Day 17: Battle Mountain NV

Got off to sleep eventually last night after the Coke nonse, but 'twas not so easy as BRRRRRRRP they are resurfacing I-80 BRRRRRRRRRRPPP through Battle Mountain, which BRRRRRRRPPP means it's down to one lane and BRRRRRPPPP that much easier for the big BRRRRRRPPPP rigs to drift onto the BRRRRRRRUmble strip.  Bah!

Audax o'clock start for qualifying runs over the 2.5 mile short course this morning.  Day one of the vent always has more than itsfair share of first night nerves, starting when HPT got their truck stuck when trying to park it at the start.  Some hard work with shovels saw it mobile again.

The wheels on the truck go round and round...

The Scousers reckon HPT are suffering from Truck Envy after seeing the size of the wagon said Scousers had last year.

A few minor starting mishaps from the likes of Mr L Lem and Master F Kowalik, and a few finishing ones too, notably from Alexei Surname-Not-Listed in Tetiva 4, who was caught after an heroic sprint by Barclay Henry and some equally heroic jumping out of the way by a camera crew filming down the road.  For the benefit of Professor Larrington, here is the Henry's hound, Scout:

I am pleased to note that not only did my man Jan-Marcel get away cleanly at the very first attempt and recorded the best speed of the morning, with 61.65 mph.  Wind, y'see.  Even Todd Reichert, who did 72-something in qualifying last year, only did a 61.  But no wrecks and nobody drownded, so that's alright.  Full qualibob results on Jun Nogami's blog - link at top right.

Back into town for the debrief, results reading, post-mortem and lunch before a return to the Super 8 and swearing at the upload speed, or lack of it, to the Internets.  Sjaak has been using the WiFi of The Scottish Restaurant next door, which is apparently faster and more reliable but I'm not sure its rays reach this far down the building.  And the place is shut at this time of night.

For the evening session of the full course the wind had, if anything, increased in speed from this morning and again no run took place with legal wind.  Only seven of the scheduled twelve starters ran (not including my man Jan-Marcel), plus the naughty Frenchies of IUT Annecy, who tried to sneak Altair 5 into the line but were thwarted by transmission issues.

Aurélien Bonneteau and his hary wiskers slide into Altair 5

The rumour that the problem was caused by Auré's mighty beard getting tangled in the chain proved to be made of 100% pure Lie.  Speeds were subdued because of the in-your-face wind, though the irrepressible Todd Reichert hit 76.37 mph just to prove that last year's triple pummelling of the world record was not fluke.  Not much else to report from the first day, really, except that my feet hurt and the Ming Dynasty was closed so we had to eat at El Aquila Real instead.

A wretched hive of scum and villainy, Nevada, Monday