I wouldn't be surprised to see a number of these buggies be Men's B/Women's A instead of Men's A team.TommyK wrote:So of the new fleet ...
CIAs Ascension
SDCs Bane
Fringe's BAMF
SigEp's Mamba
PiKa's RD'11
Sprit's M.Bazuko
chances they roll A-team?
truck weekend is two weeks away ...
A general trend in teams that build after a long hiatus is that the first is a learning experience, the second is pretty good but not necessarily the best in the fleet, and the third and beyond are more or less state of the art for the org. SigEp, AEPi, and CIA all seem to have followed that trend recently while Fringe and SDC were in that situation in the late 90s/early 00s. Therefore, I would be surprised if Ascension were not A team for CIA. It is also why I would not be surprised if 'Zuko were not A team for Spirit.
Bane and Bonsai are both toss ups. Both look to be well constructed but both also need to unseat incredibly good buggies to warrant an A team placement. I'd say that Bane has a 50/50 shot at replacing Malice but I think Bonsai may have to replace Banyan for the sole reason that Banyan is getting "old" and Fringe needs something new to focus on.
I would wager against Mamba and PiKA RD'11. Mamba is a new steering design (Ackerman vs. wagon unless pictures deceive me) compared to Peregrine, Barracuda and Messiah which I think might be just enough to edge it out. RD'11 was a significant surprise after the Chimera/Nemesis twins both in design layout and exterior finish quality. The changes make me question whether it will be able to take the top spot.
All these opinions are only that and are based mostly on pictures, conjecture, and comparisons with other buggies in each team's fleet.