Day 9: Battle Mountain NV

Friday the 13th.  What's the worst that could happen?

Quite a lot, as it turned out.  Cold at first but little in the way of wind.  The first heat had three starters but only two finishers - Lizanne with 48.99 mph and Diego with 47.65.  Pillbug was a DNF 1000 metres from timing when the P*nct*r* F**ry visited one of the side wheels.  Repair not possible in time for them to run again chiz.  In the second heat Orange Bullet was scheduled to run with Ellen at the helm but they had further camera issues and didn't start.  Peter did an untroubled 49.57.  We like velomobiles.  Easy to start and stop.  Kai set off but had to pull up after not very far as the gear shifter had come loose.

Calvin observes; Larry pushes Pillbug with air in all four tyres

Things perked up a bit in the third heat as Adam set the highest speed of the week so far with a wind-legal 68.57 mph.  The two Toronto machines, powered by Lincoln and Christopher this time, did 53.95 and 54.40, also with legal wind but thereafter the weather gods decided they'd been generous enough and no subsequent runs were legal in that respect.  Daniel's 60.56, Jun's 50.33 and Kai's 44.51 in heat 4 and Ethan's 62.03 solo run in the last 5 mile heat of the morning.

Kai waiting for a Minion to deliver her helmet

After the main event we also did 600/200 metre runs for Lizanne and Diego - standing start 600 metres from the start of the timed 200 metres.  The wind was still not playing and neither MQ2's 48.71 nor Cerberus' 32.33 were legal chiz.  We'll give it another go earlier tomorrow morning when the wind is more likely to behave itself.  New face in the crowd in a chap named David, a former cow-orker of Organisator Al.  They hadn't met since 1980 when the both worked on the ill-fated Vector sports car project and apparently David had no idea that Al was running things.  Spook!

The afternoon saw the drag races run as always by Robert Barnett.  Overall winner was Lizanne on her track bike.  Larry was somewhat put out at being relegated to the runner-up spot, but then she's an athlete.

Winner of the drag races

The wind forecast for the evening was officially Not Good.  This was about as truthy as tales of cat-eating migrants; winds were legal for everyone and speeds correspondingly high.  Adam was first off and did the quickest run of the week thus far with 72.31.  David in Orange Bullet wasn't far behind with 70.32 before causing alarums and excursions among the skeleton crew of catchers when we realised that no, he wasn't going to stop.  This, it transpired, was because the brake fell off.

It's not meant to look like this!

After two gentle pumps, in fact.  The 10mm thick carbon sheared clean through, David went though catch at > 55 mph, blew past a startled Geri-Ann and a line of traffic at the road block and carried on with speed scarcely abated until the road starts to go upwards.  Hotly pursued both by his chase vehicle and Officer Aten's truck - the latter complete with flashing lights - he finally came to a halt some two miles further down the road than expected.  Ellen and Larry almost caught him but missed by a few yards.  The bike can't be fixed here so it is perforce out for the remainder of the event.  Ellen has, however, arranged to run one of the Milan velomobiles tomorrow in an attempt to regain her Women's multitrack record before some upstart Aussie can boost it out of reach.

While all this was happening Lincoln arrived to an undramatic catch after a 60.1 mph run and Lizanne simply trundled up and stopped after her 55.76.  Natch I had put my camera down while we were catching Adam and then not catching David, so I didn't get many pictures from all the excitement.  Then I left my camera behind when I drove sweep for the second heat, Lynn having repaired his Camaro sufficiently that it didn't try shedding vital components at three figure speeds and doing the job for the first and third heats.  Local fixer Paula Tomera rode shotgun on the latter before driving the beast back down the course afterwards.  This seemed to make her happy.

Use your Junior Pocket Microscope (Model 3a) to spot Paula in the passenger seat...

The two Toronto bikes ran in this one, with Ethan clocking 65.52 mph and Christopher 61.56; a quick turnaround saw Cyclone back to the start for Daniel to round off proceedings with a 64.29 mph run, followed by an heroic but unsuccessful attempt by Toronto old boy Luke Patterson to keep the bike upright with a near diving somersault that earned high marks for artistic merit from the international panel of judges.

A little less drama and some proper records tomorrow please, you Fates.