Day 24: Battle Mountain NV

 O hai!  Been kinda busy since hours 05:30 and some of what happened this morning is still subject to reporting restrictions.  So there will likely not be a proper entry for today until tomorrow when I shall have leisure time back in Burns OR, IYSWIM.  Here is a photo of Mikey to prove he ate'nt dead:

Edit: I am just in from the awards bash and now need a nice cup of tea and a sit down.  Far too many photos this evening to process and upload now.  D-notice now lifted so it can be reported that Oscar Varney had a big crash when Bilby's front tyre went flat three miles into the run.  Bike too badly damaged to run again but Oscar escaped mostly unscathed, though he's wearing  a neck brace for the next day or two.

Bollocksbollocksbollocks!  I've just spent an hour and a half adding Stuffs to this post and fucking Blogger has eaten it.  A pox on them and the horse they rode in on!  Now, where were we? ["Cursing the natives of Mountain View CA" - Ed.]

Ah, yes, Saturday morning.  The wind proved mostly illegal, immoral and fattening as well as confounding Professor Sir Admiral Viscount Timelord Jun Nogami and his contention that the wind for the later heats is always shite.  Three runners in heat one; none with legal wind.  Matilde reached 71.44 mph, Chris 68.65 and Daniel 53.99.

Drag chute on the Milan RS.  Used to keep Niklas below 110 km/h when dropping off Rocky Mountains.

In the second heat there were no wind-legal runs either.  The Sprockettes managed 61.52 and Diego 51 dead, while as noted above Oscar decked Bilby chiz.

The elusive Brexit unicorn? ["No!" - Ed]

Then the wind decided to play ball allowing Matilde to bag a new PB of 73.97 mph and Will Bill a 53.86.

Final runs of the morning were repeats: the Sprocket Rocket's 61.24 was an improvement but the wind had crept up.  Diego again got tantalisingly close to Ken Talbot's world record with a legal 51.45 mph run, followed, I'm told by a spectacular attempt to:

• Not run into the stationary Sprocket Rocket, and
• Kill Scott Wilson utterly to DETH

He missed both and ended in the ditch, undamaged and undeterred.  Back to town for Stuffs.

These signs have, IIRC, been on the side of 305 on the edge of town for at least twenty years.  I have no inkling of the fate of Furtado.  Debrief and presentation of Stuffs to Alyssa (12), as she and the Barnetts are starting the trek back to Oklahoma immediately thereafter.

Alice & Alyssa (12)

2D and 3D Alyssas pose with Teardrop

Former photography professor Danny Guthrie (76) then got shoved up a chimney ladder with Arnold's expensive camera for the photo op.  This involved lots of waiting until the fancy-schmancy display was showing the right graphic.  These, however, are my photos from slightly lower down:

Vehicles and riders, L-R
Alyssa (12), Peter, François, Guillaume, the Sprockettes, Wild Bill, Daniel, Niklas, Al, Kit, Oscar, Chris, Diego, Matilde, Enzo

In the midst of which the rozzers showed up and righteously nicked Denise Mueller for Excessive Pinkness, hauling an oversize load without the correct permit and generally being a wrong 'un¹.

Denise does the perp walk while Alyssa (12) tries not to laarrff

Birb remarkably uninterested in proceedings

Lunch was followed by a stroll round the Battle Mountain Runners car show.  Much Yankee muscle on show:

'61 Pontiac Catalina.  A regular sight on the mean streets of Battle Mountain

Subtlety?  We've heard of it!

Ford Galaxie 500 with added Lunch

2022 winner: Jack Stull's '61 Chevrolet Apache pickup

and also

God-Damn Yurrupeen hippie interloper!

The band wuz purdy darn good too.  Guitarists out of shot to the left.

Ah, here they are!  Feller with the Les Paul plays lead.

And so to the races for the final time this year.  François?  Diego?  The Sprockettes?  Or the wind?  The latter had he upper hand for what turned out not be heat one, with all scheduled runners scratching.  Twenty minutes earlier it had been flat calm chiz.

Even The Evil One couldn't make the wind drop...

Only Diego, glutton for punishment that he be, opted to run in heat 2.  Again he got tantalisingly close to Ken Talbot's record with a legal 51.42 mph run.  Marieke opined that the momentary drop in the wind speed was due to the lusty cheering of the entire Monash team who, with Bilby hors de combat, had descended mob-handed on the stands.

Someone has unleashed their inner hoon...

We contrived to squeeze five machines into the year's last heat with - natch - François setting off first.  86.92 mph is yet another PB but not quite enough to scupper that Reichert chap.  Matilde's 75.44 was also a PB, earning her a new hat and - by our reckoning - elevating her to 5th 6th in the women's rankings behind Ilona Peltier, Vittoria Spada, Rosa Bas, Barbara Buatois and Aniek Rooderkerken.  The Sprockettes also fell short of their goal of setting an outright record in their class, with 61.04 mph.  Two three-wheelers concluded the event, with Peter reaching 56.91 mph in the DF.  Alas, Diego was blinded by the setting sun and had to pull up after only a mile.  Bit of an anti-climax, that, though props to the Policumbent gang for extricating Diego and loading Cerberus in double-quick time.

Final launch for François

Trikes wait to close the racing: DF (R) and Cerberus

Quick dash back to the Super 8 for this Unit, mostly to apply the Hairbrush ov Doom to my lush barnet.  The removal of that much tangled mess mad me light-headed and, although no-one remarked on how AWSUM it looked this year, it did, so there.  Thence to ye olde Civic Center for the awards do and more.  Such as:

Marieke and the Posh Frock

A spot of glitz and glamour

Some world-class pointing

The Silliness of the Lems

and Women's overall pwner Matilde receiving her hat and trophy earlier than scheduled as he had to skedaddle for a flight bike to her day job as a rider for pro team Bepink, but I missed that because I was in the queue for the world's most expensive burrito², albeit behind notorious hungry-guts Larry Lem.

SPESHUL awards for Certain Volunteers:

Marieke and Arnold

Jun

Hatses: François, Al, Kit, the Sprockettes, Daniel, Niklas & Diego

We'd just made it through the collegiate presentations - Monash Human Power, IUT Annecy, Team Policumbent finishing 3-2-1 based on how close they'd got to a world record - when Officer Aten rocked up again to issue traffic tickets to all the divers crims, miscreants and Generally Bad Sorts that the event tends to attract.  Speeding, failure to maintain the traffic lane and failure to stop were all covered this time, though Alysaa (12) and Matilde are also in trub for fleeing the jurisdiction.

Good cop, bad cop?

Women's Multitrack Multirider: the Sprockettes

You may imagine The Psychedelic Furs' Richard Butler groaning Pretty In Pink, or not, as you prefer.

Arms-Only: Diego

Men's Multitrack: Wild Bill (3rd), Peter (1st), Daniel (2nd)

Men's Overall: Al (3rd), François (1st), Kit (2nd)

Arnold bigs up indefatigable Organisators Alice'n' Al

And some of our fab flaggers, without whom ect &, moreover, ect.

Emotional farewells - especially to IUT Annecy and François who are abandoning us to do Other Stuffs - and crawl back to the Super 8 for a nice cup of tea and a sit down, though not before hearing the crash tinkle as Will Bill dropped his trophy in the parking lot and came into reception to ask sheepishly whether he might borrow a broom.

Right, that's yer lot from Battle Mountain.  Sunday's quick and to the pointless post will follow after I's et something.

1. Some of these alleged offences may, in fact, contain traces of Lie.
2. $30?  Someone's 'avin' a giraffe!