Day 13: Battle Mountain NV

9/11 today, which means only one thing around here: Tom Amick's birthday.  Happy birthday, Tom, and when are we going to see you back again?  It's also the anniversary of the CIA-backed coup that overthrew the government of Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973, but for some reason Fox News aren't covering that one.  The bastards.

The saga of the BRITONS continues apace.  It seems that Yasmin was not quite as unharmed by last night's crash as previous thought and she was eventually hauled off to the hostipal for checks, observations and so forth.  Mr Supervisor Friel assured me that the machine would not be out at all today which, with the women's multitrack world record seemingly within reach, did not prevent an eager rider from trying to get a place in the evening runs anyway.  Whether it was an Executive Decision, the lack of a working trike or just common sense I wot not, but instead Yasmin and Ken came out to watch the evening runs.  Since we didn't have the spiffy spectator parking and posh grandstand the last time they were here, they parked at catch and set out determindely across country, where the sneks and the Reese River (which actually has water in it at the moment) live.  We managed to call them back before they got et, drownded or both.  Big ups to Hans van Vugt for his l33t wh33l-f3ttl1ng 5k1llz, sorting both ARION5 and N-1 in record time.

In the LSBU camp, there is now a big pile of upright bike frames being sawn up to reinvent the Velociraptor, plus a cannibalisation of the chain idlers off the Optima Baron borrowed off Kevin Dunseath at D.TEK for the duration.  Current state of the rebuild unknown, but they won't have a running machine for tomorrow chiz.

And there was some racing.  The morning was not without incident.  She Who Must Not Be Named visited Denise's rear tyre at 57 mph; she was able to switch lanes and slow right down only to topple gently over just before the team could pull off a mid-course catch.  A similar fate befell Vittoria, only it was the transmission that was playing up.  Undamaged riders and lightly scraped bikes in both cases.  The Sprocket Rocket ate one of its many chain tensioners on the course, and then suffered a front brake lockup as the beast was coming to a halt.  Result: all four front tyres blown.  There is a short video from inside the machine somewhere on YouThing.

Vittoria still vertical at this point

Sprocket Rocket passes the Grassy Knoll, still with all ten tyres intact

Both Adam and Kazuhiro finally made it down the qualifying course, albeit without a full compliment of bodywork.  The Japanese team say they have learned much and intend to be back next year, along with a team from Cairo who sent Adel (sp?) and Islam out for a couple of days reconnaissance this year.  Adam is going to have another go with the full body back on the N-1 tomorrow.

Adam semi-naked in N-1

The wind sucked early in the morning but went mostly legal when the action moved to the long course later.  Fabien was again the quickest with a legal 79.37 mph with Rosa clocking a non-legal 75.24 just to show that her new world record was no fluke.  Todd ran Peter's DF velomobile to 58.73 mph in his first run on the full course for three years.  And there was swearing at traffic, because there is no pint in sending someone out to check the course is clear in a fast car if they are going to tool up the road at 60 mph behind a truck or - worse - a competitor running the same machine in two heats.  Bah.

Further Lem skulduggery, this time on VeloX S

More of the same wind-related humbuggery in the evening, with no legal runs at all.  While the wind wasn't as consistently strong as last night, it was pretty gusty, such that even this Unit's motor-car got blown half a lane sideways halfway up the course.  Fabien got clobbered by a gust, thought he had a p*nct*r*, pulled over and was caught by the Annecy team before he could fall over.  Denise really did have a p*nct*r* and this time was unable to keep the Wahoo upright, going down barely a mile into her run.  Titan, the Toronto tandem, made it to Badger Ranch Road - about 600 metres from timing - before being blown this way, that way and into the brush.  Bewildered stoker Evan Bennewies reported that they crawled out of the bike only to see a streamer on one of the marker posts dangling limply at the vertical.  Natch today was the day that Captain Calvin's parents arrived to watch their boy in action for the first time...

Titan heads off for an Appointment with Destiny Nevada

With all this going on in the background, Rosa recovered from an alarmingly wobbly start to clock the highest speed of the evening with 70.77 mph, almost catching a dawdling Andrea in the process.  He was the fastest man tonight, but was slower than Jennifer and Ellen too.  And we had another dick of a trucker at the start end roadblock.  The gentleman in question was clearly a bit dim, as hi-tech peops like us now have both still photos and video footage of his rig, not to mention an off-duty Sergeant Aten of the Highway Patrol in catch.  Once he's back in uniform, he said, a one-sided conversation will be held with the guilty party.  Ha and, moreover, ha!

Frank Lem gathers evidence of Dickery