Day 11 Part 2: Battle Mountain NV

Off we shogged to the five mile start for one final burst of hurtling in the desert.  No fresh roadkill to clear up, just a few small bits of gravel from the first few yards of the road.  Hans van Vugt did the starting honours as Calvin and his fatbike were still somewhere on the vertiginous slopes of Mount Lewis at the scheduled start time.  François had elected to cross his fingers, pray for low wind and run in the first heat but alas 'twas not to be and he stopped the clock with 74.98 mph; positively pedestrian by his elevated standards.  The fickle wind decided to play nice again and Niklas earned himself a new Hat with a 58.06 mph run in the Milan.  Then the wind stopped playing nice and prevented Claire from ticking the wind-legal checkbox next to her 54.82.  Peter was the final runner in the first heat; his 52.11 was also not wind-legal.  He reckons his Milan to be slower than his old DF, which suffered mightily at the hands of a moton in a Cadillac Escalade - a fight in which there can only be one winner.

François about to not break the world record

A quick turnaround for IUT Annecy was supposed to allow team boss Guillaume to run in the second heat but it seems someone had forgotten to extract his breathing apparatus from the van; the rider needing a dedicated supply of fresh air as the machine is pretty sealed internally.  Russell was first off and got his second V > 75 mph run of the day with a wind-legal 75.01 mph and a Hat upgrade.  The wind then picked up for Ellen's run at 63.89 mph, which someone with way to0 much time on their hands has calculated to be her 93rd since first competing way back in 2002.  Erin closed out the heat with further transmission woes in Cyclone, coasting through at 28.80 mph.

Calvin's fatbike has a nice lie down

Barney reinvents himself as a catwalk model

In the year's closing heat the wind ect and, moreover...  David's 75.57 was the best yet by Orange Bullet but the wind was still too high.  Adam, who spent much of the week prior to the event working his socks off to get things set up to the detriment of his peace of mind, got off to a decent enough start but he'd barely passed the five mile marker when his electronics shut down due to lack of electricity and Millennium toppled gracefully onto its side at low speed.  Bike and rider were swiftly cleared from the path of Guillaume and Altaïr; Wild Bill having sportingly handed his starting slot to the French team.  A gesture duly repaid with a stonking, and wind-legal, 76.85 mph pass.  Relegating Russ to third place overall chiz.  The very last run of the week fell to the indefatigable Slash, who has run in every available session since Sunday.  After my having hyped him and Twed as the best in the business on Friday, the Beano promptly fell over at launch but was swiftly righted and sent down the road for a wind-legal 63.58 mph.  Not too shabby for a circuit racer with a big chainring.

Guillaume, shortly before depriving Russ of second place overall

We hauled the mile markers back to town with devastating skill and then repaired to divers caravanserais to wash the desert out of our hair, get our DJs out of the dry cleaning bags and, in Arnold's case, apparently trade Marieke in for this here purdy cowgal:

What have you done with the real Marieke?

I didn't take a whole bunch of pictures because my elderly camera hates the Civic Center and refuses to play nicely there, but among the usual festivities were Office Aten dispensing tickets to divers crims: Adam, Nathan, Ellen and Ethan for failure to maintain their travel lane and Russ, David, Guillaume and François for speeding.  Pwners of new or upgraded Hats were then ritually humiliated announced:

(L-R: Guillaume de France (75), Russell Bridge (75), Steve Slade(60), Harrison Walker (55), Claire Nolet (50), Wiebke Magers (50), Niklas Bostelmann (55)

And so to the Prizes

Collegiate: the team that got closest to the world record in their category:

1. IUT Annecy
2. University of Liverpool
3. University of Toronto

Arms-Only:

• Men: Ken Talbot
• Women: Karen Darke

Multitrack Men:

1. Bill Thornton
2. Niklas Bostelmann
3. Peter Borenstadt

Multitrack Women:

1. Wiebke Magers - who got a spiffy engraved water bottle due to being a late entry after the rest of the trophies had been delivered

Overall Women:

1. Ellen van Vugt
2. Claire Nolet
3. Erin Price

Overall Men:

1. François Pervis
2. Guillaume de France
3. Russell Bridge

It only remains to thank the Politburo - Adam Hari, Arnold Ligtvoet, Marieke Ligtvoet, Jun Nogami, Calvin Moes, Joyce Lem and Larry Lem - for taking on the organising of the event, Al and Alice Krause for running the thing for so many years, the good folk of Battle Mountain for all their help in getting the show on the road and keeping it there, the volunteers without whom ect &, moreover, etc and the teams who come here to go fast, have fun and not be ["Redacted" - Ed.]