Day 12: Battle Mountain, NV

After a bit of a BLEAN day yesterday and, indeed, an unspectacular morning, Barbara Buatois of France edged out her own Ladies' World, and European outright, records, to about 75.6 mph in perfect conditions tonight.  Eric Ware in The Wedge improved on his best performance from last year with at 71 and some change.  Ron Layman in Primal 2 joined the 70 mph club.  But that's all you're getting for now, because while it's not that late, I am absolutely knackered and would like to switch the light off before midnight.  Although if you're interested, the Notorious Henry Brothers, "Upright" Mike Mowett, Reno Bill and Tom Nowak are all here, and my motor-car's passenger seat belt has jammed, in spite of which Kara and Tiffany both wanted to be wafted down the course in peace and tranquility at > 175 mph.

Bis morgen...

Right, back from Thursday morning's runs, so let's have a few more details on yesterday.  There I was, guzzling my morning coffee, when the power went out right across town.  This caused various alarums and excursions, but only for five minutes or so, and then it was out to the course again for the morning period of backache.

Both Jay and Barclay Henry got their machines down the qualifying course OK.  Barclay is still running the head-first-and-backwards Backslider; Jay has a new machine, the Stellar Jay.  The latter is a good deal shorter than his previous mount, in a bid to make it less sensitive to crosswinds.  Whittney Metcalf finally got the Miner Details to stay upright through the timing traps, but subsequently decked it and added a new graze to her already impressive collection.

On returning to town it was time to take machines and people over to the Civic Center for a free lunch and a visit from a metric fuckton of third graders.  The biggest hit of the show was probably the kids queueing up to drag race on foot, using Robert Barnett's pukka starting tree.  Some people old enough to know better had a go too, which resulted in Paul Gracey going head-first into the wall at the far side of the room, and Thomas and Jan-Marcel cheating by lying on the floor and setting off all the sensors at the same time...  Other highlights included fedding the Tinies into the Backslider, which is accessed through a panel in its floor.  We had to check there wasn't one still inside when we packed up.

Various people also tried each other's bikes for size:

Kara Snyder tries Barbara's Varna

After which all the standing up made me hurt.  My feet hurt, my back hurt in two different places. my arms ached and my hips were creaking, so I went back to bed, and the rest you know about.

Curious thing seen on the road: a two-metre tall Dutchman kicking himself for having put the brakes on at the start of the traps instead of at the end.