Another Thing...

why are we giving so much credit to a losing time? 4 seconds off pace is still a losing time by 4 seconds. STD, your argument is like saying that the 2007 Bears should be proud to have scored 17 points in Super Bowl 41, because that would've tied the Giants in Super Bowl 42. When it comes down to it though, the Bears still got spanked by the Colts in 07, and no amount of arguing can refute that.

Posted by Screw the Environment on Thu Apr 24 18:00:46 2008

yeah i should post more.

during rush we take a number of factors into account, not the least of which is athleticism. but we rush kdrs, not pushers. occasionally we will say "that kid would make a great pusher," but if we don't like the cut of his jib it doesn't matter. similarly, we rush people who would be good at booth, but only because good booth builders are generally awesome people.

that is the virtue of the independent organization, i suppose, that they can (and have to?) allow anyone fast into their org.

Posted by Adam McCue on Thu Apr 24 18:04:56 2008

With the same argument we shouldn't give any credit to SDC's 2:04.5 because they lost, even though it's almost 2 seconds faster than anyone has ever gone.

If you are interested in doing that, I'm game, but I don't think I would see the same thread of logic were the top two times reversed.

Posted by ShootTheDog on Thu Apr 24 18:10:08 2008

SDC's 2:04.5

is the equivalent of missing a mid range jumper at the buzzer (sorry, I guess when I'm drunk I rev up the sports analogies). .15 seconds off the pace is nothing to be ashamed of. We all know that boils down to a step on a transition and nothing more. However, I don't think you can even begin to compare a .15 second loss (speeding up by a full second on day two) with a disappointing second day and a 4 second loss...

Posted by Screw the Environment on Thu Apr 24 18:16:21 2008

interest in Buggy

i'd agree that if you want unknowing people interested in buggy, promoting carnival is a good way. i think a sweepstakes psyche tape of sorts would be cool -- show the team trucks on raceday, races, awards, etc -- makes it exciting. play it on those new screens in the UC; play them at incoming student receptions.

otherwise, yeah, people fall into it ass backwards. it isn't immediately apparent that sleep deprivation and being outside in the freezing cold at 5am is fun. if i didn't live in Henderson freshman year with all my best friends who were SDC, I would probably still be oblivious to buggy now. I only started going out to rolls as Support, because I wanted to hang out with friends...then started pushing.

Carl makes a fair point that people have to find organizations for themselves to a large extent...but how do we get more people out to watch races? look at those old films from Tom Wood, and you see the hillsides packed with spectators. i think it's the most exciting thing...

i'd agree that if you want unknowing people interested in buggy, promoting carnival is a good way. i think a sweepstakes psyche tape of sorts would be cool -- show the team trucks on raceday, races, awards, etc -- makes it exciting. play it on those new screens in the UC; play them at incoming student receptions.

otherwise, yeah, people fall into it ass backwards. it isn't immediately apparent that sleep deprivation and being outside in the freezing cold at 5am is fun. if i didn't live in Henderson freshman year with all my best friends who were SDC, I would probably still be oblivious to buggy now. I only started going out to rolls as Support, because I wanted to hang out with friends...then started pushing.

Carl makes a fair point that people have to find organizations for themselves to a large extent...but how do we get more people out to watch races? look at those old films from Tom Wood, and you see the hillsides packed with spectators. i think it's the most exciting thing on campus, and i just can't fathom that about 90% of students don't know what it is. i hope the contest and crazy record-setting this year will change it.


tommy - sorry, i don't remember a lot of people. i was drunk and sleep-deprived most of that year, i have a poor memory, and i'm old. i'm more surprised you know who i am.

Posted by Dani Barnard on Thu Apr 24 18:19:30 2008

You are not going to hear from me that they are bad. I am only defending Fringe's times because they are good. Pika has gone faster than their day 1 time only 6 times, which is a lot, but Pika is pretty good too.

Here's the new leaderboard, btw.

02:04.3 Chimera 2008 Day 2
02:04.5 Psychosis 2008 Day 2
02:05.5 Psychosis 2008 Day 1
02:06.1 Chimera 2008 Day 1
02:06.2 Quantum Leap 1988 Day 2
02:06.6 Quantum Leap 1988 Day 1
02:06.7 Zeus 2000 Day 1
02:07.1 Vengence 1990 Day 1
02:07.2 Vicious Flow 1990 Day 1
02:07.2 Vicious Flow 1991 Day 1
02:07.4 Shaka 1992 Day 2
02:07.3 Wyvern 2006 Day 1
02:07.4 Zeus 2000 Day 2
02:07.8 Banyan 2008 Day 1
02:07.9 Zeus 2005 Day 2


Last time Pika set their house record, they slowed down on day 2 too. I would have trouble believing that chairman got as much shit.

Posted by ShootTheDog on Thu Apr 24 18:22:59 2008

The comment wasn't that you simply slowed down on second day... the comment was that you slowed down on second day when your competition got seconds faster. That's a big difference.

I was on PiKA's A-Team in 2000... it was about 10 degrees colder on day two and everyone was slower (as I remember it, I'm not looking at times). I also believe we coined the phrase "4 seconds, that's embarassing" that weekend.

Posted by JT on Thu Apr 24 18:28:10 2008

Sorry Abby...

but I'm content in talking shit.

I won't argue that a 2:07 is bad because it certainly isn't. Kudos to Fringe for the org record. However, a 2:08 on the second day is beyond a doubt disappointing. When the other elites were stepping up, Fringe faded. Why didn't Hendrix get shit when PiKA slowed down on Day 2? PiKA won.

On a side note, nice spreadsheet. Are you Tom Wood?

Posted by Screw the Environment on Thu Apr 24 18:29:57 2008

I'm not in Fringe. I didn't slow down at all.

10 degrees colder my ass. You guys just dogged it.

Posted by ShootTheDog on Thu Apr 24 18:31:02 2008

safety schmafety...the kids wanna see carnage.

Posted by Dani Barnard on Thu Apr 24 18:57:56 2008

re: recruiting members

To the question about how the fraternities recruit for buggy, i think it all boils down to the house's personality. At PiKA, I think all anyone ever looked for was people with similar interests, senses of humor, etc. So if you've got a house with some athletes in it, you'll tend to pull in the same because they relate and enjoy each other's company. If you've got guys that are unfamiliar with the female anatomy and that are allergic to just about everything... well then you've got Sig Nu. Maybe the die-hard buggy folk pay a special interest to speed/skills, but it's a two-way street. The brothers have to like a rushee, and the rushee has to like the brothers. I'll give you some examples:

Me - I tended to get along best with rushees that were funny, could give and receive psychological abuse, and liked to drink.
Mayes - He enjoyed rushees that were big into sports/fitness and enjoyed being "tops" to his bottom.
Decker - rushed a fair number of people that hated gays. Did not get...

To the question about how the fraternities recruit for buggy, i think it all boils down to the house's personality. At PiKA, I think all anyone ever looked for was people with similar interests, senses of humor, etc. So if you've got a house with some athletes in it, you'll tend to pull in the same because they relate and enjoy each other's company. If you've got guys that are unfamiliar with the female anatomy and that are allergic to just about everything... well then you've got Sig Nu. Maybe the die-hard buggy folk pay a special interest to speed/skills, but it's a two-way street. The brothers have to like a rushee, and the rushee has to like the brothers. I'll give you some examples:

Me - I tended to get along best with rushees that were funny, could give and receive psychological abuse, and liked to drink.
Mayes - He enjoyed rushees that were big into sports/fitness and enjoyed being "tops" to his bottom.
Decker - rushed a fair number of people that hated gays. Did not get along well with Mayes

So yeah, It's all about compatibility. There's a ton of different ways to fit in, being a cool fast kid is just one of them.

Not too mention, except for the occasional freak, you never really know what kind of pushers you have until you get them out on the course. So rushing based on perceived athletic ability would be dangerous.

And yes, the Mayes/Decker thing was a joke. Or was it?

Posted by will bennett on Thu Apr 24 18:58:57 2008

4 seconds...

nah, it was about 5-10 degrees colder. we rolled roughly an hour earlier on sat than on friday. I think second day rolls are later now than then, but whatever. That record would still be toast today. Also, the whole 4 seconds line was from way earlier than 2000. Oof just reprised it and paid the karmic price the next year.

As far as improving buggy, what ought to happen is have CMU buy back schenley and close the road to vehicle traffic. Hell, make up some green washing excuse. If you didn't have to practice at ass crack o'clock, participation would approach universal.

Posted by Jon M on Thu Apr 24 19:00:54 2008

Clarification

The psyche-out happened in 2007 after Fringe put up a 2:08 and Pika a 2:10 on day one. In the finals Pika went first and put up ... a 2:07? ... crap ... (Sam fix the damn history page on Fringe.org. I feel like an ass hat if I can't copy paste results and sound like I know everything about buggy) Whatever it was the A-team saw it and instead of getting revved up it sunk on them that they might not beat that time.

This year ... knowing they broke their own record and SDC was still 2 seconds out after day one ... probably de-moralizing, I wasn't there though so I can't tell. Hope that clears up the psyche out point and a clue to the mystery as to why Fringe slows down on day 2.

Posted by tommy k on Thu Apr 24 19:04:58 2008

4 seconds...

That is from the '96 awards ceremony spoken by Shap, our assistant co-chair that year. Spirit spun (Abby, I don't think that was you, was it?) and we won by over 4 seconds. Mayes and JT, you should be ashamed of yourselves for not being familiar with this fine piece of PiKA Asshole History.

Also, is that 1:45 with Olympic athletes AND NASA scientists? Because dropping 4 seconds per hill seems rather impossible to me, especially on 2 and 3.

Posted by Jim Statile on Thu Apr 24 19:12:22 2008

Spin in '96

That was Laura in Fuko. Abby was driving Men's B and that was Men's B that was 4 seconds behind your A team, not our Men's A pushing our B team buggy.

Posted by Carl Nott on Thu Apr 24 19:20:03 2008

Wrong again

Statile, you knucklechuck! Ross said it on the stage after we won in 1994, beating PhiKap who was over 4 secs behind. He said 2 things: 4 seconds, that's embarassing and Truth be told, spins are for wimps.

Now everyone, drop and give me 20.

Regarding Pika spinning on raceday, wasn't that Brimstone that spun? Because that has nothing to do with the driver and everything with Brimstone being a POS.

Posted by Bordick on Thu Apr 24 19:21:44 2008

Oh yeah...

SDC would have been ahead of our B team but they missed the pushbar. Classic.

Posted by Carl Nott on Thu Apr 24 19:22:03 2008

Cross-eyed

Can we do something about making this easier to read? Your average reader-age has be approaching 50.

And I agree with Will... PiKA does not recruit for pushing... he's probably the perfect example of this.

Lastly, we need to total up the number of comments on buggy threads over the past 2 weeks. Between this site and dailytimesuck, the number must be hey-uge.

Posted by JT on Thu Apr 24 19:31:56 2008

I am trying to get there to be more comments on the front page, and make the text bigger, but I can't figure it out. Maybe Sam can.

I've been reading DTS too, but I've only posted there twice and I don't think now is the opportune time to do it again. Suffice to say, whoever said that the course being paved is not responsible for the times is wrong.

Posted by ShootTheDog on Thu Apr 24 19:35:23 2008

You think this is the first time the freeroll has ever been repaved? I know for a fact that part of the freeroll was repaved in 2000. I agree that the paving certainly contributed to the fast times, but it is not solely responsible for them.

Posted by JT on Thu Apr 24 20:09:03 2008

Yeah... what else happened in 2000? There is definitely a correlation there. Granted, it was a confluence of many factors, but Pika goes much faster when tops is in good shape.

Posted by ShootTheDog on Thu Apr 24 20:12:01 2008

Fast twitch muscles

The oddly familiar conversation about the difference between athletic endeavors on DTS is proven time and again when long distance runners try to be hill 5s and claim they can run the whole thing just as fast as 3/4 of it. Crew? Worst buggy athletes ever. Volleyball? Best ever, all that jump training is great for buggy. Just ask Lauren Schmidt and Jerry Goede. Both could beat most men's C teams up hill one.

Also, training for buggy shouldn't involve any distance running period. Nothing but close gripped bench and explosive power training works.

Posted by tommy k on Thu Apr 24 20:35:02 2008

2:28.84

Soccer players are pretty good, too.

Posted by Josh Ayers on Thu Apr 24 20:46:47 2008

not bad on the eyes either

I'm hesitant to actually make this post. I'm loathe to give away the secret knowledge that I am even aware of pikabuggy.com, much less a recently avid reader. But recent pervasive comments have convinced me that my secrecy is hindering my performance, so I'm up for some beneficial change.

All joking aside, I totally agree that the dorms are the ripest picking grounds for fresh enthusiasts. My dad was a member of a frat that has since fallen to unfortunate lows, so I therefore knew I was going to do buggy since before I arrived. I (in my opinion) was lucky enough to have an awesome RA who was a member of SDC. He managed to recruit a large number of freshmen with almost no effort, and if not for that I would probably have gone with the Pikes who were waiting in my room after playfair, because they somehow knew I wanted to do buggy. (Comments about whether my pledge attempt would have succeeded are not needed...)

My anecdote has two basic lessons. Charismatic RA's can collect ...

I'm hesitant to actually make this post. I'm loathe to give away the secret knowledge that I am even aware of pikabuggy.com, much less a recently avid reader. But recent pervasive comments have convinced me that my secrecy is hindering my performance, so I'm up for some beneficial change.

All joking aside, I totally agree that the dorms are the ripest picking grounds for fresh enthusiasts. My dad was a member of a frat that has since fallen to unfortunate lows, so I therefore knew I was going to do buggy since before I arrived. I (in my opinion) was lucky enough to have an awesome RA who was a member of SDC. He managed to recruit a large number of freshmen with almost no effort, and if not for that I would probably have gone with the Pikes who were waiting in my room after playfair, because they somehow knew I wanted to do buggy. (Comments about whether my pledge attempt would have succeeded are not needed...)

My anecdote has two basic lessons. Charismatic RA's can collect buggy fodder by the bucketful, and children who are told of buggy at an early age will always want to do it. So, tell your current team members to press-gang the dorms with charm, and go forth and make buggy-babies.

Posted by Drew Carleton on Thu Apr 24 21:37:58 2008

Hey, I'm stoked that you're posting, but no pseudonyms allowed unless you're me or Mike. You have to change your real name or email to something legit. (Nice Dune reference)

Posted by ShootTheDog on Thu Apr 24 21:45:13 2008

good day

i just spent 40 minutes reading all of todays comments, well done everyone.

even though it was a day ago, i'll respond to tommy k's now buried comment

Men's A average height 6'1.5" (5'11.3" with the driver)

and to hopefully drag some stoners out from their haze....how about sig nu not making day 2 for men's? that is realllllly pathetic. no disrespect to women's heats(congrats SDC on the new record & recent female domination)..but i dont know if i would have been able to drag myself out the feeble position while crying and sipping on paint thinner to go watch our women's team had we not made day 2.

no videos of pika push technique to watch (outside of raceday footage) or manuals to read...its all stored in the minds of diabolical geniuses

Posted by Steve Curtis (PiKA PTC '07) on Thu Apr 24 21:50:03 2008

Safety and Drivers

You people are retards. I will tell you why drivers spin, and I will be right because there is nobody that knows more about being both a driver and a mechanic than I do. I built buggies, I fixed them, I drove them, and I was really good at it. So shut up and listen, and then you will never have to have this discussion again.

Reasons for spins, in descending order:

1. "Optimization" for raceday. Over treated, over tightened, over lubed, over inflated...

2. Heat selection. Chairmen do heat selection with their balls. A driver that has to deviate even a little bit from her line anywhere after the stop sign will very likely be out of position entering the chute, and who makes it through is a crap shoot.

3. Conditions unexperienced prior to raceday. Rolls never happen at 11:00am and 80 degrees. There is fogging, sweating, glare, etc. that likely has never happened before. Trying to blink sweat out of your contacts sucks.

4. Unprepared driver. And...

You people are retards. I will tell you why drivers spin, and I will be right because there is nobody that knows more about being both a driver and a mechanic than I do. I built buggies, I fixed them, I drove them, and I was really good at it. So shut up and listen, and then you will never have to have this discussion again.

Reasons for spins, in descending order:

1. "Optimization" for raceday. Over treated, over tightened, over lubed, over inflated...

2. Heat selection. Chairmen do heat selection with their balls. A driver that has to deviate even a little bit from her line anywhere after the stop sign will very likely be out of position entering the chute, and who makes it through is a crap shoot.

3. Conditions unexperienced prior to raceday. Rolls never happen at 11:00am and 80 degrees. There is fogging, sweating, glare, etc. that likely has never happened before. Trying to blink sweat out of your contacts sucks.

4. Unprepared driver. And by this I mean unsafe at any speed. There is Sweepstakes qualified and then there is prepared. Prepared is different for every driver, but if you're not, you're not.

Saying that drivers spin because they are going faster on raceday than they ever have before is stupid, and mechanics say it to cover their own fuckups. When you learned to drive a car, did you master 40mph, but then freak out and hit a tree the first time you went 43mph? No, that would be stupid. Either you can do it or you can't, and for the most part, drivers can.

Next time, I will warn you of the dangers faced when treating drivers like they are pets.

Posted by Abby Sullivan on Thu Apr 24 22:34:51 2008

STD, I won't give you the pleasure...

of calling out another pseudonym. Drew, come on...really think you'd get away with an anonymous post?

Posted by Screw the Environment on Thu Apr 24 23:32:25 2008

no discretion these days

I try to keep a low profile, but you know me too well Mike(must be that homoerotic crush)... not well enough to spell my name right though. I'm still not sure why you get one though, Sam I can understand.

I suggest we listen hard to Ms. Sullivan, a good driver is a rare and awesome thing.

Posted by Drew Carleton on Fri Apr 25 01:06:58 2008

Yummy

He He, Curtis said "Female Domination."

Posted by Bordick on Fri Apr 25 06:47:02 2008

Drivin' it home

Abby's comments are pretty good, except for some clarification. Not all chairmen pick heats with their balls. It's stupid to think that you will outroll someone so you'll be first to the chute. Pika times every weekend and other times in order to make our heat selection as clean as possible. Again, lots of hard work, and you can see that it pays off. I agree that you should never have to alter your line.
Second, buggy design contributes to spins. We've had a few that almost can't spin. Mach II comes to mind. We've had some that spin like 5' girls on coke (namely Brimstone). The rest of her rant is spot on.

Posted by Bordick on Fri Apr 25 06:52:06 2008

On the topic of buggy interest

I concur with the sentiments that it is difficult to recruit with the intent of finding new members specifically who will be "good" at buggy. On several occasions we would wind up with a guy we deemed to be a superior athlete, invariably he would hear that he "should be great at pushing," get out on the course and have a very mediocre first push (as usually happens with about 99% of first-timers), get discouraged and quit. You've just sorta gotta get who's going to be dedicated to your organization, be he Pike, be (s)he Fringetype, or be he a lover of the K, the Triangle, and the P. Winning is great, but there has to be enjoyment as well, and you won't have that unless the people in your org are people with whom you enjoy spending WAY TOO MUCH time. Most people only get four cracks at this thing (or eight, doubling for women), and with more than eight orgs, not everyone will come away a winner at some point, so there have to be more reasons to do it.

Also, the University and its...

I concur with the sentiments that it is difficult to recruit with the intent of finding new members specifically who will be "good" at buggy. On several occasions we would wind up with a guy we deemed to be a superior athlete, invariably he would hear that he "should be great at pushing," get out on the course and have a very mediocre first push (as usually happens with about 99% of first-timers), get discouraged and quit. You've just sorta gotta get who's going to be dedicated to your organization, be he Pike, be (s)he Fringetype, or be he a lover of the K, the Triangle, and the P. Winning is great, but there has to be enjoyment as well, and you won't have that unless the people in your org are people with whom you enjoy spending WAY TOO MUCH time. Most people only get four cracks at this thing (or eight, doubling for women), and with more than eight orgs, not everyone will come away a winner at some point, so there have to be more reasons to do it.

Also, the University and its publications could throw us a frickin bone. How often does the Tartan mention buggy? Twice a year, by my count. Weekend before, weekend after. That's piss poor. And I can't count how many times I've opened up the quarterly CMU update to find only a footnote on page 36 about this past year's winners, and no photos. Now, while the University will probably always say that they are interested in "maintaining a great tradition of the school" they don't give a shit about the level of competition and wouldn't care if the winning time every year was 2:28. For men's. We have to respect their concerns about the liability; the cynic in me is sure that buggy is one serious injury away from extinction. Which is why, as mentioned here several times, driver safety must be paramount. We must also be realistic and recognize that the school won't prioritize much that does not grow the endowment, improve the school's academic reputation, or both. I don't know how you'd go about it, but perhaps Sweepstakes and its University sponsor can find some mutually beneficial ground with the school. Some mention, with inclusion of photos, would be great for mailers to undergrads. At the very least, perhaps Sweepstakes can foster a new relationship with the Tartan: more frequent articles, weekly announcements of roll times and duties, periodic pillbox interviews/profiles of those involved ala the stuff you see in the sports page, etc. Somebody's idea of a general "buggy psyche" video ain't bad either.

Coordination with sleeping bag weekend would be interesting. If it could be scheduled when rolls should be happening (it might be already), Sweepstakes could schedule mini-Raceday then (if feasible w.r.t. safety) and remind all orgs to be on good behavior: minimal drunkenness, maximum cross-org sportsmanship, etc. etc.

And finally, if you want to increase number of teams, I think you're going to have to do it at the organizational level. It would be tough for an interested group of freshmen to do a "blitz" buggy for safety reasons. But look at the amount of substantially-sized orgs still out there not doing it: KSA, TSA, ASA, etc. And whatever happened to AFROTC? But you've got to commit to keeping them interested and safe. I remember a story from the early 90's; KSA actually had a team and was out rolling. Driver got to the bottom of the hill and TURNED LEFT. One of the Pikes just grabbed the driver, and maybe a mechanic or two, and explained the course, walked the course, before letting her try it again. And we've all heard the horror stories of newbies going the wrong way around the monument. Sends chills down my spine. So I'd love to see more orgs, but the established orgs and Sweepstakes in general have to be willing to invest the time in keeping it all safe and interesting. It's a challenge, I know.

Posted by Rick Simmons on Fri Apr 25 10:17:58 2008

On the topic of University support.

$$$$$$$$
I assume I'm not the only person who gives money to Buggy. Instead of dreaming of the day I can donate $50mil to fund the Nott Aeronautical/Buggy Engineering College perhaps I/we should work on raising University awareness of the potential for Buggy-related donations. Why can't there be a 'Spirit Buggy Team' designation on the Online Gift form on the CMU website? If the University can get money from Buggy they will pay more attention to Buggy.

Posted by Carl Nott on Fri Apr 25 11:43:44 2008

Big Money

I give money to buggy all the time. I don't see what's so hard about it. In most cases, I write the check right to Wood, so he can spend it as he pleases. He is the godfather of Pika Buggy, after all. I think what I may need to do in the future is send some to the Sweeps chair, you know, in case we need soem special favors.

Posted by Bordick on Fri Apr 25 15:19:01 2008

awesome ideas

Excellent discussion here, thanks for the contributions. Dani is taking notes. This is not for nothing, people. Watch this space.

I love the idea of color comentary on raceday. The WRCT guy can continue the trained monkey play by play, but I think auditions should be held to see who is going to be the Dennis Miller of buggy. Everyone must audition in the same chemical state they would be on raceday. :)

Tartan coverage has been sparse, but what they've done has been not good. In 1998 they misquoted Dani (Sweepstakes chair at the time) as saying that sometimes there not room for steering and brakes in a buggy. Seriously. So that's certainly a good thing to address.

Posted by Abby Sullivan on Fri Apr 25 15:55:37 2008

Buggy experience blah blah

Has anyone done anything with CMAC? The whole 'go to a high school and pimp your school'-thing?

Posted by Carl Nott on Fri Apr 25 16:27:03 2008

Name dropping

Drivers are obviously the best authority on why buggies spin, and mechanics are often liable for spins. No one is going to blame Beta drivers for their spin and slide in '06 on the driver, hell - its freaking amazing she made it through the chute at all with her tires greased in crisco or whatever they they found in the fridge that morning.

Abby, my comments about change in speed are not cover ups for mechanic fuck ups, they are based on feedback from 4 generations of fringe drivers and sitting in the chute during freerolls for 6 straight years after graduating.

Janice Golenblock spun in '99 and afterwards described change in speed on raceday in directly contributing to her wide line that put her in a wet spot in the chute after which she was t-boned by a spirit buggy. Any one that watched freerolls prior to '04 could tell you that rolling brimstone A-team was a huge mistake because of the erratic driving (possibly a vision or steering design problem?) that was compounded by the...

Drivers are obviously the best authority on why buggies spin, and mechanics are often liable for spins. No one is going to blame Beta drivers for their spin and slide in '06 on the driver, hell - its freaking amazing she made it through the chute at all with her tires greased in crisco or whatever they they found in the fridge that morning.

Abby, my comments about change in speed are not cover ups for mechanic fuck ups, they are based on feedback from 4 generations of fringe drivers and sitting in the chute during freerolls for 6 straight years after graduating.

Janice Golenblock spun in '99 and afterwards described change in speed on raceday in directly contributing to her wide line that put her in a wet spot in the chute after which she was t-boned by a spirit buggy. Any one that watched freerolls prior to '04 could tell you that rolling brimstone A-team was a huge mistake because of the erratic driving (possibly a vision or steering design problem?) that was compounded by the increased speed of raceday - and that SDC in '06 was asking for trouble with Rage by taking a line that already had grazed the outside bales and left no room for error or compensation on raceday.

Driving is an art of timing and situational awareness and raw talent. I agree some drivers are better than others and they all can't be Abby Sullivan or Carla Bellisio. If you want to get high and mighty and say drivers that aren't talented enough to handle unpracticed speeds should pack it up or face the consequences of being unprepared, that's pretty unrealistic. People are going to roll with the drivers they have and I'm sure we all have a story about a mechanic making a driver assignment decision for less than honorable reasons. Drivers are capable of learning and improving and they need the situational training of freerolls in order to do it. Of course changing from 40 to 43 won't cause anyone suddenly 'freak out' (wtf? i didn't mean to imply that) But if you are taking a high speed turn and you start late or get nervous and start early then 3 mph can definitely make a difference in your margin of error.

I would like to point out that the issue of 'risk' as I've brought it up applies also to the competitive aspect of the race. Teams that want to win and eliminate chances for mistakes practice as close as possible to what they will do on raceday and visualize how they are going to perform. If you can make the extra effort to do so, then why not? I have yet to hear a single argument explaining why using raceday prep sooner is detrimental to a driver's performance or safety. If a team is not doing almost full prep on truck weekend ... then they really have no excuse if the driver scrubs some speed because she has to make an adjustment.

Posted by tommy k on Fri Apr 25 17:10:00 2008

Tacos don't float

I tried to set the bar in 06 and 07 for improving the radio announcing, Mr Wood noted his approval in his first history presentation and I am deeply disappointed that no one stepped up to carry it on this year. Even a mildly knowledgable buggy participant would have been 'considerably' better that the ass clowns that blabbered about floating tacos again. The color announcer they started with on Friday (I think he was a pike) admitted on air that he doesn't know anything about what goes on in buggies other than they have 3 wheels. The play by play was also completely atrocious and shouldn't be left in the trained monkeys hands. He didn't know the buggy names, still thought that each race was supposed to be internally competitive and had no idea that they should be expecting certain teams to pass others and certain teams not to .. i.e. he should have been jumping out of his skin when zoo passed pika in the chute.

There's often a lot of talk about improving buggy awareness on campus, but ...

I tried to set the bar in 06 and 07 for improving the radio announcing, Mr Wood noted his approval in his first history presentation and I am deeply disappointed that no one stepped up to carry it on this year. Even a mildly knowledgable buggy participant would have been 'considerably' better that the ass clowns that blabbered about floating tacos again. The color announcer they started with on Friday (I think he was a pike) admitted on air that he doesn't know anything about what goes on in buggies other than they have 3 wheels. The play by play was also completely atrocious and shouldn't be left in the trained monkeys hands. He didn't know the buggy names, still thought that each race was supposed to be internally competitive and had no idea that they should be expecting certain teams to pass others and certain teams not to .. i.e. he should have been jumping out of his skin when zoo passed pika in the chute.

There's often a lot of talk about improving buggy awareness on campus, but only a few indiviuals step it up. If you look at Tom Woods educational efforts, Dr. John Ferris' design lectures, Jess Thurston's ongoing series in the Tartan or Sam and myself's attempts at half decent radio announcing you'd see examples of pro-active efforts. Other attempts at awareness have been present but not well circulated. Larry Greenfeld of CIA had a blog commenting on freerolls that was mildly amusing and cynical, Kat Crawford has a livejournal group going for the obsessive.

Posted by tommy k on Fri Apr 25 17:10:32 2008

WRCT

After day one I sent this email to Howard at WRCT, They did manage to get the rosters from sweepstakes for day 2 and had the pusher and driver names to read off.

Howard ... the broadcast made me so sad.

I tried to set an example for what it takes to make a buggy broadcast good the last 2 years.

Yesterday had me banging my head against a wall. The color guy you got admitted
on the air "I don't know anything about buggy beyond that they have 3 wheels"

Here are some bullet points to help you out:

-Know the buggies by name and organization, get the rosters from sweepstakes so you can name the pushers.
-Landmark Raceday: Just how significant and landmark an event it is to have 2 teams break the course record in one day after 20 years of it standing? Freaking Huge. This is a new era of buggy. 2 teams will compete with Pika and it is essentially a footrace now, with technology very even and only consistency and dependability being...

After day one I sent this email to Howard at WRCT, They did manage to get the rosters from sweepstakes for day 2 and had the pusher and driver names to read off.

Howard ... the broadcast made me so sad.

I tried to set an example for what it takes to make a buggy broadcast good the last 2 years.

Yesterday had me banging my head against a wall. The color guy you got admitted
on the air "I don't know anything about buggy beyond that they have 3 wheels"

Here are some bullet points to help you out:

-Know the buggies by name and organization, get the rosters from sweepstakes so you can name the pushers.
-Landmark Raceday: Just how significant and landmark an event it is to have 2 teams break the course record in one day after 20 years of it standing? Freaking Huge. This is a new era of buggy. 2 teams will compete with Pika and it is essentially a footrace now, with technology very even and only consistency and dependability being key to winning.
-Shorter Hill 1: Three hill one pushers with 16 second hill 1s - did SDC break 15?
-Fast Fast Fast Raceday: Top 3 teams all under 2:08.
Fringe with three 3 teams on second day. Pika and Spirit with 2 each.
-SDC poised to sweep like Spirit in 97, Fringe in '01 and Pika repeatedly.
-Zoo passing Pika in the chute causing the driver to spook was huge. Only bright spot for Zoo who DQ'd A-team buggy with Drop Test Failure.
-Wheels: Who's on what? Colored Polyurethane: Fringe, KDR, Zoo - Black Polyurethane: SDC, Spirit, Sig Ep - Pnuematics: Spirit, Phi Kap, Pika (rear) Solid Rubber: CIA, Pika (front)
Aerodynamics: CIA dropping bar, Pika copying Fringe Aero Styling, Sig Ep's giant blobs and weird wingy things.
-Day 2 dynamics: Second day means: Pushers might be hurt (from falling or pulling a muscle), Heats are sometimes earlier in the day and temperatures are cooler, Which teams had room for improvement in transitions and performance? Did any team have a buggy problem? Can they repeat perfect preparation 2 days in a row? Margins are tight (SDC Pika less than 1/2 second with fringe right behind)(PikaB/KdrA/FringeB all within 1/2 second) how will this get mixed up? Will the record go even lower? (sometimes day 2 men's times are slower, but not always) Psychological: Pika and Fringe have targets to shoot at ... SDC has no room to let up and can't afford small mistakes. If Pika and Fringe finish much slower or are DQ'd, will SDC be able to jog home with the trophy?



Criticism about pre-lims:
The word 'sizeable' is not very descriptive. A 'sizeable' lead is irrelevant in pre-lims - all that matters is the clock unless a slow team gets over hill 1/2 before a faster downhill team in which case you may have a pass or collision. It helps to know which teams are fast and which are not.

Hope this helps.
Better luck tomorrow.
Have you ever thrown a taco in a pool? it doesn't float.

Posted by tommy k on Fri Apr 25 17:23:46 2008

It is rather sad that a group of buggy people can be apathetic about anything, let alone the state of buggy. Do we need a 'Carnegie Mellon Buggy Alumni Organization'? To, what, get folks to sign up so that they receive buggy updates before Carnival, find decent WRCT announcers, talk to CMU about raising the profile of buggy? Apparently you can form an Alumni Interest Group through the University (http://alumni.cmu.edu/for_us/get_involved/affinity.html), should I just get this started? Perhaps someone with fewer 'SDC effs dead whores' comments on his/her record should be in charge?

Posted by Carl Nott on Fri Apr 25 17:30:15 2008

YES! Carl that is seriously the best idea I've heard in a long time man. A buggy alumni organization would be so great and rewarding for so many people.

I'll start one up, I have some ideas for a "Unauthorized" Sweepstakes webpage. There is no reason a lot of the results shouldn't be recorded (and database driven!), and fostering alumni interest (and shit talking) clearly works.

Posted by ShootTheDog on Fri Apr 25 17:32:46 2008

tommy - all of your examples fall under one or more of my categories. Janice was either telling you what you wanted to hear or she was wrong. Sorry.

And there is little or no 'raw talent' in driving. I worked very, very hard at being a good driver. Ask Carl. I never, ever missed rolls. In 1996, I used a spring break weekend where there was almost nobody rollling to really, once and for all, learn MY line. Like 20 times. while other drivers were sleeping somewhere. To the point that I could it with my eyes closed. No talent involved.

Posted by Abby Sullivan on Fri Apr 25 17:40:33 2008

Should be fairly doable. Hell, if Tom Wood would be up for it his History of Buggy could be the next yearly event for the org. Jeez, reading the group description it's like the CMU affinity program was designed for us. Are we, heh, certain that a CMU buggy alum program doesn't already exist? Hehe.

Posted by Carl Nott on Fri Apr 25 17:41:40 2008

Hold up

Carl and STD - put it back in your pants until monday. Dani and I are trying to harness these thoughts in a semi-organized way, really we are. I've got a message in to Anne W and we're going bounce some stuff off Tom Wood. Back to you soon.

Posted by Abby Sullivan on Fri Apr 25 17:43:33 2008

Abby have I ever had a problem with keeping it in my pants? Please.

Posted by Carl Nott on Fri Apr 25 17:46:20 2008

not by choice. Ouch!

Posted by Abby Sullivan on Fri Apr 25 17:50:39 2008

I dunno if you want to compare our 'oops I slipped and had sex with XXX' stories... ;)

Posted by Carl Nott on Fri Apr 25 17:53:02 2008

I am coming out of lurking to say thanks to Abby for trying to set some of these guys straight. Also want to say that the Pika driver in '04 who spun was a senior who had driven Mens A since her freshman year and is one of the best drivers there is. To imply that she couldn't handle the speed (or even the speed in a buggy she had been in for only a short time) is one of the most ridiculous and idiotic things I have ever heard. She spun because she was in Brimstone and that is what that pos buggy does as Bordick has pointed out. That is also why the Mens C team driver did a mini spin again this year as well. It had nothing to do with the driver and nothing to do with getting passed by the other buggy in the chute and getting spooked.

Posted by Marissa on Fri Apr 25 18:09:48 2008

Who are you Abby? I'm not familiar with you. I was actually serious, I would like to help you out, and can (believe it or not) talk about things in an organized manner too.

As long as it gets made, and the goals are agreed upon enough to get people involved and passionate, I suppose it doesn't matter who starts it. Just make sure it isn't too organization-centric, and people can contribute equally. I don't want sites like this one to be "non-sanctioned" or whatever because we don't sign every post with "yf."

And who else from DTS wants to post over here? You should just move all your conversations over here so I only have to check one site. People at work think I'm shopping for vibrators all day with these buggy thumbnails everywhere.

Posted by ShootTheDog on Fri Apr 25 19:39:41 2008

I was wrong about the being in the buggy a short time. Mixing up my comments. My bad. I'm going back to lurking now.

Posted by Marissa on Fri Apr 25 19:41:46 2008

Abby

People never remember the people inside the buggies. Abby was an MFIC for Spirit in '98 and drove men's A in '97 and '98. Helped build Fuko, Demani and Haraka II. Man, and I was thinking STD was an OG Fringe guy.

Posted by Carl Nott on Fri Apr 25 19:51:27 2008

You can't handle the ...

This was my impression of the '04 Pika A spin:
I was at most of rolls that year watching in the chute. I believe the driver was Carla's friend Nora? and she struggled with her line in Brimstone the whole semester. Why that is, given her experience, is a matter of judgement for her and those that built that buggy and chose to roll it despite the obvious problems it caused and continues to cause. On truck she got things more under control, but still wasn't going full speed. On raceday, a slight timing error put her in a bad spot in the chute (too tight and near the grate) and when she tried to recover, Brimstone failed to bail her out. Did the foads over-treat like they have in past? (Women's '01, tires were shredded at the drop line) Was the chute in ratty shape and poorly swept? Were there too many variables to get right in their attempt to put a solid tire in the rear? Lot's of things probably came together but how can anyone say speed is not a factor?

As someone pointed out, buggy is...

This was my impression of the '04 Pika A spin:
I was at most of rolls that year watching in the chute. I believe the driver was Carla's friend Nora? and she struggled with her line in Brimstone the whole semester. Why that is, given her experience, is a matter of judgement for her and those that built that buggy and chose to roll it despite the obvious problems it caused and continues to cause. On truck she got things more under control, but still wasn't going full speed. On raceday, a slight timing error put her in a bad spot in the chute (too tight and near the grate) and when she tried to recover, Brimstone failed to bail her out. Did the foads over-treat like they have in past? (Women's '01, tires were shredded at the drop line) Was the chute in ratty shape and poorly swept? Were there too many variables to get right in their attempt to put a solid tire in the rear? Lot's of things probably came together but how can anyone say speed is not a factor?

As someone pointed out, buggy is an extreme sport that puts many of the vehicles that attempt it at their performance limit. A drivers line is key to keeping that buggy within its capability to maintain traction. I know this is breaking a cardinal rule in buggy to say this, but sometimes, drivers make mistakes and the margins of error are slimmer at higher speeds. I think their job would be easier if they went faster more often. Fringe has been doing that ever since '99 and has become consistently fast and consistently safe at those speeds.

As for my comment about the Pika C Brimstone driver reacting to Zoo suddenly popping into view in the middle of the chute and her subsequently going wide ... it was an instinctual supposition that could only be confirmed or denied by the driver and likely won't ever be. If it was entirely because of Brimstone misbehaving again then why is that buggy not in some alum's basement yet?

On raceday, when the fastest teams come blazing through the chute at 35 mph+ it is amazing and mind blowing to watch. Its fast enough to be scary as an onlooker and occassionally unjudicious follow cars can't even handle it. (Didn't SDC spin a beamer in the chute?) The precision and focus it takes to manuevre a buggy through the maze of grates, bumps, cracks, haybales, indignant bikers and ignorant squirrels (or is ignorant bikers and indignant squirrels?) all whilst remembering "you brake, you lose" and doing it as smoothly and under control as possible while crammed on your belly, squinting through goggles and foggy lexan and sweat is truly amazing.

Why not give them every advantage to do it as safely as possible? Speed is a factor in most automobile accidents. Driver's should be trained at the speeds they will go on raceday so that when the pressure is on, and the sun is hot, and there are other buggies breathing down their necks, they have the best chance to get it just right.

Posted by tommy k on Fri Apr 25 20:42:42 2008

alumni support

Tommy: Thanks for your contribution, but I'm pretty sure nobody here cares about your opinion. Personally, I'm going to go with the several posters on here who actually know what they're talking about - the drivers. I imagine others feel the same. I think what you're really doing is fishing for information on why certain teams can or cannot perform "raceday prep" at rolls, but then again, maybe I'm just a paranoid asshole :)

Dani, Abby, et al: I totally support the idea of some sort of buggy alumni association. We obviously have something the university wants - I'm sure you all get as many calls as I do from the alumni association asking for donations. If we can get organized in such a way that allows us to tie our donations to the school's support of buggy, we could have an impact.

One thing the administration cares about is the number of alumni that donate, since that affects the school's rankings. If we could convince them to allow general alumni donations...

Tommy: Thanks for your contribution, but I'm pretty sure nobody here cares about your opinion. Personally, I'm going to go with the several posters on here who actually know what they're talking about - the drivers. I imagine others feel the same. I think what you're really doing is fishing for information on why certain teams can or cannot perform "raceday prep" at rolls, but then again, maybe I'm just a paranoid asshole :)

Dani, Abby, et al: I totally support the idea of some sort of buggy alumni association. We obviously have something the university wants - I'm sure you all get as many calls as I do from the alumni association asking for donations. If we can get organized in such a way that allows us to tie our donations to the school's support of buggy, we could have an impact.

One thing the administration cares about is the number of alumni that donate, since that affects the school's rankings. If we could convince them to allow general alumni donations to be designated to a buggy team, that would probably convince some alumni to make donations to their team through that method, rather than just giving cash. It would be a plus for the administration, and would also raise buggy's profile in their eyes.

Sorry if this wasn't that clear or well written, but I've gotta run...cheap beers at the Hollywood Park racetrack are calling my name...

Posted by Josh Ayers on Fri Apr 25 21:40:34 2008

Relative Experience

Abby drove Spirit buggies with pnuematics and Marissa drove Pika buggies up to '01 including Zeus, the best Pika buggy ever. Taking their word on how hard it is to drive buggies is like only listening to Ferrari drivers. Ask Noo Supaporn about how hard it was to control the first Basketcase with the superman steering or Lucia Aguirre what a controlled slide through the chute in an ambiguously oriented beast like Brooklyn feels like and I guarantee you'll get a different story. Can you imagine the surprise on the Beta driver's face when she gets to the chute and all of a sudden it feels like ice because the mechanics did something to the tires they never tried before?
You weren't driving said BMW were you Josh?

Posted by tommy k on Fri Apr 25 22:15:14 2008

goals

STD- we are 100% there. Nothing we will put out will be organization centric, hopefully everyone will participate. We're just trying to put a few ducks in a row to avoid people wasting effort, getting frustred and stopping.

Posted by Abby Sullivan on Fri Apr 25 22:41:24 2008

Blathering

Tommy, you have got to be one of the dumbest guys ever. Nothing you have ranted about makes any sense. At no point did your diatribes contribute anything to this discussion, nor add to anyone's intellect. We are all dumber for having read your incoherent and illogical drivel. I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul.

Posted by Bordick on Fri Apr 25 23:23:58 2008

Hollywood Park?

Josh, you're in LA? You ever go to alumni events? Perhaps you, me and Abby will make acquaintance one day. We were even SDC once upon a time.

Anyway, I think it's definitely a good point about alumni contributions. We've added it to the proposal. As far as allocating donations to specific buggy organizations, I dunno -- I assume alumni already give to their individual orgs(?), but we need to help raise some money for Sweepstakes as a whole, University-wide. But let's see how it develops.

By no means would this effort be org-specific. And Abby and I are by no means the be-all and end-all, I think we just have a decent rapport with Student Affairs and Tom Wood doesn't hate us (I think?), so we figured we'd gather input and take a stab. If/when we can get an officially sanctioned forum going, it'll be for everyone.

I've been drinking and need to go do something more normal than log on to pikabuggy.com on a Friday night...so see you all later. xo

Posted by Dani Barnard on Sat Apr 26 00:50:23 2008

Slooow Doooown

Jeez, I go away for a wedding (Christian Jungers, a primary designer of Brooklyn) and suddenly I feel like I need a day off of work to catch up on all this buggy talk. Great stuff, though, and even constructive at times.

I'm all for the buggy alumni association. There are lots of tax-deductible dollars already going to individual orgs, and the University keeps track of these donors to hit them up again and again. If they saw huge support for such a buggy-centric pot of money, they'd put a little more effort into preserving, dare I say, growing? our sport.

When it comes to creating new forums, web pages, buggy blogs, rogue Sweepstakes pages, etc., I'd much rather see some shred of credibility given to sanctioned, and obvious, University sources. The Carnegie Pulse was unbelievably quick to put up results and good information. Yes, there were some typos (PhiKap wins!), but if they can do it, surely there can be some simultaneous updates of the Sweepstakes page, and at the very...

Jeez, I go away for a wedding (Christian Jungers, a primary designer of Brooklyn) and suddenly I feel like I need a day off of work to catch up on all this buggy talk. Great stuff, though, and even constructive at times.

I'm all for the buggy alumni association. There are lots of tax-deductible dollars already going to individual orgs, and the University keeps track of these donors to hit them up again and again. If they saw huge support for such a buggy-centric pot of money, they'd put a little more effort into preserving, dare I say, growing? our sport.

When it comes to creating new forums, web pages, buggy blogs, rogue Sweepstakes pages, etc., I'd much rather see some shred of credibility given to sanctioned, and obvious, University sources. The Carnegie Pulse was unbelievably quick to put up results and good information. Yes, there were some typos (PhiKap wins!), but if they can do it, surely there can be some simultaneous updates of the Sweepstakes page, and at the very least, a link from thetartan.org to tcpulse for the latest news. In the interest of keeping alums informed, the school might want to put an alumni house staffer in touch with the Pulse and Tartan people to get that info out there.

Rick mentioned the need for more regular Tartan buggy news, and isn't it really about time? In the weeks leading up to Carnival I was seriously considering putting in a proposal to the Tartan for a column during next year's buggy season. There are quite a few alums in the area coming out to freerolls regularly, and I think between all of us, we could compile enough times, photos, stories, history (for non-rolling weekends), and gossip to keep it interesting throughout the year. If it's in the Tartan, it would be a lot easier for out-of-the-loop alums to find it, rather than trying to find out which blog/forum/xbuggy.com can feed their buggy jones. Let's see if my buggy fever is still going strong next fall before I go agreeing to a regular column commitment. Any other takers out there? Tom Wood? Felmley?

Posted by Carsen Kline on Mon Apr 28 18:23:50 2008

More teams, better teams

Ungodly practice hours have got to be one of the biggest drawbacks to getting into buggy; I forget already who said it 12 threads ago, but it's true. But what about the clubs/frats who really want to do it, have at least 5 people who want to push, but just don't know where to begin?

I can tell you from my Brooklyn experience, 10 magical years ago, that if an inexperienced buggy team wants to go off the deep end and build a luge, even though someone told them how to build a fast, light standard trike female molded carbon fiber Phi-Kap steering sex machine, those frisbee tossing goofballs will still opt for the recumbant.

Which, by the way, garnered full points for safety and "extra points" for innovation from the design comp judges.

And which, furthermore, was easily one of the five fastest buggies from hill 2 to chute flag. Gross understeer, 10/45/45 weight distribution, and 43 pounds of carbon fiber may have been a factor in adding 10 seconds to its chute...

Ungodly practice hours have got to be one of the biggest drawbacks to getting into buggy; I forget already who said it 12 threads ago, but it's true. But what about the clubs/frats who really want to do it, have at least 5 people who want to push, but just don't know where to begin?

I can tell you from my Brooklyn experience, 10 magical years ago, that if an inexperienced buggy team wants to go off the deep end and build a luge, even though someone told them how to build a fast, light standard trike female molded carbon fiber Phi-Kap steering sex machine, those frisbee tossing goofballs will still opt for the recumbant.

Which, by the way, garnered full points for safety and "extra points" for innovation from the design comp judges.

And which, furthermore, was easily one of the five fastest buggies from hill 2 to chute flag. Gross understeer, 10/45/45 weight distribution, and 43 pounds of carbon fiber may have been a factor in adding 10 seconds to its chute time. But god damn, was it safe! And our next buggy did a decent job of getting back to that fast, light, standard trike business.

So goofballs aside, suppose you gave new orgs and returning frats a chance to buy or acquire good rolling stock.

Buggies have been sold in the past, but AEPi, KKG, and KapSig haven't been able to take them and run. Spectre? Genuine Risk? And that be-derbied fifth gen Lemur replica? Once a shitbox, always a shitbox. Except Haraka.

What about a kit buggy? Offer a standard shell with cheap, decent wheels on axles pointed in the right direction, a smooth steering and functional brakes (assuming there's room in there), and make it capable of running a sub-60 freeroll right out of the box. Who prepares the kit and who funds it can be posed to the University and the buggy alumni association. Safety and rules training included.

Friendly advice, build book thievery, and defecting mechanics could fill in the gaps for new mechanics who want to take it to the next level of rolling their own.

Posted by Carsen Kline on Mon Apr 28 19:02:27 2008

Well...

I've always been one for spreading technology so I'd be down with tossing out shells to kids. But it ain't happening. My wife couldn't draft a waiver of liability strong enough to even get me to touch a hot wire cutter, let alone lay up a mold if the end result was going to be a vehicle that I could be sued for having a hand in creating.

So yeah, I love the idea of 'stock buggy racing' where we pop out safe and fast shells and hand them out but it can't happen without a bit of tort reform.

Posted by Carl Nott on Mon Apr 28 19:16:46 2008

old people love bullet points

1. better practice hours (not gonna happen).

2. Stock/intro buggy - I like this idea here. Maybe you don't give away the shell, but you give basic designs, technology and seed $$$ from some sort of fund (below)

3. Alumni buggy foundation (ABF)- general fund raising unit for buggy. would provide for 2, 4 and other buggy goodness. Also, will provide itself a better name. get alumni from competing organizations to compete in giving.

4. Endowed buggy beat reporter - I'm imagining that tartan reporters get paid nothing. As such, it might be possible to "endow" a buggy beat reporter. Have a quick contest and pay the winner x amount of dollars to cover rolls every weekend. Quality control could be done by some committee of the ABF, and should be relatively easy to do with these internets.

5. Ban undergrads and very recent alumni from any proceedings. Say 2 years removed before any participation.

Posted by Jon M on Mon Apr 28 22:34:57 2008

Ouch

Matt, while I appreciate and happen to agree with the entirety of you post, I would ask in the future that you please cite specific examples of the issues, so that your points may be portrayed more effectively.

For instance, let us examine the quote, "Fringe as an organization puts a lot of weight on total participation and depth, three men's teams made second day! Unfortunately it seems to have the effect of reducing their competitiveness. Raceday prepping an entire fleet for second day is a ton of work for already worn and exhausted mechanics. SDC B not making second day made their mechanics job easier, having only to focus on one buggy and one race. Fringe often shoots themselves in the foot for this."

While one may argue that this is simply a sorry excuse from the losing team, if you were to instead say, "Actually, you know what, I think he's right. I remember back to my senior year when I too was faced with the same obstacle. I must admit I felt pressured to focus only on my...

Matt, while I appreciate and happen to agree with the entirety of you post, I would ask in the future that you please cite specific examples of the issues, so that your points may be portrayed more effectively.

For instance, let us examine the quote, "Fringe as an organization puts a lot of weight on total participation and depth, three men's teams made second day! Unfortunately it seems to have the effect of reducing their competitiveness. Raceday prepping an entire fleet for second day is a ton of work for already worn and exhausted mechanics. SDC B not making second day made their mechanics job easier, having only to focus on one buggy and one race. Fringe often shoots themselves in the foot for this."

While one may argue that this is simply a sorry excuse from the losing team, if you were to instead say, "Actually, you know what, I think he's right. I remember back to my senior year when I too was faced with the same obstacle. I must admit I felt pressured to focus only on my A team, and disregard the others. Fortunately, the pair of balls between my legs allowed me to realize just how pathetic of an excuse that was, and so I decided to place 1st-2nd-6th instead."

Excuses are lame.

Posted by Cory Stawartz on Mon Apr 28 23:23:09 2008

but then again.. what do I know.. I'm not even competent to post in the right thread..

Posted by Cory Stawartz on Mon Apr 28 23:34:28 2008

Who is Tommy K?

Bordick, Statile, Mayes, JT, anybody... do you know who the rambling moron is?

Posted by Matt Long on Tue Apr 29 01:48:16 2008

re: Tommy K

Hatred of the Pats! Now there's something we can all get together on.

Matt, I've assumed Tommy K is Tom Kelleher, the Fringe head mechanic from 2001 when they won men's and women's. Somebody correct me if that's wrong.

Posted by Rick Simmons on Tue Apr 29 10:39:54 2008

How do I pick?

To which rambling moron are you referring?

Posted by Bordick on Tue Apr 29 10:51:53 2008

in case you didn't know...

The one with a chicken on his head.

http://www.fringe.org/Pics/main.php?g2_itemId=33479&g2_page=3

Posted by Abby Sullivan on Tue Apr 29 13:06:13 2008

hmm

i still don't recognize him, with or without his head in a chicken's ass. but the shoes look fast.

Posted by Dani Barnard on Tue Apr 29 13:17:00 2008

The only thing that Pika respects is victory

I'm the dumb guy in the middle double fisting the design trophies. Please note the champion trophies of both men's and women's in front.
All the Trophies
I know that I am not personally responsible for these trophies, but I played my part in giving my team's pushers and drivers a chance to do the winning.

My last post ... totally dumb - Abby's post made me ornery. Flopping credentials and calling people stupid isn't exactly the kind of inter-organizational cooperative spirit that she had been espousing. And to hear her talk about ways to keep independent organizations enthusiastic and competitive ... ironic in the least considering the competitiveness of Spirit in the years since her departure.

The hard lesson that Fringe learned in '99 was not to change too much on raceday, to practice for the race in as close to race conditions as possible. This viewpoint was that of our drivers'....

I'm the dumb guy in the middle double fisting the design trophies. Please note the champion trophies of both men's and women's in front.
All the Trophies
I know that I am not personally responsible for these trophies, but I played my part in giving my team's pushers and drivers a chance to do the winning.

My last post ... totally dumb - Abby's post made me ornery. Flopping credentials and calling people stupid isn't exactly the kind of inter-organizational cooperative spirit that she had been espousing. And to hear her talk about ways to keep independent organizations enthusiastic and competitive ... ironic in the least considering the competitiveness of Spirit in the years since her departure.

The hard lesson that Fringe learned in '99 was not to change too much on raceday, to practice for the race in as close to race conditions as possible. This viewpoint was that of our drivers'. Drivers with multiple years of experience, drivers that were head drivers, sweepstakes chairs and judges. I think this lesson is valuable to other teams to improve safety and performance on raceday.

I think that sharing information about design and construction but more importantly design and performance failures to younger generations is good practice and that institutional support to make it accessible to everyone is a fantastic idea. A public buggy wiki had a brief existence a few years ago and there is talk of reviving it this summer. As a repository of building resources and advice on how to make buggy safer it could be a way to encourage new teams to form and reinforce good practices in existing teams.

Posted by tommy k on Tue Apr 29 17:27:13 2008

I respect competitiveness, not excuses.

Did Tommyk really just brag about having the men's and women's trophies 7 years ago?

Posted by Matt Long on Tue Apr 29 18:00:23 2008

Next year

Basil, Pika's sub 16 hill 4 and huge shove into 5 and Trent, SDC's sub 16 hill 1, are both leaving next year. I hope I get to rag on both teams if they get 'only' a 2:07.

Posted by tommy k on Tue Apr 29 18:11:02 2008

Yeah, plus next year Fringe is going to have the golf team pushing for them, so everybody else better watch out!

Posted by Josh Ayers on Tue Apr 29 19:06:41 2008

Pot meet Kettle

SDC Men's A in 2007 included the following from Tartan Football:
88 Trent Sisson Jr. OLB 215
53 Jim Sands Soph. ILB 230
31 John Brown Jr. OLB 195
24 Jon Scholl Jr. DB 185

Posted by tommy k on Tue Apr 29 20:48:34 2008

We Interrupt For This Commercial Break

Carsen, Jon, everyone, thanks for continuing to post ideas for the Alumni group.

We've put up the current draft of the proposal online for feedback and discussion. Some of those whose email Abby and I had already got this document.

http://buggyalums.org/


P.S. - This is my first blog, so please alert me of anything that isn't working well. Or if you can explain why I might need Categories.

Thanks!

Posted by Dani Barnard on Tue Apr 29 21:01:06 2008

this site was a lot cooler

before I realized the whole page structure is just a clone of the Fringe page (that explains why it was running so slow..ohhhhhhh buggy website burn)

matty, cory glad to see some people '06 people bringing some sanity onto the board

Posted by Steve Curtis (PiKA PTC '07) on Tue Apr 29 21:09:30 2008

Radio Announcer

In '06 and '07 I was also the radio announcer for WRCT. I did it because I was tired of listening the poor schleppes who knew nothing about buggy and very little about sports announcing. I think the idea of of doing it had poked around Fringe Alum circles for a while but everyone else preferred drinking and hanging out in the chute.

What sold me was the chance to be in the lead truck. Chairmen have to ride in the follow truck, often behind CIA C or AEPi while their team is trying to win the race. Lead truck gets to see the whole race and sometimes (Pika women's A in '06) gets you incredibly close to the action. It was a blast the first time and I tried to be as prepared as possible ... heats, rosters, hill one and truck weekend times, buggy names and random buggy facts to fill the dead time during the freeroll (watch the video, the transitions are really boring if the heats are properly seeded). Alums who had to watch from afar that year called me during the race to say thanks for making it ...

In '06 and '07 I was also the radio announcer for WRCT. I did it because I was tired of listening the poor schleppes who knew nothing about buggy and very little about sports announcing. I think the idea of of doing it had poked around Fringe Alum circles for a while but everyone else preferred drinking and hanging out in the chute.

What sold me was the chance to be in the lead truck. Chairmen have to ride in the follow truck, often behind CIA C or AEPi while their team is trying to win the race. Lead truck gets to see the whole race and sometimes (Pika women's A in '06) gets you incredibly close to the action. It was a blast the first time and I tried to be as prepared as possible ... heats, rosters, hill one and truck weekend times, buggy names and random buggy facts to fill the dead time during the freeroll (watch the video, the transitions are really boring if the heats are properly seeded). Alums who had to watch from afar that year called me during the race to say thanks for making it not suck. Tom Wood appreciated it and mentioned it in his first history of buggy presentation.

The only thing missing from those broadcasts was a healthy banter. Something funnier than floating tacos. Anything funnier than floating tacos. If the comic geniuses at Pika can spare 4 hours of booze time and get some volunteers together it would definitely make buggy a more accesible and enjoyable experience. It would be helpful if they knew more about buggies than simply the number of wheels it has. It would be helpful if they could throw in some facts and figures that make what's being watched relevant and contextual. It would help if they got just a little bit excited when records are falling like trees in the Amazon. I may be a Fringe partisan, but if I had been making the call this year ... I would have screaming bloody murder like Harry Caray if the Cubbies had ever won it. 204.35 and 204.5 are freaking amazing. SDC set to sweep and Pika snaking it out from under their noses by a hair's breath ... God I wish I could have been there. I mentioned it in my notes to the WRCT coordinator, but this year could be the beginning of a new era in buggy. And all we have to show for it, recorded forever in crystal clear audio ... tacos.

Posted by tommy k on Wed Apr 30 05:50:22 2008

"The only thing missing from those broadcasts was a healthy banter. Something funnier than floating tacos. Anything funnier than floating tacos. If the comic geniuses at Pika can spare 4 hours of booze time and get some volunteers together it would definitely make buggy a more accesible and enjoyable experience. . . ."

Sorry for the HUGE quote, but I would love to be able to do this, however, I don't have any connections with WRCT, so while I may or may not be a "comic Genius" I would love to add to the broadcast. Typically the people on the radio are radio-geeks and not buggy-geeks. I am really impressed with the CMUtv video footage and typically, when watching races, I turn the volume down. I'm sorry if my drinking in the morning hurts your overall race experience and I'm sorry if Pike Alums haven't taken over every aspect of buggy. We had the Sweepstakes chair this year, and that's a lot. Maybe if you have information on how to get onto a microphone for the broadcast, you could, you...

"The only thing missing from those broadcasts was a healthy banter. Something funnier than floating tacos. Anything funnier than floating tacos. If the comic geniuses at Pika can spare 4 hours of booze time and get some volunteers together it would definitely make buggy a more accesible and enjoyable experience. . . ."

Sorry for the HUGE quote, but I would love to be able to do this, however, I don't have any connections with WRCT, so while I may or may not be a "comic Genius" I would love to add to the broadcast. Typically the people on the radio are radio-geeks and not buggy-geeks. I am really impressed with the CMUtv video footage and typically, when watching races, I turn the volume down. I'm sorry if my drinking in the morning hurts your overall race experience and I'm sorry if Pike Alums haven't taken over every aspect of buggy. We had the Sweepstakes chair this year, and that's a lot. Maybe if you have information on how to get onto a microphone for the broadcast, you could, you know, share that. I would love to see Dani and/or Abby in the booth, although I think both (like me) would have trouble speaking for 4 hours without dropping the F-bomb.

Posted by Bordick on Wed Apr 30 07:45:04 2008

Throwing my hat in the radio biz ring

Tommy, how should one go about volunteering to do a buggy broadcast for WRCT? e.g. How did you volunteer your services? There's been talk, past and current, of getting a certain pike to do it, and I believe he could be talked into it. He would need to broaden his base of historical stories to those beyond the pika realm, and he would need to heed your suggestion of knowing all the heats/teams/buggies/etc. (He might even be coerced into coming a day early for Display to help out with the preparation.) But if he could do that, plus curtail the sailor's mouth, it could be an improvement over the current "floating tacos" broadcast.

Posted by Rick Simmons on Wed Apr 30 15:32:32 2008

WRCT

Sports Director Howard Smith sports@wrct.org is the guy to get in touch with. He was on air with me during both shows to fulfill the WRCT requiremnt of having a trained person running the show and also to ask the laymen's questions that buggy vets take for granted. I think he's also there to keep be from dropping too may f-bombs.

The heats, rosters and buggy names have to be gotten from sweepstakes with much pleading, begging and promises not to abuse it (in the past they had socials on the rosters, also I think there's supposedly a competitive edge knowing who's pushing for the other team). I spent the night before compiling the rosters and heats into a usable excel sheet to make informed calls during the race. Whoever's doing play by play from the truck needs to know what to expect from each team, this is usually a no brainer and your chair can probably keep you up to date on how the other teams are looking. Knowing which buggies are new, how old they are is often an interesting fact as is ...

Sports Director Howard Smith sports@wrct.org is the guy to get in touch with. He was on air with me during both shows to fulfill the WRCT requiremnt of having a trained person running the show and also to ask the laymen's questions that buggy vets take for granted. I think he's also there to keep be from dropping too may f-bombs.

The heats, rosters and buggy names have to be gotten from sweepstakes with much pleading, begging and promises not to abuse it (in the past they had socials on the rosters, also I think there's supposedly a competitive edge knowing who's pushing for the other team). I spent the night before compiling the rosters and heats into a usable excel sheet to make informed calls during the race. Whoever's doing play by play from the truck needs to know what to expect from each team, this is usually a no brainer and your chair can probably keep you up to date on how the other teams are looking. Knowing which buggies are new, how old they are is often an interesting fact as is any cool detail about them. (the shortened pushbar on King of Spades, the buy-sell history of AEPi's camo, how to tell Zeus, Jackal and Jupiter apart) Anytime you can help the onlookers tell the difference between teams buggies helps. Lots of team have black buggies, what are quick ways to tell them apart?

The color guy has to set up each heat, add lots of filler and random stories and keep people interested in the race. Both need to drink lots of water, wear sunblock and bring a cushion for the lead truck guy, the bed of a pickup is not very comfortable. Have fun and keep it clean, which is easier to say than do.

Posted by tommy k on Wed Apr 30 15:59:24 2008

wrct broadcast

I would love to do the WRCT broadcast, but I'm thinking Rick would be better at it.

I've been thinking that they should do taped interviews with chairman, sweepstakes, pushers, drivers, etc. to play between heats. That time can get really long and boring, and you could get great 3 minute interviews to put in. If you could tape things in the week or 2 before races, they'd be very relevant and could be played prior to the most aplicable heat. I'm not sure if this has been discussed here before, I'm a little overload at the moment so forgive me if i'm repeating. I'd also think it would be great to a longer live interview between men's and women's, and Tom Wood would be the obvious choice for that.

Posted by Abby Sullivan on Wed Apr 30 16:04:21 2008

In Other News

The Alumni Office is super excited about the idea of Alumni Interest Group. Anne Witchner is on board to do whatever she can from the Student Affairs side of things. So things are moving forward from that perspective, which should allow for the structure needed to do everything else we've been talking about. For those who haven't done it yet, please check out http://buggyalums.org/.

A bunch of people have sent emails to me and Dani through the site letting us know that you're interested in participating, and until we have the web forum in place (which looks like it will happen through the Alumni office, if anyone cares), that's the most 'official' way we can keep track of people, so go ahead and do that if you want us to know who you are.

Posted by Abby Sullivan on Wed Apr 30 16:22:26 2008

Re: We Interrupt For This Commercial Break

Dani – awesome blog. Not too many comments so far and I wish I had something intelligent to contribute – I'm still thinking. Someone named Tommy suggested the following:

"Create a buggy handbook, containing basic building information and tips. List of resources and suppliers."

I know I did buggy a long time ago, but I always kind of thought that attempting to keep your teams' secrets while figuring out other teams' secrets was part of the challenge. Maybe winning times have plateau'd for so long that people have forgotten – has the whole notion of trying to gain some kind of competitive advantage gone away?

Posted by Madler on Wed Apr 30 16:26:26 2008

fearless leaders wanted

One thing that we need in order to set up the Buggy Alumni Group is identified leadership. We must have a President, VP and Secretary/Treasurer. If anyone wants to volunteer for these positions, please let me know. I think the best thing to do to start would be to get Pittsburgh-area alums who have a reasonable amout of time and a high level of commitment to this as volunteers for the positions. Then, when there's a more established membership and organization, we can hold elections. If anyone has a better suggestion, let me know, otherwise - volunteers wanted. Email me abigailsullivan@hotmail.com or post here. If there are LOTS of volunteers then we'll put it up for discussion.

Posted by Abby Sullivan on Wed Apr 30 16:30:04 2008

Knowledge Tiers

I think there are identifiable knowledge tiers that exist within what it takes to build a fast buggy. There is always the design and craftsmanship aspects that are going to be unique from team to team unless someone defects and takes a build book with them (cough Tomas cough cough Pioneers). Obviously raceday treatment techniques and steering designs are an area that only lots of trial and error will yield profitable progress and that kind of stuff should stay with the teams that worked har dover years to develop them.

i.e.
The advent of Xootrs in their original formula could have sparked an explosion of buggy participation. It has already led directly to the increased competitiveness of teams like KDR, Sig Ep, SDC and Fringe who hung their hats on these wheels. Using this wheels will get you around the course safely but knowing how to make them go fast on raceday ... that's stuff that people need to figure out themselves. If the Buggy Braniac Old Farts Rocking Chair club wants to do...

I think there are identifiable knowledge tiers that exist within what it takes to build a fast buggy. There is always the design and craftsmanship aspects that are going to be unique from team to team unless someone defects and takes a build book with them (cough Tomas cough cough Pioneers). Obviously raceday treatment techniques and steering designs are an area that only lots of trial and error will yield profitable progress and that kind of stuff should stay with the teams that worked har dover years to develop them.

i.e.
The advent of Xootrs in their original formula could have sparked an explosion of buggy participation. It has already led directly to the increased competitiveness of teams like KDR, Sig Ep, SDC and Fringe who hung their hats on these wheels. Using this wheels will get you around the course safely but knowing how to make them go fast on raceday ... that's stuff that people need to figure out themselves. If the Buggy Braniac Old Farts Rocking Chair club wants to do something financially to get new teams involved: find a source for the original wheels/rubber and buy in gross quantity. Make X avaialble to new and existing teams and pretty much anything you bolt 3 of these wheels to would give you shot at being a part of the race.

Spreading common knowledge about the aspects of composite construction as it applies to buggy is not that hard for teams with good records of their builds and and can be pared down to the basics, things that you can learn from hours upon hours of websurfing and reading layup guides for other composite vehicles but in a format that increases interest and ability. I bet if you search DTS for 'carbon' you'll find at least a half dozen home projects that grabs any buggy addicts attention. (just don't search for meatspin, you will be sorry)

I think an interesting exercise for enhancing design comp would be to require a materials/quantity list and total cost. Budgeting and planning are just as important a design skill in the real world as wicked smooth fairings,a gonzo braking system or perfectly optimized weight distribution.
Obviously some teams won't play ball, despite the educational and practical benefits.

Posted by tommy k on Wed Apr 30 16:53:05 2008

interested parties

small request-- if you're interested in a leadership role, please email Abby, or comment back on buggyalums.org (rather than reply on here).

...i'm going blind. plus, it'll be good to keep related discussion together.

thanks!

Posted by Dani Barnard on Wed Apr 30 16:53:14 2008

knowledge tiers

Ha! I might qualify as a member of the Buggy Braniac (sic) Old Farts Rocking Chair club. Not sure I’m a brainiac but I do really like sitting down. I would do something financial to help get new teams started or old teams re-started but, given the advent of Xootrs, I’m not sure going on some quest to buy up the rubber they used in the late 80’s is really the best approach.

Posted by Madler on Wed Apr 30 18:01:43 2008

tacos are delicious

yeah, i'd vote for a bordick-simmons-sullivan buggy commentary three-way. or any combination thereof. i have a feeling it would be hysterically informative.

thanks for the vote of confidence, andy. sadly, i'm only good for making shockingly inappropriate comments, calling people douchebags and dropping the "f-bomb"...so i'd better watch from the sidelines.

i think abby's idea for interview interstitials is terrific.

Posted by Dani Barnard on Wed Apr 30 18:23:15 2008

Adler, check your hotmail.

Posted by Adam McCue on Wed Apr 30 20:23:53 2008

interstitials is an awesome word. Dani could say big words on the radio.

Posted by Abby Sullivan on Wed Apr 30 21:13:42 2008

Big Words, words words

See, that would be funny. Dani could drop in an "interstitials" and the next 8 minutes would be me and Simmons fighting over what it means. We would both not know, but we would claim that we did. Next thing you know **BAM** new heat. I may have to sign up for this gig.

I have some radio air time, but it was definitely focused at a different audience. . . a big, heavy and honkin' audience.

Posted by Bordick on Thu May 1 09:16:35 2008

Just out of curiosity...

Does anyone have a list of organizations that used to do buggy, but no longer do, but still exist as organizations?

Posted by Aiton Goldman on Thu May 1 16:23:41 2008

orgs

Hey Aiton,
You can find it all the History of Buggy presentation.

http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/buggy/Sweepstakes/Welcome_files/History%20of%20Buggy%202.pdf

Posted by Dani Barnard on Thu May 1 18:09:08 2008

I have 2 buggies in my basement...

...and I'm trying to convince someone to give me a 3rd one.

I'm not a well person.

Posted by Aiton Goldman on Thu May 1 18:23:10 2008

Orgs that aren't buggy orgs

Aiton, any fraternity that still has a house on campus was active in buggy at some point. So today I would imagine that means, SAE, Theta Xi, and (ahem) Beta. All solidly competitive orgs at various times in history. And I thought I heard Kap Sig may be returning to campus, so they would be added to that list as well if that's the case. There was a Beta Sigma Rho or Tau Delta Phi at one point that used to live in the Sig Tau/Forbes House/(is this where SigEp lives now?) building, but I believe they rolled into or were converted to KDR. Air Force ROTC also had a team or two for several years in the 80's. They ran the clear buggy that wound up in AEPi's basement, possibly also DU's (or was that a different clear buggy)? Last I heard there still is AFROTC on campus. I mentioned in an earlier (long-winded) account that KSA participated in freerolls at one point but I can't remember if they actually rolled on Raceday ever or not. And of course there's Kappa Kappa Gamma, who rolled the last few years...

Aiton, any fraternity that still has a house on campus was active in buggy at some point. So today I would imagine that means, SAE, Theta Xi, and (ahem) Beta. All solidly competitive orgs at various times in history. And I thought I heard Kap Sig may be returning to campus, so they would be added to that list as well if that's the case. There was a Beta Sigma Rho or Tau Delta Phi at one point that used to live in the Sig Tau/Forbes House/(is this where SigEp lives now?) building, but I believe they rolled into or were converted to KDR. Air Force ROTC also had a team or two for several years in the 80's. They ran the clear buggy that wound up in AEPi's basement, possibly also DU's (or was that a different clear buggy)? Last I heard there still is AFROTC on campus. I mentioned in an earlier (long-winded) account that KSA participated in freerolls at one point but I can't remember if they actually rolled on Raceday ever or not. And of course there's Kappa Kappa Gamma, who rolled the last few years but not this one. This is all off the top of my head, I'd have to check old buggy books for a more accurate recounting. But as Dani mentioned, Wood's presentation would be the official story.

Posted by Rick Simmons on Fri May 2 11:31:29 2008

re: Orgs that aren't buggy orgs

KSA tried to bring out a buggy in '93 but didn't roll on raceday. It was this recumbent thing based on the idea of street luge - you steered by leaning. They did some trial runs in the spring but it didn't work. We were pressed for time trying to get all the teams qualified to roll (new roll requirements that year; 50+ teams) but we probably didn't give them enough encouragement. I feel a little bad about it.

How long ago was DTD kicked off campus? Someone might be able to track down their old buggies for your collection Aiton.

I could have sworn that Kappa Sig also had a plexi-buggy (Al frame). We let them work off fines by bringing us donuts every morning at rolls - it was a good arrangement.

Posted by Madler on Fri May 2 13:17:57 2008

AFAIK

DTD was kicked off in 2004. Their last buggy, Cool Runnings, was thrown out by one of our mechanics. We have the steering for it, but that's it. It was actually a cool buggy. I remember hearing about the last time it rolled anywhere: when one of their brothers got drunk and rode it down the frat quad sidewalk, almost into traffic. Good ol' DTD.

DU had a plexi buggy in 03, but it crashed on hill 2 and never rolled again. I think that is my earliest buggy memory, actually.

KapSig is on campus currently.

I don't know anything about BSR or TDPhi, so I am not sure about that conversion (I'm a KDR). Our house used to be ZBT and they were good at buggy.

Posted by Adam McCue on Fri May 2 14:46:48 2008

Fun Fact for Friday

Alumni Relations has contact information for 1472 buggy alums.

Posted by Abby Sullivan on Fri May 2 17:21:20 2008

the reason I ask...

one of the goals of the alumni brain trust is to make sure buggy survives and (hopefully) flourishes. It seems like a good step towards doing that would be to find out from people in the failed organization what happened (or what series of things happened) to make them fail.

Although I'm guessing 9 out 10 times, the answer is "Not enough bat shit crazy people participating. Also, no bagels".

But it couldn't hurt to ask.

Posted by Aiton Goldman on Fri May 2 18:43:18 2008

I think that's a brilliant idea, Aiton. In the course of it, you may also find out how easy or difficult it would be to revive some of those defunct organizations.

Rick and Matt's responses made me realize how lazy and stupid my other post was, sorry. I don't think I've seen a mother-spreadsheet (unless it's that "Obsession.xls," which I don't have handy) that just lists every organization from 1920 onward, years of participation, known names of buggies, placing, etc. You could add to that notes about when and why orgs left the sport. (...Or, maybe, that'd be redundant and the geek in me loves spreadsheets too much.)

Posted by Dani Barnard on Fri May 2 19:18:40 2008

Heh...

My last brilliant buggy related idea ended with me being drunk for 24 hours straight. I can't decide if this idea is better or worse...

Posted by Aiton Goldman on Sun May 4 14:09:04 2008

radio announcing

Bordick, your services as a drunkard are for more important to the future of buggy/carnival.

Posted by Brian Morelli on Mon May 5 21:55:57 2008

Radio

Thanks, I've had years of practice to hone my craft. I drank while chairman so I figured, "why stop?"

Posted by Bordick on Tue May 6 06:01:52 2008

...

And just so you dinks don't get mad at me for being too cocky, that was a small stab at myself for incoherently blabbering that on stage after winning a few races in a row.

Nice to see some of the big players posting on here... I'm glad buggy is going on all year long!

Sam, thanks for putting this site together. It's been a lot of fun to read (probably an unintended consequence, but I'm glad some good came of this).

Posted by Nate Curtis on Wed May 7 20:57:23 2008

In My Defense

Ok Tommy K. see if you talk shit about me now that Im on here. I drove exactly the line that i wanted to be on on Raceday '04, the buggy didn't hold. That buggy is a POS like everyone else had said, it had been sliding through the shoot all year, and yes i had been experimenting with different lines to help with this not "couldnt get my line" because Im not a good driver like you were inferring. But when your driver tells you on truck you gotta give me what you got so i can tell you whether this buggy will hold (although i have enough experience to know the pushers speed up on race day of course), and then as Abby said they go an change things up, you cant blame the driver because she's told you there is a problem. Another major issue that day if you notice in the tapes the large amount of dust flying off the wheels of all the buggies between the flags, which results in less traction as you must know. Frankly I don't know why they are still running brim. As Marissa said i ran A all four years, just...

Ok Tommy K. see if you talk shit about me now that Im on here. I drove exactly the line that i wanted to be on on Raceday '04, the buggy didn't hold. That buggy is a POS like everyone else had said, it had been sliding through the shoot all year, and yes i had been experimenting with different lines to help with this not "couldnt get my line" because Im not a good driver like you were inferring. But when your driver tells you on truck you gotta give me what you got so i can tell you whether this buggy will hold (although i have enough experience to know the pushers speed up on race day of course), and then as Abby said they go an change things up, you cant blame the driver because she's told you there is a problem. Another major issue that day if you notice in the tapes the large amount of dust flying off the wheels of all the buggies between the flags, which results in less traction as you must know. Frankly I don't know why they are still running brim. As Marissa said i ran A all four years, just like Carla, and both of us were disappointed that year remember?

Posted by Nora Tewksbury on Thu May 8 10:10:04 2008

Yeah, what she said

Ka-Pow!!

Posted by Bordick on Thu May 8 12:11:51 2008

If you listened to the drivers in the first place...

This pleases me to no end that Spirit and PiKA drivers have got each other's backs here. Most experienced drivers would agree that drivers are the least utilized member of any team. A driver knows the buggy in a way that nobody else can, and if she's trained as a mechanic and engaged in building and maintenance process, she can be very helpful. A driver that doesn't know her buggy very well will get out after a roll and say 'There's something wrong with my buggy' and then the mechanic has 2 choices - ignore her or spend his whole Saturday floundering around trying to figure it out. If your driver knows her buggy and you listen to her, you'll probably get more along the lines of 'my left rear wheel is out of true.' or 'here's what I think of the wheel treatment...' And maybe she'll even fix it herself.

I've heard that there are or have been teams that actually try to prevent drivers from seeing how their buggies work, which is insane to me. How could you trust her to DRIVE it, but not see it? ...

This pleases me to no end that Spirit and PiKA drivers have got each other's backs here. Most experienced drivers would agree that drivers are the least utilized member of any team. A driver knows the buggy in a way that nobody else can, and if she's trained as a mechanic and engaged in building and maintenance process, she can be very helpful. A driver that doesn't know her buggy very well will get out after a roll and say 'There's something wrong with my buggy' and then the mechanic has 2 choices - ignore her or spend his whole Saturday floundering around trying to figure it out. If your driver knows her buggy and you listen to her, you'll probably get more along the lines of 'my left rear wheel is out of true.' or 'here's what I think of the wheel treatment...' And maybe she'll even fix it herself.

I've heard that there are or have been teams that actually try to prevent drivers from seeing how their buggies work, which is insane to me. How could you trust her to DRIVE it, but not see it?

Mechanics and chairmen tend to treat drivers as a necessary, high maintenance 'I won't drive unless you get me a Mocha Latte!' evil. This is actually kind of understandable because every mechanic is jealous of every driver because they all want to drive. So they work really hard and then they watch someone else get to do the cool part.

Then the pushers tend to put the drivers on a pedestal, in a trained monkey kind of way (this is 'My Driver'), which is also somewhat logical because from the pushers perspective, the driver is literally part of the buggy.

So the dynamics are weird, unless you make a choice to overcome them. Which is to everyone's benefit.

And Nora, just because you're here doesn't mean that Tommy K will stop talking smack about you, but I'm pretty sure nobody is listening to him, so it's all good.

Posted by Abby Sullivan on Thu May 8 16:30:34 2008

I was always nice to my drivers. Drivers are the key.

Fuko was a POS though. Tiny POS too, which made it worse.

Posted by Carl Nott on Thu May 8 17:13:21 2008

Nora, we love you

I think they were still running brim bc they didn't have any other buggies to accomodate Olivia's height. And I think Olivia enjoyed the uncertainty of the buggy.

Posted by Matt Long on Thu May 8 18:19:01 2008

I was always nice to my drivers.

Sure, but you can't tell me you never laughed at the 'cunning runt' comments.

Posted by Abby Sullivan on Thu May 8 18:46:20 2008

Pier pressure. I always thought it was pretty stupid to talk shit about the one person who touches the buggy the entire way around the course.

Felmley had that pic of me dry-humping you as you finished laying up Demani at the CMARC dinner BTW. Memories.

Posted by Carl Nott on Thu May 8 18:55:56 2008

At the risk of sounding like I'm defending this behavior, it's easy to understand. 3 am on Sunday, and you've been awake since like, Thursday, and the driver is sleeping somewhere, and you very well may not even get to SEE a roll that day...

In a year where you build a new buggy, any mechanic or chairman puts in more hours than the A team pushers and driver combined, easily. But when they give the big trophy, they give out 6 medals, 5 pushers and 1 driver. I think that sucks.

Posted by Abby Sullivan on Thu May 8 19:24:52 2008

Thanks for speaking up Nora, you and Janice are pretty much the only people that could possibly confirm my viewpoint which Abby pointedly called ‘stupid’ and Ayers, STD and others think is ‘overstated’. Just to clarify, I praised your efforts to control Brim and noted the mitigating circumstances of both the chute conditions and the tire selection/ treatment. I’m sorry you think I’ve been denigrating you or any other driver’s experience or ability when clearly the point is to fault chairmen and lazy organizations for not giving their driver’s enough race speed experience. I can understand that I get to play the bad guy since I said that drivers make mistakes but I don’t understand why Abby and others choose to ignore something that is common to all forms of racing; practice for going fast by going fast. Abby’s vehement and poisonous know-it-all attitude aside, she essentially confirmed my viewpoint by stating in her ‘Fifth Point for Why Drivers Spin’ that there is a difference between Sweepstakes...

Thanks for speaking up Nora, you and Janice are pretty much the only people that could possibly confirm my viewpoint which Abby pointedly called ‘stupid’ and Ayers, STD and others think is ‘overstated’. Just to clarify, I praised your efforts to control Brim and noted the mitigating circumstances of both the chute conditions and the tire selection/ treatment. I’m sorry you think I’ve been denigrating you or any other driver’s experience or ability when clearly the point is to fault chairmen and lazy organizations for not giving their driver’s enough race speed experience. I can understand that I get to play the bad guy since I said that drivers make mistakes but I don’t understand why Abby and others choose to ignore something that is common to all forms of racing; practice for going fast by going fast. Abby’s vehement and poisonous know-it-all attitude aside, she essentially confirmed my viewpoint by stating in her ‘Fifth Point for Why Drivers Spin’ that there is a difference between Sweepstakes Prepared and Raceday Prepared drivers. She also apparently thinks that some driver's are 'unsafe at any speed' which indicates that she believes a base-level of talent is innate and required to be a driver.

As far as Raceday ’04 is concerned, I still have scars on my knees from where I fell on them in despair after Dwight missed the bar and I distinctly remember giving Carla a huge hug afterwards to console her in what should have been a victorious moment. Later, as I was sitting on the bumper of the Fringe Truck, Tom Wood himself shook my hand and commiserated over a similar experience Pika had that led to a Zoo victory. I don’t think any number of derogatory comments from Abby could possibly convince me to erase my memory of what appeared to be an early entry into your line on raceday, just as watching the video of ’99 couldn’t absolve Janice of probably turning too late. In both cases, I believe the driver’s timing error contributed to the spin, but are of course just part of the cause. Obviously you won’t be able to share all the challenges of Brimstone’s design that may have played a role in its performance liabilities, we’ve definitely surmised that vision and steering control we’re problems for Brim, but if YOU, the actual driver of the buggy that spun say that the buggy was the main problem, that’s enough for me.

Posted by tommy k on Thu May 8 23:49:10 2008

She also apparently thinks that some driver's are 'unsafe at any speed' which indicates that she believes a base-level of talent is innate and required to be a driver.

Amazingly enough some folks find that simply being small does not a good driver make. It's also important for drivers to remember to wear their contacts (argh) and know which is the transition flag and which is the chute flag (argh).

Personally we always tried to go as fast as we could on Truck Weekend and then we always went faster on Raceday. Just looking at the time splits from Raceday '08 you can see the freerolls for the top teams drop significantly from Day 1 to Day 2: PiKA over 2 seconds, SDC A over a second, both Fringe teams dropped over a half second and Spirit dropped, uh, 4.6 seconds. Honestly if you look at the amount of time dropped during Spring Rolls '08 and Truck Weekend and compare that to how the team did on raceday I think you could easily make the argument that going faster before Truck ...

She also apparently thinks that some driver's are 'unsafe at any speed' which indicates that she believes a base-level of talent is innate and required to be a driver.

Amazingly enough some folks find that simply being small does not a good driver make. It's also important for drivers to remember to wear their contacts (argh) and know which is the transition flag and which is the chute flag (argh).

Personally we always tried to go as fast as we could on Truck Weekend and then we always went faster on Raceday. Just looking at the time splits from Raceday '08 you can see the freerolls for the top teams drop significantly from Day 1 to Day 2: PiKA over 2 seconds, SDC A over a second, both Fringe teams dropped over a half second and Spirit dropped, uh, 4.6 seconds. Honestly if you look at the amount of time dropped during Spring Rolls '08 and Truck Weekend and compare that to how the team did on raceday I think you could easily make the argument that going faster before Truck Weekend results in a lower place finish. Psychosis, the fastest freeroll this year, was 10 seconds faster with his 2:04 time than with his fastest pre-Truck Weekend time, and Chimera was over 13 seconds faster. In freeroll!

I dunno, it just seems weird that Fringe's A buggy was only 1.7s faster on Raceday that it was on a random weekend in March. PiKA dropped more than that going from Friday to Saturday. I can appreciate the logic of 'always go 100%' but in practice it seems to not work out all that well.

Posted by Carl Nott on Fri May 9 02:31:05 2008

The look on her face

Tommy K, i am not sure how things are done now, but when i was in the house i used to purposely make the buggies go slower before raceday because i liked to see the look on the drivers face after the race.

Posted by Luke Woolley on Fri May 9 08:24:23 2008

Why chairmen shouldn't do math.

Carl, I know you had some troubles with Calc 2, but please check the numbers again. My freeroll times from the Spring semester show Psychosis' fastest freeroll in the 52s range, and Chimera in the 55s range. A 13s shift would need a rocket, methinks!

Posted by Carsen Kline on Fri May 9 08:54:19 2008

K.

Alright, i concede some points to you Tommy. Frustratingly enough, one difficult thing about raceday that only drivers can truly know is that some of your "points" (as i call them, visual markers along the track for setting up the line) in the shoot get obstructed by spectators, in a way thats unpredictable and harder to prepare for. Going forward with Abby's comment i've been hard on brim, but i really really wanted that buggy to work since i saw how much heart and soul the mechanics and chairs put into it. Maybe if i hadnt been willing it to work so much, oh well. And yes, well know i dont feel that i cut the line in too much, with the slide i did have to compensate so that i didnt hit the oposite bales at the apex. Lines are somewhat subjective, they are quite a bit different from team to team and most organizations think theirs is better for some reason or another, and yes some are on the better path in terms of physics. Personally i dont understand SDC's current entry into the turn it looked very...

Alright, i concede some points to you Tommy. Frustratingly enough, one difficult thing about raceday that only drivers can truly know is that some of your "points" (as i call them, visual markers along the track for setting up the line) in the shoot get obstructed by spectators, in a way thats unpredictable and harder to prepare for. Going forward with Abby's comment i've been hard on brim, but i really really wanted that buggy to work since i saw how much heart and soul the mechanics and chairs put into it. Maybe if i hadnt been willing it to work so much, oh well. And yes, well know i dont feel that i cut the line in too much, with the slide i did have to compensate so that i didnt hit the oposite bales at the apex. Lines are somewhat subjective, they are quite a bit different from team to team and most organizations think theirs is better for some reason or another, and yes some are on the better path in terms of physics. Personally i dont understand SDC's current entry into the turn it looked very square and scrubed time i think. Either way its the frustrating destiny of a driver who has something go wrong their last year since they will never ever be able to change peoples minds by getting to do it all over again. Nothing comes close to being able to drive a buggy again.

Posted by Nora Tewksbury on Fri May 9 09:42:00 2008

now now now Tommy...

Let me start off by saying I'm glad the smack-talk is starting to pick up. I took a vacation when everyone gathered around the campfire and roasted marshmallows, but I'm back in the game now that topics are beginning to swing back to interesting and confrontational. Now on to the debasing and personal attacks...

I'm tired of listening to this argument that orgs should roll Raceday speeds before truck. We're all very proud of Fringe for rolling quick when it didn't matter, but the truth is more than obvious - rolling quick during freerolls doesn't necessarily give you any advantage on Raceday whatsoever.

Firstly, it obviously doesn't give the mechanics an advantage. You say it gives them practice? If they're so good at prepping come Raceday, why does Fringe always suck on el dia segundo? Clearly their preparation isn't giving them the skills they need to reliably perform. Maybe if you were to write a book every year and pass it down...

Secondly, if you have a...

Let me start off by saying I'm glad the smack-talk is starting to pick up. I took a vacation when everyone gathered around the campfire and roasted marshmallows, but I'm back in the game now that topics are beginning to swing back to interesting and confrontational. Now on to the debasing and personal attacks...

I'm tired of listening to this argument that orgs should roll Raceday speeds before truck. We're all very proud of Fringe for rolling quick when it didn't matter, but the truth is more than obvious - rolling quick during freerolls doesn't necessarily give you any advantage on Raceday whatsoever.

Firstly, it obviously doesn't give the mechanics an advantage. You say it gives them practice? If they're so good at prepping come Raceday, why does Fringe always suck on el dia segundo? Clearly their preparation isn't giving them the skills they need to reliably perform. Maybe if you were to write a book every year and pass it down...

Secondly, if you have a good driver (or even just a decent one), she isn't going to freak when her speed increases by a few percentage points. It was mentioned before - if you can drive at 30 mph, you can drive at 35 mph. What's more dangerous, a bit of extra speed or losing the front hatch in the chute and still finishing the course?

Thirdly, if rolling quick in preparation is such a big advantage, how did Psychosis and Chimera manage to kick hoss so much this year? Sure Michelle scrubbed a bit in the chute during the Day 2 women's race, but it looked damn good come men's time. Oh, and less anyone think I'm playing favorites, 2:04.35

I'm bored with these tiresome and old arguments. Anyone have any pertinent and fresh opinions we can argue about? Dropping pushbars? Orange vs. Green? Biohazard wheel hubs? Bump and run vs. one hand always on? Exchange techniques? Hot chocolate or mocha coffee? Truthfully, I always thought PiKA's true advantage came from that sweet esp that always gets tagged on their truck...

Posted by Screw the Environment on Fri May 9 11:03:25 2008

It's your data Carsen, I just fail at reading it. ;) Let me send you an email...

Posted by Carl Nott on Fri May 9 11:16:08 2008

Oh and for the record it took me 5 tries to pass Calc2. Wait, maybe 6? Damn.

Posted by Carl Nott on Fri May 9 11:27:08 2008

Orange is clearly better

Right Adam?

But when I set the course record... we ran the black ones. After all, black is the fastest color.

Posted by Shane McGuire on Fri May 9 13:00:57 2008

Color

I assume everyone has seen this, but for those who haven't:
Color Me Fast

Posted by Carl Nott on Fri May 9 14:45:46 2008

It's true, orange is better than green. Yellow is also a sweet color. Orange wheels, black buggy sounds like a pretty solid combination.

Also, finishing the course with the hatch on is for noobs.

Nora drink beers with Mike and me. We live in Hoboken.

Posted by Adam McCue on Fri May 9 15:21:34 2008

Do you even have a college degree?

Tommy,

I can't tell if you are a pot-stirrer or a moron. But anyway. . .

"...when clearly the point is to fault chairmen and lazy organizations for not giving their driver’s enough race speed experience."

First of all, as a past chairman, I can attest to the fact that the chairman easily has the most issues to juggle. Believe it or not, we actually focus on all buggies, not just one. This makes it just a wee bit tricky to always have every buggy rolling at max speed. Sometimes just giving the girl/buggy combination more rolls increases the reliability (see Abby's earlier comments). So if I'm training a freshman B team driver, yes, I may not juice up the A-team buggy as fast as possible. Wow, I must be a terrible chairman.

The second amusing part of your rambling is the "lazy organization" comment. Pika was one of the org's that you criticized for this practice, yet somehow (dare I say?) a 7-peat happens. Sure, yeah, they're lazy and just ...

Tommy,

I can't tell if you are a pot-stirrer or a moron. But anyway. . .

"...when clearly the point is to fault chairmen and lazy organizations for not giving their driver’s enough race speed experience."

First of all, as a past chairman, I can attest to the fact that the chairman easily has the most issues to juggle. Believe it or not, we actually focus on all buggies, not just one. This makes it just a wee bit tricky to always have every buggy rolling at max speed. Sometimes just giving the girl/buggy combination more rolls increases the reliability (see Abby's earlier comments). So if I'm training a freshman B team driver, yes, I may not juice up the A-team buggy as fast as possible. Wow, I must be a terrible chairman.

The second amusing part of your rambling is the "lazy organization" comment. Pika was one of the org's that you criticized for this practice, yet somehow (dare I say?) a 7-peat happens. Sure, yeah, they're lazy and just really lucky, right? I mean, do you think about these things you say or just smoke a doob and start typing? I may start making some outrageous statements too, like I invented the Internet or the question mark.

Carl, nice article. I have never read it. Amusing. I just thought black was slimming.

Posted by Bordick on Fri May 9 15:44:05 2008

He's a big spoon, I'm one of those pasta spork things...

Can anybody extrapolate from their data what the speed differential would be from rolls to raceday, in mph? I would venture to guess that it's less than 3 mph. So you can say speed is a 'contributing factor', but then there are a million other things you can add to that list, no of which are likely to be decisive. To quote Mark Trumpbour: 'Winning or not can be determined by whether the driver remembered to take a dump before the race'.

To Nora's point about people in the chute messing with your sight lines, I would put that under the category of 'conditions not experienced before raceday'. More so that training with raceday speed, you'd really need to create raceday conditions as a whole if that's your training theory. Crowds, noise, temperatures, light, etc. Speed falls way down the list.

As for colors, I always thought the Spirit pushers pushed faster when the buggies came out with their pretty raceday paint jobs. When Visconti was painting the buggies, we had some...

Can anybody extrapolate from their data what the speed differential would be from rolls to raceday, in mph? I would venture to guess that it's less than 3 mph. So you can say speed is a 'contributing factor', but then there are a million other things you can add to that list, no of which are likely to be decisive. To quote Mark Trumpbour: 'Winning or not can be determined by whether the driver remembered to take a dump before the race'.

To Nora's point about people in the chute messing with your sight lines, I would put that under the category of 'conditions not experienced before raceday'. More so that training with raceday speed, you'd really need to create raceday conditions as a whole if that's your training theory. Crowds, noise, temperatures, light, etc. Speed falls way down the list.

As for colors, I always thought the Spirit pushers pushed faster when the buggies came out with their pretty raceday paint jobs. When Visconti was painting the buggies, we had some spectacular ones.

Posted by Abby Sullivan on Fri May 9 16:21:45 2008

This argument actually brings up a good question, which is what were the most recent real live injuries, and what caused them?

The recent ones I can think of:

Ja, in Phantom (2006) - Crashed into a curb at full speed.
Erica Krivoy in Pandora (2007) - Dropped carrying the buggy out for rolls
Grace Yoon in Schadenfreude (2004) - Helmet slid over eyes, hit a curb at speed, flew out and hit a parking meter
That Fringe Driver in Basketcase (200?) - Rolled under a car? Had to be jaws-of-lifed out
That other Fringe Driver in that Other Fringe Buggy (200?) - Hit the UC during capes

Help me think of more, but speed is not what is causing these.

You all enjoy picking on Tommy, but there is a kernel of truth to what he says. Differences (not just speed differences) on raceday do, occasionally, contribute to spectacular accidents. Skua in 2005, Rage in 2006, Brim in 2004, Shaka in 2004 (same heat), Thunderstruck in 2007, Perun in 2008, and...

This argument actually brings up a good question, which is what were the most recent real live injuries, and what caused them?

The recent ones I can think of:

Ja, in Phantom (2006) - Crashed into a curb at full speed.
Erica Krivoy in Pandora (2007) - Dropped carrying the buggy out for rolls
Grace Yoon in Schadenfreude (2004) - Helmet slid over eyes, hit a curb at speed, flew out and hit a parking meter
That Fringe Driver in Basketcase (200?) - Rolled under a car? Had to be jaws-of-lifed out
That other Fringe Driver in that Other Fringe Buggy (200?) - Hit the UC during capes

Help me think of more, but speed is not what is causing these.

You all enjoy picking on Tommy, but there is a kernel of truth to what he says. Differences (not just speed differences) on raceday do, occasionally, contribute to spectacular accidents. Skua in 2005, Rage in 2006, Brim in 2004, Shaka in 2004 (same heat), Thunderstruck in 2007, Perun in 2008, and probably many others result from shit being different. Abby and Nora corroborate this.

The bad taste in your mouth from what Tommy says comes from his subtle and slightly sappy thesis: "we need to protect the drivers at all costs." They are big girls (wakka wakka) and know the risks involved. More importantly, none of the above accidents caused any injuries, so those risks are incredibly 'overstated.' There is simply not much to protect them from.

Given that, I don't see any action to be taken that would make things safer. Definitely not making Pika waste hundreds of dollars on wheels weeks before they need to. Things are pretty safe for an extreme sport, I think.

Posted by ShootTheDog on Fri May 9 16:33:16 2008

Wrecks.

This is a fun topic. Let me think back...
In '96 spun Fuko and Vicious on Raceday.
In '97... Fuko torpedoed a car during push practice (knocking the buggy out for Raceday). Vicious did some off-roading before the chute (took the handicap ramp up onto the grass).
In '98 Fuko turned right about 50ft before the chute and ate the curb at full speed. Blew the axle, etc.. Driver fine. Fuko missed Raceday again (note theme with this buggy?).

Shaka had a fat AEPi alumni fall on her during exhibitions and blow the pushbar mount one year, think it was '96 but not sure. I dunno if it's still the practice but we would put new drivers in our 'more crashed' buggies (Vicious and Fuko) to get them used to driving. I may be wrong but I don't think Fuko ever made it around the course on a Raceday.

Of the wrecks that happened when I was doing buggy the Fuko crash into the curb was by far the worst that I saw. She was probably going at least 25mph and just ran straight into it. ...

This is a fun topic. Let me think back...
In '96 spun Fuko and Vicious on Raceday.
In '97... Fuko torpedoed a car during push practice (knocking the buggy out for Raceday). Vicious did some off-roading before the chute (took the handicap ramp up onto the grass).
In '98 Fuko turned right about 50ft before the chute and ate the curb at full speed. Blew the axle, etc.. Driver fine. Fuko missed Raceday again (note theme with this buggy?).

Shaka had a fat AEPi alumni fall on her during exhibitions and blow the pushbar mount one year, think it was '96 but not sure. I dunno if it's still the practice but we would put new drivers in our 'more crashed' buggies (Vicious and Fuko) to get them used to driving. I may be wrong but I don't think Fuko ever made it around the course on a Raceday.

Of the wrecks that happened when I was doing buggy the Fuko crash into the curb was by far the worst that I saw. She was probably going at least 25mph and just ran straight into it. I remember a PiKA alum mentioned the crash at that party this year since it was such an intense wreck.

Posted by Carl Nott on Fri May 9 16:59:34 2008

That Fuko wreck was crazy. The driver was only wearing one contact and just had no idea where she was. I think Carl and I cried over what she did to the buggy and then got drunk. The driver was fine, though.

When Shaka got messed up in '96, the driver actually was hurt. I was riding in the follow truck, and I saw it happen. It was an exhibition heat and the AEPi hill 2 just stood there after his shove. The driver in Shaka tried to go around him and caught his T shirt, which pulled him off his feet and his body weight pulled the push bar off it's mount and gave her a serious cut and bruise. She was hysterical and in significant pain, I was thinking she would need stiches (thankfully she didn't). We took her back to the Spirit truck on the sweepstakes truck before we got her out, and the Zoo truck guys told me later that they could hear me screaming for Carl while I was still at the top of the hill.

Those were my 2 worst buggy moments, for sure.

Posted by Abby Sullivan on Fri May 9 17:44:51 2008

The Fuko wreck I was just happy that Mariam (the driver) was alive. I was kind of in shock, really. I mean, she hit and the end of the buggy swung around hard enough to snap the axle like a twig.

As for top mph in freeroll I have no idea. There's like math and stuff. But according to my (new) data for this year SDC, PiKA and Spirit went 1.3, 4.4, and 5.3 seconds faster, respectively, on 2nd day of raceday than they ever went during freerolls (Fringe went 0.02 seconds slower).

The freeroll is something like 2440ft but I dunno what the elevation drop and acceleration is and even if I did I would probably screw up the math.

Posted by Carl Nott on Fri May 9 18:00:35 2008

Sorry, STD, I'm calling bullshit.

Ok, from a totally objective perspective...I think the reason everyone "picks on" Tommy is that he's an asshole and then plays the victim. Grow a pair. And if you're gonna be a dick, at least be funny. Or correct.

The bad taste doesn't at all come from Tommy saying that we need to protect drivers at all cost. Everyone here agrees about that. But you gotta be pragmatic. You even have drivers telling him his assumptions are faulty (although he reads into their statements what he wants). The bad taste comes from his lordship intimating that no one here cares about anything quite as much as he does, because no one is quite as smart as he is. Can't we all just agree to disagree with Tommy?

...sometimes, he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy... (that one's for Bordick)


Anyway, about injuries and accidents...

They hit the UC? Please tell me the cape line is no longer between Baker and Doherty.

Where's Adler to weigh in on accidents...

Ok, from a totally objective perspective...I think the reason everyone "picks on" Tommy is that he's an asshole and then plays the victim. Grow a pair. And if you're gonna be a dick, at least be funny. Or correct.

The bad taste doesn't at all come from Tommy saying that we need to protect drivers at all cost. Everyone here agrees about that. But you gotta be pragmatic. You even have drivers telling him his assumptions are faulty (although he reads into their statements what he wants). The bad taste comes from his lordship intimating that no one here cares about anything quite as much as he does, because no one is quite as smart as he is. Can't we all just agree to disagree with Tommy?

...sometimes, he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy... (that one's for Bordick)


Anyway, about injuries and accidents...

They hit the UC? Please tell me the cape line is no longer between Baker and Doherty.

Where's Adler to weigh in on accidents and injuries? I think Jarrod had some stories from around that period.

And whose prep truck caught fire in the mid-'80s where they had to throw a buggy out the back? Not a wreck, but pretty serious...pretty, pretty..pretty serious.

Posted by Dani Barnard on Fri May 9 18:11:22 2008

Tommy K do you think rationally about anything

Morning rolls : 5 am
Temperature: Fucking freezing



Raceday : between 10 and 11 am
Temerature: a whole shitload warmer than weekend rolls.

I wonder if this affects the buggy speed?


Also,
When I was chairman during Spring rolls I had 4 different weekends (excluding truck) where i got full course times with A team and B team buggies going fast. Like 2:13ish for A team. So the girls were moving and were well prepared for raceday. Maybe thats my mens teams went 1,2,6.

Lastly,
Ever try to get a driver going faster than she was probably ready for and had her hurt herself? It sucks. I can't speak for the other orgs but during my time spent in PiKA buggy we got girls going fast when they were ready and had them prepared for their raceday speeds.

Shane,
If you say "when i set the record" before everything can I say "when I went 1,2?" Granted your line is better.

Posted by Matt Long on Fri May 9 18:25:08 2008

But according to my (new) data for this year SDC, PiKA and Spirit went 1.3, 4.4, and 5.3 seconds faster, respectively, on 2nd day of raceday than they ever went during freerolls (Fringe went 0.02 seconds slower).


And all made it through beautifully and came out smiling, not the least bit traumatized or overcome by the blinding speed.

Posted by Abby Sullivan on Fri May 9 18:36:26 2008

Did the Fringe driver come out smiling, having gone slower?

Posted by Dani Barnard on Fri May 9 18:43:20 2008

Dani, I think we are agreeing with each other, but I can't tell. Far be it from me to argue, though. I like to think of this website as a welcoming and loving place where people of different organizations can all get along.

Also, clearly I am the smartest one here, so maybe that's why I'm not as upset as everyone else.

(I should have known better than to get in the middle of that one.)

Posted by ShootTheDog on Fri May 9 18:52:05 2008

Did the Fringe driver come out smiling, having gone slower?
Ouch. ;) They would have needed a 48 second freeroll time to get the win; I don't think they need to beat themselves up too much.

Posted by Carl Nott on Fri May 9 18:56:50 2008

Can anybody extrapolate from their data what the speed differential would be from rolls to raceday, in mph?

Let's say Carl is correct in his value of 2440 ft. for the length of the freeroll. I'm a little skeptical, given his earlier math errors, but let's assume he's right :)

Let's also assume that Pika covered the freeroll in 51 sec. on 2nd day. I'm just pulling that number out of my ass, but it should be in the ballpark. That works out to an average speed of 47.8 ft/s or 32.6 mph.

If their fastest time at rolls was really 4.4 seconds slower, that means their average speed was 30.0 mph. I don't really believe that they had such a huge difference between rolls and raceday, but whatever.

That means that their AVERAGE speed increased by only 2.6 mph. For several reasons that I'm sure you all understand (except maybe for Tommy K) a buggy's top speed will increase less than its average speed as its freeroll time goes down.

So for...

Can anybody extrapolate from their data what the speed differential would be from rolls to raceday, in mph?

Let's say Carl is correct in his value of 2440 ft. for the length of the freeroll. I'm a little skeptical, given his earlier math errors, but let's assume he's right :)

Let's also assume that Pika covered the freeroll in 51 sec. on 2nd day. I'm just pulling that number out of my ass, but it should be in the ballpark. That works out to an average speed of 47.8 ft/s or 32.6 mph.

If their fastest time at rolls was really 4.4 seconds slower, that means their average speed was 30.0 mph. I don't really believe that they had such a huge difference between rolls and raceday, but whatever.

That means that their AVERAGE speed increased by only 2.6 mph. For several reasons that I'm sure you all understand (except maybe for Tommy K) a buggy's top speed will increase less than its average speed as its freeroll time goes down.

So for Pika, which had a rather large increase in speed from rolls to raceday - at least according to Carl - their top speed increased by less than 2.6 mph. You're right, Tommy, it's amazing that the driver made it out alive.

Posted by Josh Ayers on Fri May 9 19:00:40 2008

Dog Pile on Tommy!

I love it. Yeah, blazing speed.

For wrecks, I witnessed a few. One happened in the early 90s where the driver some how veered left just past the pond, hit the curb and went airborne, no kidding, she was 6ft off the ground. Crazy. I also saw either an SDC or CIA type (I think it was a tiny man driver) cut the chute (not shoot) turn so tight, that he t-boned the curb just high of the bales. Has face was bloody. Ick. The fire in the truck was either ATO or Beta and the chairman went back into the fire because they had jumped out so fast from the flash and didn't get the girl out (in the buggy). He had some burns. My favorite wreck was when Corri Metz driving for Beta split the buggy in half. No kidding. Picture Psychosis broken just forward of the back wheels. All you saw was feet in socks dragging out the back. That was back when the SigNus would put of the broken buggy yellow street sign down in the chute. Total Anarchy.

Posted by Bordick on Fri May 9 19:17:25 2008

oh yeah...

STD, we're in agreement on the rest of the stuff you were saying. Just not about there being truth to what Tommy was saying, or that he's just a misunderstood, sappy guy. Because that continues to play to the idea he's a victim, when he's the #1 instigator. I guess, really, my response was more fueled by his earlier post(s).

I, too, am happy that people from all kinds of organizations get along on here--with some healthy smack-talking. I'm also a big fan of Fringe (and don't consider his statements to reflect on Fringe as a whole), so it has nothing to do with orgs. But sometimes his posts make me want to punch him in the face with his own fist. Sorry...

Posted by Dani Barnard on Fri May 9 19:29:33 2008

Wrecks

The legends I heard about the truck fire all identified Beta as the culprit. Was ATO even around in the 80's?

And my favorite wreck was PhiKap A's reroll in '99. It's my favorite because it was the only wreck I've ever seen on Hill 2. The Hill 2 pusher shoved the buggy while the driver was trying to turn to align herself. 360 degree spin and then back end of the buggy into the curb at full speed. If anyone has the '99 lead truck tapes, it's a sight.

The best part is that the Hill 2 pusher later married the driver.

Posted by Jim Statile on Fri May 9 19:30:26 2008

The legends I heard about the truck fire all identified Beta as the culprit. Was ATO even around in the 80's?

According to the Buggy Bible (aka Wood's History of Buggy) the fire in the truck was ATO in '86. The History of Buggy is also where I got the freeroll length (tho I rounded it to a foot longer because, well, I like rounding).

Does anyone have a real definition of where freeroll starts and ends though? I'm interested in comparing freeroll times over the last 20-25 years.

Posted by Carl Nott on Fri May 9 19:36:12 2008

freeroll length

Carl, I could give you that data, but I'd have to kill you.

Posted by Bordick on Fri May 9 20:52:28 2008

Day 1 vs Day 2

Sorry my buggy banter isn't pithy or full of dick jokes.

It’s racing advice as well as safety advice. Pika and SDC both went nearly as fast during freerolls as they did in the races this year, as Carsen has pointed out, and it gave their drivers good enough preparation for the fastest raceday ever. I’d like to point out that both driver’s stuck their lines on second day with a seemingly greater degree of confidence and success than they had the day before and if you can agree that the ‘fast practice’ of prelims helped them nail it on day 2 than I hope we can finally rest this poor, tired and beaten to death point.


Hearing Nora describe the sliding that Brim exhibited on raceday points to the increasing levels of risk in stretching the raceday prep to its limit. The destructive nature of Pika's tire preparation may make it less than practical to do on a weekly basis but practicing fast is one way to manage the risk (for success and safety) of going fast.

As...

Sorry my buggy banter isn't pithy or full of dick jokes.

It’s racing advice as well as safety advice. Pika and SDC both went nearly as fast during freerolls as they did in the races this year, as Carsen has pointed out, and it gave their drivers good enough preparation for the fastest raceday ever. I’d like to point out that both driver’s stuck their lines on second day with a seemingly greater degree of confidence and success than they had the day before and if you can agree that the ‘fast practice’ of prelims helped them nail it on day 2 than I hope we can finally rest this poor, tired and beaten to death point.


Hearing Nora describe the sliding that Brim exhibited on raceday points to the increasing levels of risk in stretching the raceday prep to its limit. The destructive nature of Pika's tire preparation may make it less than practical to do on a weekly basis but practicing fast is one way to manage the risk (for success and safety) of going fast.

As far as my ‘posturing’ on safety, perhaps if anyone of you had been present as the fire department used a pneumatic chisel closer than the thickness of cardboard from the body of one of your closest friends to extract her from a buggy you built, you too would feel that the lesson of always letting your drivers know what to expect and to prepare them as well as you can is absolutely paramount in the decisions you make regarding their safety in a buggy. Fringe’s safety record since our hard learned lessons of ’99 and especially ’00 is one of the things I am most proud of our organization for achieving, all while continuously getting faster. Janice and Joanne both suffered from continued back pain caused mostly by the sudden stops of their collisions, neither of which was at even half of raceday speed. I suppose my view of the relative safety of buggy is less cavalier than some driver's and current and past safety chairs. I used to joke that if I was made saftey i would likely disqualify half the teams starting with the coffinlock Beta buggies.

Matt’s point about going too fast too soon is an excellent criticism of trying to get a driver up to racing speed too quickly, and I felt was tricky thing to gauge that, as I’m sure Abby can tell you, comes down to the driver’s confidence and ability to communicate to her team what she is ready for. It also illustrates the point that speed is often a factor in buggy accidents, and if it wasn't we wouldn't bag, tighten down bearings or start with dead drops at hill 2. I don’t think calling people morons if they don’t realize that Speed is a Factor is appropriate, but it should be obvious to anyone with a college degree or even a functioning brain.

some notes on speed:
The maximum speed of a competitive buggy occurs shortly after the apex of the chute and rarely breaks 35 mph. Buggies at this speed tend to exhibit some drift and develop slip angle, an indication that they are reaching the limits of their traction. Unbalanced buggies going this fast can spin with very little negative input from a driver. Fringe’s raceday preparation improves on a buggy’s non-prepared performance by about 3-5 seconds or up to 10%. 10% faster, 10% less time to react, 10% or more drift to deal with … I honestly don’t know why a serious racing team would let it wait to the actual race to give it a try. I know Pika, Fringe and SDC didn't set their respective records this year by sandbagging all year and then shooting from the hip on raceday.

Shoot the Dog ... isn't that a George Michael song? Is that you McCue?

Posted by tommy k on Fri May 9 22:50:37 2008

Shifting the hate a little...

I hate to see my good pal Tommy stuck in this endless, unproductive argument. So let me just add another ATO buggy to the fire and rag on SDC for a little bit.

I'll give them credit up front: They roll at full speed a lot during practice. Does this mean their drivers are better prepared for Race Day?

It would be a big yes, if being prepared means whacking the bales (Addiction S'08), nearly wiping out a PhiKap alum's family (also S'08), tipping and losing a pushbar (Rage '98?), losing too many wheels to count, and being jogged around the whole course (Akula '97).

A huge crowd stayed in the chute for Finals this year because Psychosis was a huge long shot to make it through the chute on those skittish wheels. They got lucky.

And then they rolled a 2:04.5. Damn it.

Posted by Carsen Kline on Sat May 10 01:18:06 2008

They got lucky.
Fortune favors the bold and all that.

I do find the freeroll times to be fascinating though. It's not something I really paid any attention to as a chairman, beyond 'Tom, which is the fastest buggy?' <Tom would give a 15 minute presentation on vectors and time between this and that> 'Haraka then? Okay.'.

There is also an interesting parallel between the debates we've had over male molds vs. female molds and the 'ramp speed to raceday' vs. 'always as fast as you can' I think. I'm like 'We can repeat it over and over with female molds' while the counterpoint is 'We are forced to innovate with male molds'. I think there is definitely value in the innovation argument, and I would make the point that when you're trying to go faster on raceday you're trying to push the envelope and innovate much the same way. I think it's harmful for an org to think 'this is as fast as this buggy can go' as it breeds complacency. Fortune favors the bold and all. Fortune...

They got lucky.
Fortune favors the bold and all that.

I do find the freeroll times to be fascinating though. It's not something I really paid any attention to as a chairman, beyond 'Tom, which is the fastest buggy?' <Tom would give a 15 minute presentation on vectors and time between this and that> 'Haraka then? Okay.'.

There is also an interesting parallel between the debates we've had over male molds vs. female molds and the 'ramp speed to raceday' vs. 'always as fast as you can' I think. I'm like 'We can repeat it over and over with female molds' while the counterpoint is 'We are forced to innovate with male molds'. I think there is definitely value in the innovation argument, and I would make the point that when you're trying to go faster on raceday you're trying to push the envelope and innovate much the same way. I think it's harmful for an org to think 'this is as fast as this buggy can go' as it breeds complacency. Fortune favors the bold and all. Fortune kicks the crap out of the stupid tho too.

Posted by Carl Nott on Sat May 10 02:24:07 2008

What I learned as chairman

Some of these are good general rules, some of these were only applicable to me (or only CIA drivers)

*At 5am, there is no such thing as "bad touch"

*On raceday, I freaked out a little and blurted out to my driver "For the love of god, don't get yourself killed!". She told me to stop being such a pussy.

*Male drivers - I highly recommend them.

*There are 2 kinds of chairmen - those who trust their drivers, those who don't, and those who, by raceday, have been up for 70+ hours and can no longer count or speak coherently, and that goddamn purple gnome with 3 arms is hiding under the fucking uhaul truck and is tottaly gonna go all william shatner-in-that-twilight-zone-episode on the buggy when you're not looking or...LOOK LOOK it just did something to the buggy - didn't you see it? Where are my pants?

*Always remember to take the driver out of the buggy when rolls are done

*Don't cry in front of your drivers - It's just...

Some of these are good general rules, some of these were only applicable to me (or only CIA drivers)

*At 5am, there is no such thing as "bad touch"

*On raceday, I freaked out a little and blurted out to my driver "For the love of god, don't get yourself killed!". She told me to stop being such a pussy.

*Male drivers - I highly recommend them.

*There are 2 kinds of chairmen - those who trust their drivers, those who don't, and those who, by raceday, have been up for 70+ hours and can no longer count or speak coherently, and that goddamn purple gnome with 3 arms is hiding under the fucking uhaul truck and is tottaly gonna go all william shatner-in-that-twilight-zone-episode on the buggy when you're not looking or...LOOK LOOK it just did something to the buggy - didn't you see it? Where are my pants?

*Always remember to take the driver out of the buggy when rolls are done

*Don't cry in front of your drivers - It's just embarrassing - especially when they are beating the shit outta you for leaving em in the buggy after rolls.

*While dealing with drivers, remember that he/she has to be pretty much crazy to sign up for the job in the first place.

*Frank and Lou + CIA drivers = awesome
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~aiton/thepass.avi

*My driver was smarter than me.

*Drivers can (and usually will) be freakishly strong

*AEPI drivers : don't date them, or your steering will stop fitting in your buggy.

And the final rule :

No matter how much your driver begs your to, do NOT remove the brakes from the buggy before raceday.

Posted by Aiton Goldman on Sat May 10 03:57:50 2008

Superhuman

*Drivers can (and usually will) be freakishly strong

That's so weird, my husband says I'm freakishly strong all the time. I think it started during the '97 day 2 Hill 1 chicken races in the rain. I was carrying him. I have a picture of that somewhere...

Posted by Abby Sullivan on Sat May 10 12:47:32 2008

Re: Dog Pile on Tommy!

Sorry for weighing in a bit late on this topic - I recall the wrecks Bordick mentioned.

In '95 or '96 (I think) the buggy veered left just past the pond because of a bad pass. For some reason I want to say it was Sig Tau buggy but I'm just struggling to remember how it happened (I know the follow truck tapes show it pretty clearly). I think the passing buggy was on the inside after the 1st transition and, basically, the back tires interlocked for a second -- the passing buggy's back left tire came up behind and outside the soon-to-be wrecking buggy's back right tire, jerking her hard to the left, and she zoomed off the course. Then the EMT guy in the follow truck jumped off the truck before it stopped and slammed into the concrete (for a split second I wasn't sure if helping him first would enable us both to help her - I admit, I froze). I thought she was going to roll down the hill into the depths of Schenley but she stopped on the grass.

The Beta buggy that Corrie wiped...

Sorry for weighing in a bit late on this topic - I recall the wrecks Bordick mentioned.

In '95 or '96 (I think) the buggy veered left just past the pond because of a bad pass. For some reason I want to say it was Sig Tau buggy but I'm just struggling to remember how it happened (I know the follow truck tapes show it pretty clearly). I think the passing buggy was on the inside after the 1st transition and, basically, the back tires interlocked for a second -- the passing buggy's back left tire came up behind and outside the soon-to-be wrecking buggy's back right tire, jerking her hard to the left, and she zoomed off the course. Then the EMT guy in the follow truck jumped off the truck before it stopped and slammed into the concrete (for a split second I wasn't sure if helping him first would enable us both to help her - I admit, I froze). I thought she was going to roll down the hill into the depths of Schenley but she stopped on the grass.

The Beta buggy that Corrie wiped out in was Mercury, in '92, and I've always felt guilty for not dq'ing that thing. The back end of the buggy behind the rear axle was basically putty and resin and foam -- nothing of substance. (In my defense, she is short enough that her feet weren't meant to be back there.) When she caught the bales the axle ripped the back end off. She was upset but basically fine...but running up to that wreck with her little feet sticking out was really scary. (That image was the basis for my buggy nightmares for years.) Beta didn't roll that year, but there was a brief effort to have their A team push a Zoo buggy -- chairman veto'd it at Design. They would have been pretty competitive had that been allowed.

Carl is right - the fire in '86 was ATO's truck. That was back when they had homemade ovens and whatever else in the truck to heat the wheels while the driver was in the buggy. (I'm not disclsing anything here - there was a picture of this setup in Tom's presentation.) So when the fire erupted, the guys all ran out leaving her trapped in there. The chairman ran into the burning truck, picked her up in the buggy, threw her out of the truck then jumped out. Both were badly burned.

I think the dude who bit the curb a bit shy of the chute was Dexter - a Pi Lam. My recollection is that they were experimenting with a reverse trike except their steering was totally non-intuitive (i.e. fucked up) -- Dex was literally face-first, with his arms down at his sides (so no arms up front for protection), and there was something weird where you pulled with your left arm to go right. He was struggling with it when he wiped. That was the end of that buggy. Since he was a guy, I wasn't that upset about the bleeding - he was fine.

Shit like this makes me reminds that just about every stupid thing has been tried -- 19 years of no new course record and it's inevitable.

(One year a driver's father leaned out into the course to get a nice head-on shot of his daughter and got nailed by the push bar - that was funny and I felt no guilt whatsoever.)

Posted by Madler on Sun May 11 17:47:42 2008

Re: Day 1 vs Day 2

Tommy wrote, "I suppose my view of the relative safety of buggy is less cavalier than some driver's and current and past safety chairs. I used to joke that if I was made saftey i would likely disqualify half the teams starting with the coffinlock Beta buggies."

I think we should just let Tommy build all the buggies, so that they would be perfect and no one would ever get hurt. See that? Alumni Brain Trust can go home now - problem solved.

Posted by Madler on Sun May 11 18:27:36 2008

another good one

There was something in like '95 or '96 where a driver was drunk during rolls and headed for a flag that was leaning against the light pole at the first transition, and ran full speed up the curb and into the light pole and the buggy just broke apart around her. I can't remember who that was but I think it was their only buggy and they were out for the year.

Posted by Abby Sullivan on Sun May 11 18:49:25 2008

Tommy and Carsen

Psychosis was a huge long shot to make it through the chute...

Please. Maybe in your uninformed opinion. But I assure you the people who mattered - the ones in the SDC truck - had no doubts about the buggy's or the driver's ability. And obviously their confidence was well founded.

Buggies at this speed...develop slip angle

Your sloppy use of terminology just reinforces my opinion that you don't know what the hell you're talking about.

Posted by Josh Ayers on Sun May 11 18:57:53 2008

Just because he makes it so easy

Tommy K,

"Fringe’s safety record since our hard learned lessons of ’99 and especially ’00 is one of the things I am most proud of our organization for achieving, all while continuously getting faster."

So are you proud of hitting the UC? I actually saw that first hand as i was randomly headed to the lab when it happened. The crash would have been a lot worse had the driver not turned at the last possible second preventing the buggy from plowing completely head first into the wall next to Entropy. I guess I am just confused, are you comparing your safety record that you are so proud of to Phi Kap?

Also, maybe someone else can confirm but my guess for STD is Scott.

Posted by Luke Woolley on Sun May 11 19:55:11 2008

Tommy and Carsen...and Josh

Whoa, snap! Josh, no one with any recent involvement is arguing that Psychosis was/wasn't making it through the Chute...after the women's race (Day 2) though, I was a bit concerned that Michelle would be able to keep her line under such pressure (proved me wrong...). Rest assured though, no one with half a brain thought a well designed trike (minus the suspension) was going to wipe out in the Chute...

Also -
*Crying in front of your drivers is fine, what do you think I always do after races?
*Who would even consider dating an AEPi driver?
*You forgot your driver in your buggy? What else did you forget? Dumbass...
*Not all drivers aren't crazy, just because yours were doesn't mean the rest of us had to suffer.
*Male drivers are only cool if you're fine with pushing an extra 30 lbs up the hill...have fun with on mediocrity, I'll be the one holding the Cosentino Cup.

Furthermore:
You didn't pay attention to downhill times? What did you ...

Whoa, snap! Josh, no one with any recent involvement is arguing that Psychosis was/wasn't making it through the Chute...after the women's race (Day 2) though, I was a bit concerned that Michelle would be able to keep her line under such pressure (proved me wrong...). Rest assured though, no one with half a brain thought a well designed trike (minus the suspension) was going to wipe out in the Chute...

Also -
*Crying in front of your drivers is fine, what do you think I always do after races?
*Who would even consider dating an AEPi driver?
*You forgot your driver in your buggy? What else did you forget? Dumbass...
*Not all drivers aren't crazy, just because yours were doesn't mean the rest of us had to suffer.
*Male drivers are only cool if you're fine with pushing an extra 30 lbs up the hill...have fun with on mediocrity, I'll be the one holding the Cosentino Cup.

Furthermore:
You didn't pay attention to downhill times? What did you pay attention to?!?
Yes, the windscreen is nice. PiKA figured it out. Wanna buy the secret? I'm selling...
SDC never plays along. Sandbagging on mini race day? Way to ruin the spirit of competition. I guess the free beer is what really motivates Pike through the fall...
Tommy, maybe you ought to sprinkle in some pithy or dick jokes...perhaps someone will read them then...

Posted by Screw the Environment on Sun May 11 20:17:04 2008

You didn't pay attention to downhill times? What did you pay attention to?!?
I kind of figured that you just try to go as fast as you can. So I paid attention to that. All the timing and calculating and stuff is really just math porn. Fun when you're an alumni tho. ;)

Posted by Carl Nott on Mon May 12 00:08:01 2008

Long Shot

I admit, I was uninformed that Psychosis would defy the laws of Physics. Seeing all the tail wagging and sliding (during truck and a couple of other weekends) convinced me that if this buggy went any faster or closer to the bales (like on race day) it would bite it. Congratulations, you didn't bite it. I can't say the same for your...

Ooooh, dick joke/yo momma joke averted!

And speaking of trikes that are going faster than they should, Carl, it looks like Haraka did a ~53s freeroll on 2nd day, maybe its fastest freeroll ever?

Posted by Carsen Kline on Mon May 12 00:28:42 2008

Hah I am starting to really love this site. Good discussion everyone. Except Luke.

We average 130 hits per day, and closing in on 30,000 pageviews (25% from DTS!). Does anyone have any suggestions for hilarious things we can add to this site? I feel like we can capitalize on the quality of people we have checking this site as often as they do. Nothing as formal as buggyalums -- we're lazy and want to save the effort for where we can justify it. Just something fun in the meantime. Maybe a new gallery of other interesting shots?

Posted by ShootTheDog on Mon May 12 00:33:39 2008

ideas

well there had been a bit of porn being uploaded by apparently that didn't go over to well. how about a gallery of porn carefully spliced with buggy related objects? get some buggies in there, a little axle lube, a stopwatch or two, maybe a driver gettin in on the action...i think good things could come of this. it would also give tommy something to think about other than his 1 incredibly safe victory while punishing his nub.

Posted by Steve Curtis (PiKA PTC '07) on Mon May 12 01:24:10 2008

Lessons I learned about trash talking while I was chairman

Crying in front of your drivers is fine, what do you think I always do after races?
I figured you went back to your buggy room and jizzed all over your buggies - isn't that how you get that nice shine?

Who would even consider dating an AEPi driver?
I'll avoid the obvious 'you're mom' joke

You forgot your driver in your buggy? What else did you forget? Dumbass...
Our 1st place trophy - granted its from 1981...when did you get yours? Oh right....

Not all drivers aren't crazy, just because yours were doesn't mean the rest of us had to suffer.
Wow - you're kinda all over the place there. It's true, you're drivers are probably not crazy - you're mechanics, on the other hand, seem to have a problem with keeping buggies whole through the chute - whats the count of wheels you've lost during a roll?

Male drivers are only cool if you're fine with pushing an extra 30 lbs up the hill...have fun with on...