Day 21: Battle Mountain NV

First an appypollyloggy.  Mr Justice Professor Sir Marshal Lord Jun Nogami did his sums wrong last night, meaning that the quoted speeds for Ken, Todd and Yasmin erred on the low side.  Ken should have been 61.2, Todd 87.62 and Yasmin 70.05.  New hat for Yasmin and a speeding ticket.  Alas the thoughtless Nevada Highway Patrol have picked this week to send our chum Officer Aten to Las Vegas, so we'll not have the presentation of tickets for traffic violations this year chiz.  Meanwhile Jun is to be tied to the easel in the Civic Center and pelted with rotten fruit until he's had enough, or we have.

Last night the Mexicans threw a party to celebrate their nation's Independence Day, and also Organisator Al Krause's birthday.  I am told that the partying continued into the wee small hours with Toronto's Sherry Shi being singled out for recognition as a Dancing Queen.

This event, and its tequila, and Jun's mathematical error are entirely unrelated.

Youth is wasted on the young, as the Toronto PSOs were bouncing around in a most unseemly manner as they attempted - successfully - to run Vortex in all five morning heats.  Calvin Moes reckons the much-travelled bike has been down 305 some sixty to seventy times and probably deserves a quiet retirement in a museum somewhere.

Calvin trudges back to the chase car after yet another successful  Vortex launch

The Plymouth Univesity team had developed a slick routine involving putting Sarah Piercy into the machine, motoring down to the 1 km mark behind the last runner from the longer course with trike and rider in the car and getting her out and underway in short order.  Sarah duly broke the women's arms-only world record with a run at 24.85 mph

The Plymouth University team got their trophy and medals today coz they have to leave sharpish tomorrow

For the umpteenth time I missed going to the drag races, but my Sinister Agents inform me that first place was scooped by Scout who, you will remember, is Beth & Barclay Henry's dog.  As this is supposed to be the World Human Powered Speed Challenge, I do not know whether he will actually get the prize money.

Conditions were as good as I've ever seen them for the evening session and all twelve riders had wind speeds below the permitted wossname.  Highlights of the evening included:

• Ken Buckley: New BRITISH record at 76.59 mph
• Yasmin Tredell: New BRITISH record at 71.05 mph; second fastest woman evvah after Barbara Buatois, who must have had something really special to go as fast as she did in an antediluvian shed like the Varna

Yasmin waits for ARION2's top and another BRITISH record

• Andrea Gallo: New Italian record at 78.85 mph
• Aurélien Bonneteau: New French record (I think) at 78.95 mph. Certainly a personal best.
• Ryohei Komori: New Japanese record at 80.06 mph; 6th member of 80 mph club, 5th fastest person evvah, edging out Damjan Zabovnik's 80.01 on his final run last year.

Komori-san flanked by a couple of happy Experts

• Florian Kowalik: New Junior Men's World Record at 65.93 mph

Low points included an uncharacteristically subdued 79.69 mph from Todd and a 73.26 mph from my man Jan-Marcel, who couldn't persuade Cygnus Chronos to go into top gear.

After the last trip of the year to the Ming Dynasty with my Chaps from Team Cygnus it's back here to try to persuade the Internets to behave.  It's taken me two hours to get this far, which is probably comparable to the fate of two of the Delft PSOs currently burning the midnight lamp in the back of their truck.  Their ambition is to make VeloX 6 the world record holder in the Not-Todd-Reichert class, but it rather looks as though the Super Ketta Machine 162 squad might have something to say about that.