Racing the New Buggy as Men's A-team

[TommyK]

PC Disclaimer: Buggy is a team sport, everybody that races wins, D-team is just as important and sometimes more so than A-team ... I can name the top 5 fastest women's times and year ... ok top 3.

When is it a good idea to put your brand-spanking, paint still-dripping, barely-qualified 1st season buggy as your Men's A-team contender? (this isn't sexist, more Men's A buggies crash than any other entry, look it up)

A) Everything else we have blows or is broken so ... minimum required rolls is good
B) Newer MUST be better so ... 1 or 2 rolls at full speed/treatment/a-team caliber hill 2 should do it
C) Must log within 1 sec of previous contender at freerolls and having something better about it like weight, stability, better driver, bitchin paint job [does not apply to pikes since they can't paint]
D) Must match or exceed previous contender at freerolls and show no stability/reliability problems.
E) To displace a proven contender it must prove itself on the only real testing grounds ... raceday.

[40dogg]

F) All of the above

[lemuroid]

the choices offered are too freeroll centric. if you change the criteria to include some measure of total course time in place of freeroll ( i.e. account for both the push and the roll), then D is a good choice

[shafeeq]

You forgot
G) Driver is sleeping with head mechanic and/or chair.

[the cook]

Surely the race can be lost by running the new buggy before the old is defeated. But just as surely, the race can be lost by being too conservative. I am quite sure that the Zoo would have prevailed in 1984 if the new buggy (Colugo), best driver, and A team pushers were all put together. Colugo dropped about 15% frontal area and about 8 lb over Lemur which ran A, and we lost the race by 0.46

[abordick]

Plus, buggies get tired. I have a basement full of buggies that are sagging/soft/worn out. Brand spanking new, with similar construction, will generally be more rigid, just ask Carl, he'll tell you all about it.

Now, if you have a radically new design, then you're just rolling the dice.

[Jmohin]

Racing the new build is a HUGE gamble if:

-you've re-design the mechanics inside (steering, wheel mounts, brakes, flywheels..)
-It's unclear if the new build is stiffer/better than the "reliable" build

that being said, if the new buggy is a light copy of the previous ol'faithful, which I've seen a number of teams do, throw that ish on A-team.

In my mind this was never a hard choice. If new mechanisms need more than 10 rolls to prove themselves, it's a B-team. Reliability on raceday is tantamount. Loss of mass or critical failure is worse than a bad push or something else that could go wrong.

[TommyK]

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 ...

[jixson]

Fringe's BAMF

We officially named NBXI yesterday. Today it rolled for the first time as Bonsai.

Ascension is definitely an A-team buggy

[pdesiderio]

Also forgotten
H) Head mechanic is a little too proud of his contribution to the fleet

Ascension is definitely an A-team buggy

Just given history and what I have heard of freeroll times, I wouldn't be surprised is Ascension is the only buggy on that list that actually rolls as an A team buggy. The kids did do a great job on it though, kudos guys.