Sweepstakes' most "Forbidden" topic: Cheating!

[Elmo Zoneball]

What about the pushers? I have heard of pushers taking "performance enhancing" drugs on race day. Since there is no testing, there's nothing to stop the use of longer-term performance drugs either.

Interesting -- is that technically a rule violation? I'm not sure it is even covered.

We used to "fake" this on race day, giving each pusher a packet of what, in fact, was nothing more than confectioners sugar, but we pretended it was some secret, ahem, *herbs* that would enhance their strength and speed, thinking the psych value of making them THINK they were juiced might be worth a few tenths of a second. Interestingly, a significant number of our pushers refused the faux-enhancement.

[TommyK]

The rules are pretty clear about being drunk or high while touching a buggy but say nothing about 'roids, caffeine, EPO, creatine, equine dose ephadra or the dehydrated urine of Lance Armstrong all of which our push team snorted in vast quantities before breakfast everyday for a year.

On a more serious note, any time a team fails or come close to failing drops they've cheated a little by rolling a buggy that likely wouldn't pass capes in the same configuration. It's done to reduce risk of brake rubbing, this is extra bad cheating, don't do it m'kay.

[Elmo Zoneball]

[snip]

On a more serious note, any time a team fails or come close to failing drops they've cheated a little by rolling a buggy that likely wouldn't pass capes in the same configuration. It's done to reduce risk of brake rubbing, this is extra bad cheating, don't do it m'kay.

Understandable naughtiness.

But what about the really sinister forms of cheating? Any confessions you'd care to share under the auspices of "prosecutorial immunity" granted by this thread? Any rumors, suspicions, or inadmissible hearsay? (IOW, we want gossip!)

[lemuroid]

The only cheat I can recall (i.e.will confess to) is running the same buggy for both of our women's teams (we had 2: our little sisters, and the tri-delts).
We got away with it. The buggy involved was our "a" buggy so few were looking for anything like that. I think this was in '86 when they finished with almost identical times in 7th and 8th place.

We occasionally accused of having a flywheel and were even'"raided" one night by the sweepstakes chair in '87 with the intent of finding it. (they focused mostly on our wheel, so they never found it). They were acting upon charges leveled by an alum from another team (accuser was not revealed).

[Elmo Zoneball]

The only cheat I can recall (i.e.will confess to) is running the same buggy for both of our women's teams (we had 2: our little sisters, and the tri-delts).
We got away with it. The buggy involved was our "a" buggy so few were looking for anything like that. I think this was in '86 when they finished with almost identical times in 7th and 8th place.

This falls into the category of a "technical cheating" -- similar to having a windscreen that was less than the prescribed thickness required by the rules. It's not in the same as hard core cheating to make the buggy go faster.

We occasionally accused of having a flywheel and were even'"raided" one night by the sweepstakes chair in '87 with the intent of finding it. (they focused mostly on our wheel, so they never found it). They were acting upon charges leveled by an alum from another team (accuser was not revealed).

That hardly rises to the level of probable cause. And of all the lame cheating accusations to come up with, a flywheel was the best he could do?

Seriously, I never contemplated cheating, but a moments thought should make it clear a mechanically linked flywheel drive system would be so friggin' complicated, if you could engineer it, you should probably be able to make a fast buggy with out it. A flywheel non mechanically powering the wheels might be simpler, but if you go the electrical route, then why not skip the silly flywheel completely and just use a few high capacity batteries?

That's what Lange used when his nephew cheated in the Derby -- batteries and an electromagnet in the nose of the Derby Car.

In Sweepstakes, the batteries could be hidden in certain bodily orifices of the driver, and no one is going to submit to that type of TSA body cavity search.

[Elmo Zoneball]

A related question: if somebody were using an induction motor to cheat, what would be the best way to detect its use?

A big coil of wire and a meter?

[shafeeq]

This falls into the category of a "technical cheating" -- similar to having a windscreen that was less than the prescribed thickness required by the rules. It's not in the same as hard core cheating to make the buggy go faster.

Throw in thinner windshields, weaker shells, less capable brakes, and you end up with buggy a pound or two lighter, which presumably gives you an advantage over someone doing things by the book. And it is unlikely you will be caught.

That's what Lange used when his nephew cheated in the Derby -- batteries and an electromagnet in the nose of the Derby Car.

Which was discovered because the officials had the authority to disassemble the car after they got suspicious. If buggy had serious post-race inspections, the way auto races do, I'd highly doubt that you could hide any useful propulsion mechanism in an undetectable way.

[lemuroid]

That hardly rises to the level of probable cause. And of all the lame cheating accusations to come up with, a flywheel was the best he could do?

The buggy chair passed along that the accuser had taken her to a point on the course where you could "hear" the flywheel being engaged. Whatever they heard there was apparently sufficient to trigger the raid. I have no idea where this 'point' was or what they were really hearing (probably the shell or brake vibrating over a seam, bump, or pothole). After finding nothing, the chair was not willing to share many details. Anyway, it was a feel-good moment to learn that a competitor thought our performance had to be due to cheating.

[Carl Nott]

Seriously, I never contemplated cheating, but a moments thought should make it clear a mechanically linked flywheel drive system would be so friggin' complicated, if you could engineer it, you should probably be able to make a fast buggy with out it. A flywheel non mechanically powering the wheels might be simpler, but if you go the electrical route, then why not skip the silly flywheel completely and just use a few high capacity batteries?

As we are talking purely hypothetical I would not go the flywheel or electrical route. I would use a reversed trike with a hollow rear axle containing a hidden jet that blows compressed air against fins machined into the inside of the rear wheel hub. The compressed air would leach from the pneumatic braking system and would only give a mild, gentle push (the amount of energy needed to make a 'reasonable' improvement in freeroll time should not be much). Ideally it would automatically activate once the buggy reached a certain speed during freerolls (controlled by a unit disguised as (and with the dual-functionality of) a data-logger) and/or, perhaps, after the data-logger's accelerometer or GPS detected that the buggy had cleared the chute. The driver would not be involved in activating the cheat and even the mechanics would not have to know about it as charging the brake with compressed air and making sure the logger has fresh batteries would be part of routine maintenance.

[Elmo Zoneball]

As we are talking purely hypothetical I would not go the flywheel or electrical route. I would use a reversed trike with a hollow rear axle containing a hidden jet that blows compressed air against fins machined into the inside of the rear wheel hub. The compressed air would leach from the pneumatic braking system and would only give a mild, gentle push (the amount of energy needed to make a 'reasonable' improvement in freeroll time should not be much). Ideally it would automatically activate once the buggy reached a certain speed during freerolls (controlled by a unit disguised as (and with the dual-functionality of) a data-logger) and/or, perhaps, after the data-logger's accelerometer or GPS detected that the buggy had cleared the chute. The driver would not be involved in activating the cheat and even the mechanics would not have to know about it as charging the brake with compressed air and making sure the logger has fresh batteries would be part of routine maintenance.

Damn! You DO have a dirty mind!

;-)

The compress gas/fins in the hub idea has been floating around --strictly as a hypothetical construct, of course -- for a long long time, the sort that comes up in the wee hours in the garage, when most of the campus is asleep, somebody says: "If you were going to cheat, how would you go about it ..."

Makes you wonder if the teams that use(d) pneumatics should have had more scrutiny...

Hmmmm......

I'm trying to recall who used pneumatics... Beta comes to mind, going way back to the '60s I think.