Day 10: Battle Mountain NV

Although we didn't have a long drawn out awards bash this year because Plague it's still late and only half today's Automatic Diary entry has been typed up.  Today's event pictures are at here: clicky.  There'll be a bunch more from the Battle Mountain Runners car show wot we had a mosey round this afternoon but not until roughly this time tomorrow.  Nor will there be any more words until then.  You oughta be used to this by now.  Oh, François is up and around and wearing a neck brace but otherwise pretty chipper.  He wants to come back next year 😀

It is now Sunday pm in a wet and chilly Sonora CA and here for your delight, delectation and other Stuffs beginning with "d" is the full story of Saturday 2: The Sequel.  Share and enjoy.

Back to standard start times this morning = no lie-in chiz.  The weather was a fair bit warmer than yesterday because clouds, though the latter did their best to water us during the course of the session.  The wind was much the same as yesterday, including being non-legal for the luckless Martina again.  Three bikes in heat one with Russ leading the way with a 73.79.  Exactly the same as he clocked on Thursday.  Martina did 57.45 and Noah 64.9, though neither had a legal wind.  Lincoln had an uncharacteristic fall on launch, followed by Cyclone dropping a chain only a few hundred metres into the run.  He steered off the road for a soft landing before the team could pull off a mid-course catch.

Heat 2 had only two runners with Bill Kong running Cyclone to a legal 61.24 and Peter a not so legal 53.02 in his DF velomobile.  It then started to rain quite heavily at the start so things took a fifteen minute break to let the rain pass and the first mile of the course to dry out a bit.

Bill K in Cyclone

The delayed heat 3 had legal wind for all four runners, with Andrea topping the table with the morning's best speed of 76.70 mph.  Why my notes say "42.43" is a mystery. Matilde did 70.52, Noah 65.04 and Wild Bill 60 dead.  The latter noted that he's putting out more power than he was in 2019 but not going any faster, so possibly the road has deteriorated to compensate.  Most repeat offenders among the riders are saying it's noticeably rougher than before so we're hoping someone can persuade, er, someone else to stump up the Several of millions of dollars required to resurface it.

Martina (L) and Matilde trying to determine what's wrong with TaurusX' rear wheel

Also needing a substantial cash application is the van of drone cameraman Nik Vatin, whose vehicle apparently needs a driveshaft transplant to make it back home to Florida.  Passing the hat around raised more than $500.

Post-race it was a great relief to see François only a bit the worse for wear after his adventures last night.  He's currently wearing a neck brace but expressed a wish to come back next year.  Then outside for the group photos...

Vehicles and riders: Wild Bill, Adam, Russell, Noah, Diego, Andrea, Martina, Matilde, Alyssa (11), François, Guillaume, Peter, Lincoln, Calvin, Bill K

...and presentation of the trophy to Alyssa (11) as she has to get back to:

• Oklahoma, and
• school ASAP.

Shameless photobombing by John Jackson and Larry Lem in the background...

Normally at this point the fastest rider of the week would then be handcuffed and stuffed in a Highway Patrol vehicle, but Arthur Aten has recently retired from the NHP and is instead running for Sheriff.  I now have one of his stickers on my laptop.  Election is on November 8th.  Vote early and vote often, kids.

Make it so!

After lunch some of us went for a wander around the Battle Mountain Runners car show over the road.  Lots of Detroit Iron of various vintages plus a lone VW Beetle.  I took a metric fuckton of pictures but I ent uploaded 'em to Flickr yet because although the Super 8's internets are no longer flakier than a week-old croissant my back isn't and the chair in here is too low, too hard and too something else to sit at for long periods.  Hopefully the Lumberjack Hotel in Sonora, wot is where I'm stopping on the way back to San Francisco tomorrow night, will be better.  Edit: it is.  Many pictures at here: clicky  I'll label 'em properly when I get home and have a GBFO monitor to look at them on.

Best in Show: Jack from Spring Creek and his immaculate Chevrolet truck.
Pictured at the Super 8 this morning - he doesn't drive it at night because the headlights are terrible

Back out to the course for the last time¹ this year shortly...

...shortly afterwards.  None too warm on town but rather better out on the 305.  Not so the wind, at least until late in the session.  Although we didn't get the results until quite a lot later I'm gonna put them in here coz otherwise I'll get confused.  Only Martina chose to run in the first heat and didn't push hard as she ran a non-legal 42.54.  Heat 2 was similarly manky.  Russ did a 58.41 as a data-gathering exercise for a proposed GCN/Jonathan Shubert attempt on the Hour Record.  Having remembered that my camera can also shoot video during James Coxon's trike hour record run a couple of months ago I promptly forgot again.  But now I remembered again.  Let's see if this works:

Successful launch for Seventy Seven

Well, it might have.

Noah did 39.66, slowed by the display of flag-noncing in the form of a Union Fleg attached to Marlow's tail.  Which slowed him to the extent that Bill K in Cyclone was oblige to overtake the LSBU chase vehicle actually in the timing traps.  He still managed 52.56 before going off the road before the bridge.

Noah & Marlow, flag-noncing

We delayed the final heat for about fifteen minutes to let the wind drop.  Which it did.  Except for Matilde's 74.07 chiz.  The weather deities don't like the Italian lasses.  They did like Andrea, though, whose 80.32 mph run was the fastest wind-legal one of the week.

Andrea sets off to claim first place overall

Behind the Italians were the two velomobiles; Wild Bill hit 60.29, a thou off his PB while Peter, in the last run of 2022, did 55.20.

Peter closes the event with a more sedate start to his run

Although Teh Plague had, as noted up there ^^^^, put paid to the Trad. Arr. awards bash this year, we still managed to draw out the post-race meeting with many of the customary activities.  There were, for example, Hats emblazoned with the rider's best wind-legal speed, viz. Lincoln (60), Noah and Martina (65), Russ, Adam and Matilde (70) and François (75).  So still only one example of the coveted 85 mph hat has been award, and the even-more-coveted 90 hat - which I am assured *does* exists - remains unclaimed for another year.

Hatses: Adam, Russ, Lincoln², Noah, Martina, Matilde, François

No-longer-Officer Aten had, I'm told, received special permish to don his Highway Patrol uniform one last time in order to dish out traffic citations to assorted miscreants.  Speeding, failure to maintain proper control of a vehicle and driving without a licence due to being to young were among the crimes mentioned.  Alice says she'll ensure that Alyssa (11) gets hers through the post.  I failed to position myself in the right part of the room for this so all my photos had the wrong side of the villains, so I threw them away.

So, ur Official Results:

Collegiate:

1. Team Policumbent
2. IUT Annecy
3. University of Toronto

Men Arms-Only:

1. Diego Colombari

Men's Multi-Rider:

1. Calvin Moes & Bill Kong

Men's Multitrack:

1. Wild Bill Thornton
2. Peter Borenstadt
3. Diego Colombari

Women's Multitrack:

1. Alyssa Miller (11)

Women's Overall:

1. Matilde Vitillo
2. Martina Stirano
3. Alyssa Miller (11)

Men's Overall:

1. Andrea Gallo
2. François Pervis
3. Russell Bridge

Affairs thus concluded, many, if not most, of those present trooped over the road to the Hideaway as all the tips for tonight were going towards sending a couple of their waitresses to a cheerleading wossname in Florida.  Although when Alice inquired as to whether they might be persuaded to keep the kitchen open past 9 pm they allowed as how that would be possible but only by jacking up the service charge to a robdog amount.  This on top of the extra charge incurred by parties of six or more.  We left the Young People to it and instead your author, Mikey Sova, timing's wind maestro Danny Guthrie, the Krauses, the Lightvoets and the van Vugts went Mexican and if it hadn't been bloody freezing outside and them making a horlicks of Al's burrito order we'd have totes pwned the rest of the mob.  Nyurr!

Without whom... Al'n'Alice Krause

All in all a slightly disappointing return after three years away.  Mostly due to the weather and both Titan and Altaïr 6 crashing out before they could show their true colours. On the plus side a much improved performance from LSBU, who arrived with a working bike and a cracking one from Team Northern Monkeys.  Though (wo)Man of the Match was almost certainly Alyssa (11).  Having a great uncle like Mister Barnett undoubtedly helps but we're told that she built Teardrop practically solo.  How many eleven year olds do you know who can weld?

1. Except that I'm leaving town that way tomorrow, obv.
2. Note the heroic restraint with which I have refrained from referring to him as Hot-Rod Lincoln all week.