Day 9: Battle Mountain NV

Yesterday's promised rain did eventually show up but Thursday morning was sunny and not at all warm.  6 C at catch when parked in the shade.  I put on a jumper.  Two qualifying heats on the short course to start with.  Nathan in Woohoo got off the line nicely enough but soon performed a controlled flight into terrain as a result of the bike's windows fogging up.  The scratches on the side window probably don't help either.  Birthday boy Cobus and Mint Sauce did a 43.60 aided and abetted by some of the BRITONS.  And then Barney went off to the five mile start with the keys to Cobus' truck still in his pocket...  Nathan had a second - successful - attempt and clocked 44.30, though neither he nor Cobus had legal wind.

Cobus does some top-class pointing; Twed observes

Calvin brought his Black Helicopter this morning

Nathan on the start line

With all persons and keys relocated to their correct positions we moved out to the long course for three heats.  A change of launcher to Calvin saw Adam and Millennium get away cleanly only for a nameless Timelord to neglect to turn on the Box of Tricks at timing.  Analysis of Marieke's video gave us a rough speed of V > 65 mph, which allows Adam to run in the final evening heat should he so desire, it having been decreed that 65 mph be the qualifying speed for that heat alone, with 45 mph for all other runs on the full course.  Slash upped his personal best with a 60.56, though the wind hadn't quite dropped enough at that point.  Karen in ARION 8 did a legal 37.67.

Slash waiting to start

5 mile start area

And we had a visit from a horsey, who fortunately stayed on the right side of the fence.

I have the hat to deal with this, but not the l33t h0r53-wrang1in9 5k1llz

In the second round another personal best for Russell with 74.23.  Barney noted that if he'd had Slash to chase in the final few hundred metres he'd have gone a fair bit faster.  A big improvement for Ellen to 60.53 and a 59.36 for Bill.  Peter rounded off the heat with 50.67; all four runners had legal wind speeds which isn't supposed to happen in the morning.

Barney puts his back into it

In the final set of morning runs François upped his own PB and European record to 86.96 mph.  David once again fell foul of the Weather Demons with his 66.10 the only run of the heat with non-legal wind.  Ethan Elbaz also took advantage of Calvin's l33t launch 5k1llz and got away cleanly for a 54.65; Ken rounded off the morning with 38.43.  ARION 8 is still some way off the speeds achieved by its predecessor of 2018 though the deterioration of the road surface is at least partly to blame.

Thee Nissan ov Doom is mostly well-behaved but keeps having minor electronic glitches.  On the way out to the course this morning it suddenly began flashing a blinkenlight stating that the emergency collision avoidance jam-on-the-brakes function had switched itself off, only for the said blinkenlight to turn itself off again half a mile up the road.  The thing illuminates a warning light if the rear seat belts are unfastened even when there's no-one sitting in the back and occasionally goes "BONG" to warn of unbelted occupants even when there aren't any.  And it sometimes interprets the mile marker signs on the course as speed limits.  Daft article.

Use your Junior Pocket Microscope (Model 3a) to spot thee Nissan ov Doom claiming we're in a 35 mph zone

The weather didn't warm up nearly as much as we'd have liked in the afternoon though we dutifully trooped out to the course at 16:30.  Big black clouds to the south, but we dropped of the timing kit and while Cobus and Jun started setting Stuffs up Larry, Calvin and I went up to the start.  By the 4 mile marker it was raining.  At start itself it was tipping down.  Match abandoned.  We shot back down the road and managed to get the timing Stuffs loaded without getting too wet.  Still dry in town when we got back though that didn't last long.

Forecast for the rest of the week looks better but...