Day 5: Battle Mountain NV

Hurrah, the crack-laced microwave breakfast burger-thing are back on the menu.  I had two.  Calvin had none, because "my body is a temple".  Mine is a lockup garage that's been condemned by the council.

Nature Notes Part One: the other day there were observed a Several of skeins of Horble Gooses flying, as is their wont at this time of year, southwards.  This morning, however, there were observed even more, larger, skeins of Horble Gooses flying, er, north.  From which we conclude that the wind is currently too strong for even the most determined Horble Goose to make it much south of US-50.

And so it proved out on the course for the morning runs.  It dropped as the day wore on, but from the seven runs made only Lincoln's 43.17 was legal.  Adam and David both ran successfully on the short course, though the latter had both a couple of falls at launch and more camera woes, limiting him to just under 31 mph.  Adam was the fastest of the morning with 49.65 in spite of holding back a little because Wind.  Lizanne and Diego suffered yet more mechanical maladies; the Macquarie team having still not cured the rubbing rear tyre.  Full results over on Jun's blog as usual, because see below.

Slightly unsteady launch for (I think) Christopher

Lincoln and Cyclone from the chase car

Still, it wasn't all doom and gloom, because I got to pedal Lynn's Camaro.  Though I made the error of changing up into sixth, which makes it stop accelerating and limited V_max to 148 mph.  The owner took over for the next run, kept it in 5th and went 20 mph faster.  It's got a non-standard camshaft in it too, which makes it well-nigh impossible to drive smoothly at low revs.  Nice noise though.

Nature Notes Part Two: we dined at the Wol Club again today, because why not.  Next door to said establishment is the Reese River Outfitters store, which has this rather splendid hedgepig in the window.

DINSDALE!!1!

Do they actually have hedgehogs over here?  Apparently not since the genus Amphechinus became extinct more than five million years ago.  Also it's illegal to own a pet hedgehog in Hawaii, Georgia, Pennsylvania and California as well as New York City and Washington DC¹.

The evening runs were also beset by Wind, such that all those scheduled to run in the first heat eventually decided not to.  Natch we in the sweep car only found this out when a mile from the start, having already covered most of the preceding five at well over 120 mph.  Bah!  This also left me at the wrong end of the course for sweeping heat two, so I ran in the opposite direction, which brings its own variety of hazard.  Though the Kia did hit 132 mph this time, before I was obliged to not hit a dawdling truck up the jacksie.  Only Ellen ran in this heat, doing 53.97 mph.

Barclay steadies the Orange Bullet while Ellen self-extracts

The wind finally began to approach respectability for heat 3 though no-one had it drop low enough for legality.  Adam did the fastest run of the week so far at 59.80; Lizanne clocked 45.16 and Daniel 53.38 before Cyclone's front tyre let go near the bridge and down he went.  Rider OK, bike's health TBA, though a good deal of midnight oil may be required for the Toronto PSOs² to get the machine shipshape for the morrow.

Energetic launch for Lizanne

Æxcellent sunset this evening:

which in no way makes up for this Unit displaying symptoms of a clod, requiring much tea and an early night, hence the truncated nature of this 'ere entry.

1. All hedgehog fakts are corekt, for a change.
2. Penniless Student Oaves, obv.