Day 8: Battle Mountain NV

Alarm ect and, moreover, etc.  Fortunately my driving off up the road with a box of timing gear still on the back set of thee Nissan ov Doom was not a showstopper.  I blame Calvin, coz the box and him were sharing the back seat...

Thee Nissan ov Doom, Nevada, Wednesday

Oh look!  Inserting photos from their Flickr url is working again!  But anyway...  A mixed bag of results today.  Having got through a veritable Lake Ontario of midnight oil working on Cyclone last night Toronto were able to pull off a Several of good qualifying runs; 48.44 mph for Erin and 48.13 for Harrison in Cyclone and 46.46 for Ethan in Eta Prime.  Thus they've all reached the 45 mph cutoff speed to allow them to compete on the full course.  Claire Nolet has yet to get a run due to yesterday's mechanical issues with Cyclone, or which more anon.  Ken also ran on the short course, hitting 40.01 in spite of ARION 8's main video display freezing at an inopportune moment.  Nathan in Woohoo had three falls and a submission at launch and was perforce unable to do a run.  Natch today was the first day Cal Poly took the crash panels off.

What happens if I press this button?

Nathan and Woohoo before the trouble started

Three runs on the full course followed.  Only Niklas and Peter completed the first; Cyclone having fallen victim to more transmission woes as the newly-qualified Erin attempted to get off the line. Niklas scored 56.57 and Peter 49.54, though the wind had temporarily reached illegal levels.

Calvin gives the start signal via the medium of interpretive dance

More launch woe for Adam, with three unsuccessful attempts to get going, leaving Slash and Ethan in the second heat.  57.34 for the former and 54.32 for the latter, both with legal wind.  It's, like, totes random.

With François having elected to take the morning off the final heat was always going to be contested in perfect wind conditions.  Russell set the highest speed of the morning with 67.44, having backed off towards the end of the run.  David b0rked one of Orange Bullet's pedals and came in on one engine at 51.90; Wiebke closed the session with a 49.32.  Just missing out on a Hat chiz.

Team Northern Monkey's creative solution to the requirement for three seats in a chase vehicle

To the movies!  In this case "The Fastest Bicycle", a documentary concerning the many trials and tribulations of the London South Bank University team in 2018, 2019 and 2022 and starring Russell Bridge, Noah Philips, the late Mike Burrows, TV's Nice C Boardman, "the charismatic" Guillaume de France, Barney Harle's arse and a supporting cast of thousands the Usual Suspects.  Even though it reached the big screen via a somewhat convoluted route from Russell's phone via a laptop 'twas a good way to pass the afternoon, with ample opportunity to roffle at some of the bizarre closed captions.  This gave us but a short period to decide whether to run this evening.  some teams had already decided not to run because of the forecast wind, rain, thunderbolts, lightning¹ etc and after looking at the sky and consulting Larry Lem and John Jackson - who were already out on the course painting some Bondo-filled holes black so as not to alarm the Nevada Department of Transportation - the Politburo decided to call the whole thing off.  An early night beckons for once.  Hurrah!

1. Which, as any fule kno, are very very frightening MEEEEEEEEE!