Last night I caught the bus out to the spectator area. The bus was slightly behind schedule, but we managed to make it to the road before first closure at about 5:40 pm. Jonathan and Alan from the Slippery Slug team joined us along with some people from Elko, and Battle Mountain. The Ince family was back, along with Dr. Weaver. Teagan's Mom was there as well. The big surprise was that George Leone was going to be our tour guide. He did a thorough job informing everyone about the origins of our sport. He talked about the IHPVA, and how the WHPSC started at Battle Mountain. Overall he did a fantastic job of filling the silence with loads of fun facts. Thanks George. I'll try to post more pictures in another post since they don't seem to be loading to the site so well.
This is a bit out of order. Since I'm up late trying to get this out there maybe you can grant me this little chornilogical distaster. Tuesday was the time to show off our rides to the local kids. Later on I will share more of the pictures involving all these children. You just can't imagine all the joy, and enthusiasm that the kids have for the vehicles, and the racers. The best part for them is when they can sit in the bikes. This year many of the teams were allowing people to get into the bikes. When I saw Dr. John Weaver contemplating a daring attempt to squeeze himself into the Eta bike that AeroVelo had made I rushed over to get some pictures. As I sat there in disbelieve he managed to encase himself in this carbon fiber cage of a frame with a little coaching from the people that built it. Now it's time to hit the pillow. There will be more to share tomorrow. For now let me leave you with this photo of the Civic Center marquee. Below it you can make out the "super-moon". Unfortunately the picture doesn't capture the persective I saw with my own eye. It looks more like the "micro-moon". Goodnight all! Just prior to leaving my place a few days ago I agreed to help in start. Since I've been at so many other places as a volunteer in the past I thought it would be a great new adventure. My first year volunteering at the WHPSC I was keeping people off the course at the ranch roads. This was back in 2003. Since then I have helped in timing, catch, spectator area, and now start. No matter where you go there's always something to learn, and great people to help you out. Being the main communication person at start for the first few days was challenging. Just when I felt I had somewhat got the hang of things up there it was time to move on. Now I'm off to the spectator area to give some commentary to visitors there. Hopefully I can keep the people captivated, and informed as they await the arival of all the mysterious composite sculptures formed by the wind. As we headed out to the track this morning we thought there might be mud in the qualifying area. The rain came in last night, but didn't rouse me from my deep sleep. Fortunately there wasn't any reminants from the storm. So everyone was clean, and happy. Well, maybe a bit nervous to get there qualifying done. Their were some problems with starts, as people fell and had to abort their runs. Some restarted, and were able to get down the road. It was a joy to see Teagan, and Jan Marcel safely launch their bikes. Now we can add a couple more people to the main list for the full track. We have a new competitor as wel by the name of Orin. He has a tadpole trike that he rides on a regular basis. He has added a coroplast body to it, and wants to see how fast he can go out here. Looks like he has qualified as well. Unfortunately everyone scratched their runs for the 5 mile course because of high winds. So we will have to wait until this evening for more fun. Talk to you more about this later. I'm off to the afternoon meeting, and show and shine at the Civic Center. Just thought I would give a special shout out to a new person I met here at Battle Mountain on Sunday. His name is Sparky and he works for the Giant Cycle-cross team as a mechanic. I spent some time on Sunday morning chatting with him about the competition, and learning more about his as well. Since everyone around the Super 8 hotel saw his van with a trailer we naturally thought that they had a streamliner inside somewhere. No such luck. The big news was that many teams around here needed some glue for their tubular tires, and he happened to have a healthy tub to donate. What a nice guy. Thanks so much for your generousity. It will go to good use. Maybe your actions might lead to a new world record. Best of luck to your team in their events as well. There is a team here at Battle Mountain that has been working hard to get going. I'm not sure if they have a name for the team yet. Their rider is Teagan Patterson, and she is on her way to qualifying for her first big run down the 5 mile course on SR 305. The bike she is riding was built by Larry Lem for this same competition back in 2007. So it had to be modified slightly for Teagan to fit since she's not of the same proportions as the original design called for. It took some getting used to the streamliner for Teagan. Hard work has paid off for the team as Eric Ware, John Jackson, and Larry Lem managed to get Teagan going down the road this morning with the full body attached. She was beaming with joy from her accomplishment this morning. Way to go Team Honey Badger. That was one of the names I heard floating around. There isn't much time to relax around here. Since we had to be out early in the morning I was up at 5:15 to get my day started. Digging around in the dark to avoid waking the sleeping bear didn't work out so well. Somehow I managed to get everthing together with my owl vision, and even got a slathering of sunscreen on before exiting the room for breakfast. Next on the agenda is to fill my tummy with breakfast goodies. Since I knew we were getting back from qualifying runs at 10:30 am I made sure to get my human tank stuffed. Two cups of coffee would help with the shortage of proper shut eye. Then it was off to the races. Once out at the course it was time to act professional. My job for the beginning of the week is to head up communications at the start line. It's not always easy getting the radios to work properly, but somehow I managed to keep everyone safe. That's what matters most. There were a few people with bad launches this morning. Overall I would say that things didn't go so bad since nobody was seriously hurt. Maybe just some minor abbrasions. The pain that hurts the most is to not qualify for tonights runs. Fortunately there are plenty of opportunities to get into the game. I wish everyone who hasn't made it so far the best of luck tomorrow morning. No more wammies! So it's Sunday and I'm a day late on my blog. Oh well, such is life. It's been so busy for me since I got here. Yesterday I had the chance to see all my old friends from team Cygnus. Thomas greeted me with a huge hug, and was truly happy to see me. Jan Marcel brought his wife along to enjoy the insanity first hand. We shall see what she thinks about all this craziness once the week is over. The new bikes were getting some last details taken care of. Eta was on display with a heavy primer coat. Trefor and Calvin were handling the stinky details of filling small voids in the primer. It didn't take me long to get a little dizzy from all the fumes. So I ducked inside to say hi to some of the other AeroVelo team mates including Todd, and Cameron. Todd was doing some roller time on the recumbent and displayed some amazing balance in the process. The Delft team was just getting ready to head out for some testing when I got to the Civic Center. So the big orange team was in full force once again. I think they have more than four times the support of most teams. There riders Christien and Rik rode their recumbents to the undisclosed test area for some much needed excercise. I had a chance to talk with Rik before he left, and wished him the best of luck for the event. He's a very humble individual, and I know he will do amazing things for the team. Besides that I had more time to talk with Bas De Meijer. He's been the Delft photographer for the past few years, and we have struck up a good friendship with our common interests. He has a unique way of capturing images that sets him apart from the crowd. I always enjoy seeing what he has done, and hearing his stories. It's getting late. Today was a long day of tech inspection with Dave Kennedy, and Don Schroeder. We managed to get through all thirteen vehicles that have shown up so far. It wasn't easy traking them all down, but it saves us the trouble of trying to get that done prior to qualifying tomorrow. It's another early to rise day for me to help out at the start so I better get some sleep. I'll be up at 5 am to get my breakfast, and get out to the track for about a 5 hour session. Hopefully I will have enough time to get in another blog after the speeds are read off for qualifying. Then I can post some more pictures prior to leaving for the evening session around 5 pm. Yipes! It's going to be another crazy day. Here I am at John's place in Sacramento. What was going to be a 6 hour drive turned out to be more than eight hours. Everything was going smooth until I managed to run over a big chunk of truck tire that was in the road around 100 miles from John's place. I couldn't believe that it happened because it didn't feel that intense. Once I ran over the giant obstacle I thought all was fine. Then in a few seconds I starting to hear something that sounded like a rumble strip on the side of the road. Right away I pulled the car over for inspection only to find the right rear tire had gone completely flat. It took some time for me to extract the tiny space saver spare, and figure out where the jack could be properly located. Being on Interstate 5 was quite intimidating as I pulled the spare out from under the car. At least the flat was on the side facing away from the freeway. John and Deb hamming it upDeb with one of her pups named Ali
This is me wearing the 70 mph hat that I earned while being a member of Team Glowworm. (Photo by Kathy Kellerman) |