Day 6: Battle Mountain NV

It seems I have been guilty of causing eddies in the space-time continuum.  Get floppy-haired cleverness dispenser Professor Brian Cox on line 2!  The more prosaic explanation is that you have to tell blogger.com what time zone you're in rather than it taking it directly off your Babbage-Engine.  Which I had failed to do after arriving in USAnia.  This lamentable omission has now been corrected.

In spite of last night's gloomy prognostications we sent an advance party out to the course at Audax o'clock this morning to report on the weather.  "Come on in!" they cried.  "The water's lovely!¹"  We delayed the start by an hour to let things dry out a little, in spite of which I managed to get the Blackstang's traction control to kick in at 110 mph.  But Russell won't run if it's too wet as he's got nothing to keep water from his front wheel out of Seventy Seven's electronickal gubbins, and he reckoned it was OK.  Even if DJ Random had decided to play me Alice In Chains' "Rain When I Die" as I arrived at catch.  A good deal of standing around ensued before I was despatched all the way up to the five mile start to check the road, even though the sole runner in the first heat was Alyssa, starting from the 600 metre mark.  Which is visible from catch to the naked eye, never mind through John Lucian's binoculars.  So I missed Miss Alyssa's run altogether, tough it is pleasing to report that her 21.22 mph pass is an official Women's U-12 Multi-Track World Record.  Hurrah!

Master Mechanic Alyssa Miller

Everyone who had put their names down for the first heat on the full course scratched, so there was a good deal more hanging-around training before we started the rest of the morning's business at 09:15.  Well, that was the case for us at catch.  Up at the start Scott Wilson had manged to lock his car keys inside his car and dipsticks, a clipboard and divers other flotsam and jetsam were called into play to liberate them - successfully - from bondage.  So, three vehicles in the first heat.  Andrea was the fastest at 76.63, from Russell at 64.46 and Martina with 53.66, though none had a low enough wind speed for their runs to count chiz.  In the second heat (of two) Titan lost an engine on take-off again, so this time it was Captain Calvin to power the brute through the traps at 53.29 mph with the only wind-legal run on the long course.  Adam clocked 59.58 and Wild Bill 58.65, while the luckless Noah decked Marlow - which is apparently named after a dog rather than a hard-boiled private eye or even a playwright - once again, this time after two miles.  One of my Sinister Agents tells me that a switch to skinnier tyres had reduced the bike's already minimal ground clearance to the extent that crossing the barely noticeable crown of the road caused the bike to ground on the road, with predictable loss of directional control.  Noah undamaged and bike allegedly only sporting a few more scrapes.

"Chain's a bit slack!"
Final drive of TaurusX

Continuing the theme of vehicles being lopsided and unremoveable, Danny Guthrie's car, the wheels of the timing crew, decided not to start after the vent was over.  Al Krause and his jump leads saved the day.  No Show'n'Shine for the local kiddiewinks to poke the machines with jammy little fingers chiz, thank to Bill Gates and his 5G bat control rays, so no free lunch either.  Back to the Colt it is then, followed by keyboard-bashing and trying to find a way of disabling the trackpad on this thing that doesn't involve dropping it off the overpass and into the outside lane of I-80.

Success!  No more wandering cursor!  The weather had cleared up quite nicely by this arvo and by he time the course was set up and everyone in place it was pretty much flat calm and 22 deg. C.  We then waited until the scheduled start times though this did at least allow the Policumbent and LSBU PSOs² to catch some rays.

Grassy knoll in the background claimed for the Dutch Crown by Ellen van Vugt

First heat kicked off at 17:45 with a couple of launch issues for Martina in TaurusX before she got going in earnest with a 66.18 mph run.  Lincoln and Cyclone got away cleanly and improved to 53.32 mph and Noah kept Marlow rubber side down for a 55.04.  At 18:15 Andrea kicked off the second heat with the evening's best run - 79.32 mph.  He was followed by Calvin and Bill in Titan, who managed to keep both engines running all the way down the course for 64.38 mph.  Sadly, as soone as they came off the power Captain Calvin lost control and they went down "HARD", to quote the pilot.  Who is not prone to exaggeration.  Divers BRITONS watching from catch noted the big cloud of dust as the machine rolled a Several of times.  Both riders are OK, if a little shaken; the state of the bike remains unknown at the time of writing.  This drama unfolded as Russell and Seventy Seven were well into their run, after also suffering a fall at launch and spoiling the pretty paintwork.  By the time he reached timing, though, the Toronto gang had dropped off their crew and ensured bike and riders were safely out of the way.  Russ' speed of 65.10 would appear to make him 5th fastest BRITON behind Rob English, Dave Collins, Yasmin Tredell and Ken Buckley and they still have the faster tyres yet to be fitted.  "Two Northern monkeys in a garage beat the Olympic athlete and the F1 team!" noted Mr Bridge with an ear-to-ear grin.

Northern monkeys at right angles to reality.  French PSOs assist in the rescue.  Merci!

Heat three was delayed a while to give Toronto time to recover bike and crew before François powered Altaïr 6 down the road at a slightly disappoint 75.61 mph, followed by Martina - making her second run of the evening - at 64.14.  Policumbent's second female rider Matilde Vitillo arrived today so Martina clearly wants to maximise her seat time :-)  No pictures from heat three coz it was too dark.  All the runs had wind speeds well below the permitted maximum, so everyone who decided not to run tonight is probably performing self-flagellation inna-Opus-Dei-stylee right now.

And now a word from our sponsors:

1. This statement may contain traces of Lie
2. PSO = Penniless Student Oaf, as any fule kno