Day 20: Battle Mountain NV

After last night's washout things, as the particle physicist sang, could only get better.  And so they did.  Mostly.  Not so our attempt to break the sweep car speed record1 in Cobus Burger's fire-breathing earth-shaking Shelby Mustang GT 500 since we caught traffic and could only hit 150 mph.  And Cobus can't stay all week so wants to watch from as many points on the course as possible.

Things didn't go so smoothly for Matilde either.  Another case of "Catena! Catena!" followed by five miles of coasting for a 36.31 mph pass.  So she was overtaken by a slightly-puzzled Kit Kirby in Bilby, who ran 54.83, thought the wind was too high for both him and Matilde.  Diego set off in Cerberus but its cameras live behind a little plastic window in the nose.  Which fogged up, obliging him to park up and await rescue.  With the delay this caused the road was clear for the return to catch, but Cobus backed off at 160, probably on account of the less-than-pristine road surface.

Larry Lem finds his true calling

Heat two went better, with the Sprockettes increasing yesterday's world record to 61.24 mph.  Diego tried again in this heat and this time put Cerberus through the traps at a PB of 43.44 mph.  As soon as he'd passed Badger Ranch Road Alyssa (12) got on the road from the 600 metre mark and, in spite of being without her cycling shoes, still increased her world record to 24.24 mph.

Heat three saw the highest speed of the morning with Al Haslam at the controls of Bilby, hitting a legal 68.74 mph. 0.02 mph faster than the outright world record before we started coming here.  The timing doned a FAIL for Daniel's run in the Milan, possibly because he was actually passing under the light beam, but an estimate from his GPS was of the order of 55 mph.  Though the wind briefly picked up anyway so it wouldn't have been legal.  Two minutes later the wind was behaving again for Peter's 54.87 mph pass in the DF.

Peter's got the blues...

In the fourth and final set of morning runs the Sprockettes had another go and added another 0.7 mph to their record - 61.94 mph.  Tantalisingly close to the men's mark set by the Vector Tandem set back in 1980.  Enzo in Phoenix again struggled at launch but got away on the third attempt, only to go down at the 500 metre board.  Neither he nor the team is sure what happened.  Final run of the session was Oscar Varney in Bilby; he did 53.08 but the wind had picked up again chiz.  No François this morning.  Upset stomach.  Guillaume is hoping François can break the record soon so he can have a go without the crash panels on the bike.

Enzo on the start line

"Anyone need a ride back to town?" asked Cobus, and was nearly trampled by a mass of Italian PSOs all trying to grab the passenger seat.  Once the morning's obligatory debrief, results and choosing of start slots for tonight and tomorrow morning was over it was time for free lunch.  Dirty pizza.  And - amazeballs - notorious hungry-guts Larry Lem wasn't first in the queueueueueue.  But family honour was upheld, because brother Frank was on pole instead.  Meanwhile, sister Joyce is persisting:

See?

Following which the jammy-fingered germ factory that is the collective third-grade from the school over the road came to smear their fingerprints all over the machines and - occasionally - the team members and volunteers.  "Goddamn kids!" exclaimed Alyssa (12).  I hid in the corner to avoid jam and germs.

I think Ben Goodall might have cause to disagree with this...

Oliver Henry tries the Sprocket Rocket for size

Oily bits of Altaïr 7

"Who is this 2D usurper?" asked Thomas, indignantly

It's like, how much more pink could it be?

The jammy hordes inspect the Sprocket Rocket

Now 4 pip-emma and the weather looks pretty nice out there.  And we're promised a much better turnout than Sunday night, though it appears Wild Bill is still under the weather and won't be riding.

[Some time later]

Mad scramble to jump into Lyn Briggs' car for the sweep run meant a brand-new set of Energizer Lithiums fell out of my camera case and onto the deck.  Big ups to whoever found them and put them on the fence at catch.  We did 140 mph with the roof down, thanks for asking.

Saturn Sky.  Nevada.  Tuesday.

All three runners in the first heat were affected by Wind; Niklas' 52.57, Chris Hall's 52.69 in Bilby and Enzo's 49.20 were all non-legal.  Enzo then contrived to crash after crossing the bridge, which provides temporary shelter from crosswinds.  Fortunately still with the crash panels in place.

Heat two did not go well either; Al decking Bilby with a flat around the one mile post and Diego pulling up after a mile or so with a malady as yet unknown to the author [Update: Catena! Catena! Again].  I stayed at catch for this one, and no-one arrived, so you'll have to be content with this photo of Al Krause trying to improve the performance of his radio:

King of the Castle

By the third heat I had decamped to the spectator area opposite the timers, the wind went legal for all riders and speeds were good.  In ascending order: Daniel (Milan), 54.45; Peter (DF), 54.92; Matilde (Phoenix), 63.04; François (Altaïr 7), 85.87 mph.  François thus becomes only the second member of the 85 mph Club.  Hopefully more to come once he's fully recovered from his stomach lurgi and can start eating proper-like again.  Sadly my camera decided to go sleepy-byes just before Matilde's run but François' is captured in Glorious Technicolor:

More Italian kids scrounging lifts in the flash cars.  They seem to like that sort of thing over there.