Day 7: Battle Mountain NV

 After consulting with our legal department we have decided to omit the latest scurrilous story about Arnold Ligtvoet.  Sorry...

Reduced numbers this morning.  Some people were taking time out for repairs, recovery or both.  Not Toronto, alas, as Titan isn't going to be running again this week after last night's crash.  And Andrew Sidwell's planned lie-in was scuppered by the news, at 06:20, that the BHPC's webby SCIENCE had died on its arse.  Still, it wasn't all doom and gloom because we had a surprise visit from former competitior and volunteer Sven Jorgensen, passing through town from Idao to the Bay Area for Family Stuffs.  And also because Paul and Marilyn, who turned up the other day from Salt Lake City to watch and/or volunteer, allowed us the use of their fire-breathing monster of a Corvette to use for sweep duties.

This has the advantage of being $BIGNUM faster than the Blackstang but sadly every attempt to keep the loud pedal flat to the floor all the way up the full course was thwarted by our catching slower traffic, so the best we could get out of it was about 170 mph chiz.  Also it has get big spoilers on the back which are great for cornering but less so for drag, so acceleration beyond 160 was somewhat less than flashing.  Fun though...

Photo shamelessly robbed off of that Arnold, that they have now

Alyssa having decided her youthful legs were too achey to run this morning we were left with but two runners on the short course. n00b Matilde Vitillo qualified TaurusX at 49.8 mph but Diego Colombari had more problems with the steering.  If team boss Paolo Baldissera had enough hair he'd have been tearing it out, as they thought they'd fixed it.

Diego shortly before running off the road yet again chiz

After a pause to move out to the 5-mile start and a longer pause while everyone scheduled to run in the first heat opted not to in the hope of improved weather, we got underway again with Adam, Noah and Lincoln in Wahoo, Marlow and Cyclone respectively.

The weather, not improving as quickly as we'd have preferred

Adam had a mid-course visitation from the P*nct*r* Fairy but managed to scrub off a certain amount of speed before going off the road.  He is, as I type, hard at work with filler and sandpaper in preparation for tonight.  Noah did 58.13 mph and Lincoln 52.11 but neither had legal wind speeds.

François led off the next round and got the session's hghest speed - 78.85 and legal wind to boot.  Andrea followed him down the road at 75.13, team-mate Martina at 63.43 and Peter in the DF with 52.19.  Neither of the Italian riders had a legal wind either.  With plenty of time remaining on the permit before we have to hand the road back to the general public, we snuck in another heat for Diego & Cerberus.  This time he was able to keep the machine on track all the way down and did a legally-winded 39.84.  Paolo sez he was only on the power for about 30% of the time while the bulk was taken up with making the brute point in the right direction.

Apparently water is a rare commodity in Lander County this year...

Weather forecast for this evening is for thunderstorms at exactly the time we're supposed to be running so fingers, toes and earlobes are being crossed, pressed and generally manipulated in the hope of making it go rain on Carlin or Winnemucca instead.

THe usual mid-afternoon ennui was enlivened with a traditional Battle Mountain spectator sport, viz. watching Larry Lem buried deep in the innards of a bike while trying to reassemble important components.  In Braille.

Larry in mid-fettle

Opinions varied as to whether we should even try to run this evening in the light of the weather forecast but Al invited us all to go out to the course anyway so off we did ["troop" - The Invigilator].  As per the schedule, and in spite of the light rain falling in various locations we closed the road at 17:15 and off I went.  305 completely empty for the whole six mile stretch.  Why could it not have done that this morning, eh?  EH??!?1?  Bikes started staging and then rapidly unstaged again as the weather changed.  And changed again.  And again.  Finally we had no choice but to pull the plug on the whole session as it was tipping down for the last mile or so up to timing.  Another evening off then.  Bah!  Apparently all this is the fault of the tail end of a Pacific hurricane and we're actually quite lucky since it's been causing all manner of nastiness further south.  Readers with long memories may recall similar excitements in New Mexico and Texas back in 2014.  Hoping for better tomoz.