Your Favorite Organization Sucks

[McCue]

However, we can say with certainty it will be no worse than Malice.

No you can't.

Furthermore, when Bonsai rolled, it was, obviously, not in final racing condition

Yeah, see if you can get it painted before raceday this time fellas.

Malice looked to be full, or at least very close to full, race prepped (it had it's wheel covers on and the mechanics were floating it on hill 2).

This isn't good evidence for drawing this conclusion, even a little bit.

at the very least we can expect it to roll the same it did on Sunday

No you can't. Weather? Wheel prep? Hill 2 shove? Road conditions? Driver eats a sandwich? Email me sometime and I'll give you some very solid counterexamples here.

it should be expected that over time, Bonsai will only get faster

No it shouldn't. See above.

So yeah, maybe saying it IS faster than "the Course Record holding buggy" is a little premature

You got one right.

I'm not saying it won't be fast, but keep it in your pants. You are way better off comparing Bonsai's speed to SDC's speed when they set the course record, because you can assume that's how they race prep under optimal conditions. How does Bonsai stack up there? It might be as fast -- I haven't seen any timing sheets yet -- but basically every line of your post contains an enormous logical fallacy that leads me to believe that you're jumping the gun.

[revo]

I don't think we need to get out any really good video editing gear. Taking the timestamp off of the cmu-tv footage on the frame that best shows the team at each point on the course (some of the camera angles/zoom etc introduces some error when you can't see as well when a team is crossing a transition line etc, but I'd consider these numbers fairly accurate):

....

So the only way I could see you trying to argue that Fringe was the 3rd fastest team to the 3/4 transition is that you think SDC A & B were slightly ahead.

yep. i have sdc b there a bit quicker.

if one ignores that time stamp from the video (which may or may not be accurate) and in place, uses a clock generated externally and synced with the start gun (nice spike on the audio for that) as could be done with a video editing package, one gets different results.

I can confirm that you should ignore the time stamp from the video. cmutv time is started *approximately* when the beep/gun goes. It's not consistent each time because there is somebody pushing a button in the cmutv truck to start the time graphic going. Sometimes they get distracted... Obviously, this doesn't apply to older races where cmutv just put a camera on the official race clock.

I was the person pushing the 'start time' button 4 years ago. I tried to do cmutv and buggy before deciding buggy was just more fun. I know that they used the same technique for the on-camera clock graphic for the 2010 races.

ahh, yes that is not what I meant by using a timestamp. I also would not use the cmutv clock.

By timestamp I really intended to describe using the explicit time built into the video. That is mark specific frame where the gun goes off (mark's process is likely more accurate, but I wouldn't expect it to be much different from mine, perhaps we differ by a frame or two, but certainly I'd expect us to be within +- .1s) and then mark the specific frame where the buggies passes some location on the course and under the assumption that we are getting ~30fps (29.97 if we care to be unnecessarily precise for the lengths of time we are measuring) we know the elapsed time.

When video is available (the top finishers generally) a more accurate solution would be to take the end frame since we typically have a great shot of the specific frame when the new timing system would record the finish and work our way back since that is directly linked to the start signal for 2010...i.e. use the highly accurate & precise timing system to tell us when the race really started.

I would assume the difference in our numbers then has more to do with the choice of frame used to indicate the end of the hills/transitions than the start etc.

Regardless, and the main point being that the primary difference in the race last year was the difference in speed of the 4/5 pushers and not the front hills/freeroll. To somewhat reconnect the random parts of this thread, yeah, there is always going to be a buggy the holds the course record and it will be necessarily be a fast buggy at this point, but much more of the credit should go to the pushers than to the vehicle and driver. i.e. I'd suggest that most of the record setting push teams would still be the record setting push teams as long as they are behind any competitive buggy of their era

[revo]

So we're all agreed? Fringe will roll without a Hill 3 pusher for Bonsai this year? Too bad I won't be there to see that live...

Learned that hill 5 would be a bad choice, so hill 3 seemed like the next best.

[RedTachyon]

Don't overlook that Fringe has the best driver! Always a good line! (Dad might be biased, but not racist!)

[jixson]

I'm not saying it won't be fast, but keep it in your pants. You are way better off comparing Bonsai's speed to SDC's speed when they set the course record, because you can assume that's how they race prep under optimal conditions. How does Bonsai stack up there? It might be as fast -- I haven't seen any timing sheets yet -- but basically every line of your post contains an enormous logical fallacy that leads me to believe that you're jumping the gun.

There's a difference between a logical fallacy and you disagreeing with something. The only logical fallacy I see is the first thing you referenced which I admit was a bit rash. I cannot compare Bonsai to SDC raceday for the very reasons you're saying I can't expect it to perform as well this weekend as last weekend. The only things I can reasonably compare against are results from this semester where the conditions have been similar. I stick to the idea, however, that there is always room for improvement, and by and large improvement leads to speed, which was my basis for saying over time it would get faster. But yes, even after improvements it can get a slow time based on one of the examples you stated. I didn't think I needed to be that pedantic. Fast buggies are fast overall, every buggy can have a bad day, week, month, etc. Chimera hasn't been as fast as it was at the beginning of the year, but it's still a very fast buggy.
I recognize I do not have enough evidence or data to make any strong conclusions, and I wasn't trying to, I was merely trying to infer how things would play out. I apologize if I came across stronger than I intended. I was looking at things on a macro scale, which would lead to confusion because, reading back, it sounded like I was talking more precisely than I meant.
I would love to have a discussion with you about the finer points of race conditions, I appreciate any information I can get from someone more knowledgeable than I.

[josh.ayers]

Come on McCue, everyone knows that when evaluating buggy performance, the actual races are irrelevant. All that matters is what happens on a 20 degree day three weeks before Carnival.

[TommyK]

I also have a dvd and some really good video editing gear, by my measure,fringe was the 3rd team to get to the 3-4 exchange in 2010.

Careful Lemuroid, if you get started correcting all of Tommy's factual errors, you're going to be using up a lot of your free time.

In fact, considering the lack of effort Tommy puts into checking his facts, I'm not surprised that he has the baby pearls to make unsupported claims about how much faster Bansai is than the Course Record holding buggy.

agree.

Seriously, mini raceday,freeroll times from 3 to 5 weeks before the race, and the assumption that everyone is running at the same level of prep is a bad way to predict the future.

Put up or shut up Lemuroid. Do you actually have data showing Fringe more than a second behind SDC at the 3/4 last year, overall at mini raceday last semester, or at freerolls this semester? Granted each instance is increasingly less accurate in comparable predicting strength, but is there a pattern developing? Does the (as always in buggy) limited and tenuous data show Fringe closing the gap? (What about SN? wah-wah.)

Keep in mind a second is less than one bad transition. A virgin hill 1 could just as easily repeat the butchered 1-2 transitions SDC had in '06 as the flawless ones they had in '09. That SDC can promote from their B-team without losing much pace bodes well for them but so far the SDC alums here are content evading the only useful question they might be able to answer: how good their 1 and 3 replacements are looking. Instead, fact-boy prefers to split hairs without offering any new observations from his team's perspective on THIS year's team and buggy. (Aileen I'm about to be childish so ... earmuffs) Bring your own damn facts to the table carleton or get on your knees and suck my irish buans.

Malice may have been part of the team that re-set the bar on buggy the last 2 years but repeating ad nauseum that it won once won't make a different team prepping and pushing it run any faster than they are capable of. So far, no one has shown me any facts to support a blanket conclusion that SDC will dominate in the same fashion as the last 2 years.

[McCue]

Don't overlook that Fringe has the best driver! Always a good line! (Dad might be biased, but not racist!)

No lie, that girl is a machine.

Also now I feel self conscious because normal people are reading.

[the cook]

Tommy, if what you say is true - SDC and Fringe were neck and neck at 3/4 - then what you are also saying is that your 4 and 5 got blown out by SDC.

In any case I suspect we are about to see a lemuroid video overlay or other proof positive of his statements.

[lemuroid]

In any case I suspect we are about to see a lemuroid video overlay or other proof positive of his statements.

No video from me. My work load is at an all time high and other 'activities' are more important than addressing a single minor point in a thread where chickens are being counted long before they hatch. Video overlay is a lot of work and the pka scd race for victory of a few years ago was worthy of such a effort. fringe a vs sdc b mashup is not worth it.

Tommy, as far as "put up or shut up goes", I have $100 that says a team that is not sdc a will either be ahead of or within a second of fringe a (mens) in the final standings in 2011. {i.e. it is not a 2 horse race).