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At the morning qualifier runs, the Dust Devil prepares for
it's maiden voyage. This streamliner was conceived, designed, and built all in the space
of just two months. They made a 32.49 MPH run without the top on due to issues with
fitting the rider in the vehicle with the top on. As with most new vehicles, there
were some teething problems, but they should be back tomorrow ready to go for it again. |
| The Rotator Frankenstein makes a qualifier run on
the frontage road at 40.524 MPH. For the last couple
of days we used a new section of the road to allow a two mile runup and still avoid the
cattle guards, which are sort of like drain gratings on steroids. |
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Mackie Martin does a qualifier run in the newly repaired
Virtual Rush. Mackie did a 46.028 MPH run, and I barely edged him out in the Barracuda at
46.218MPH. Later Gardner Martin chastised me for beating up on a teenager. Gardner
describes this bike as "evil" because it is so sensitive to crosswinds, and is
considering performing an exorcism. Steve Delair in
the "Big Gun" went 47.62MPH to beat me. Giudo in the WhiteHawk beat us all by
going 49.056MPH to get the top position in the SR 305 "slow" group. |
| Ellen Van Der Horst gets ready to take a couple
laps around the motel parking lot in the White Hawk Chassis. Ellen didn't feel very well
today, so Giudo raced the White White Hawk on SR 305 to pull off a 62.66MPH run. In the same parking lot the Varna crew were hard at work improving
the ventilation system to allow Sam to go fast and breath, all at the same time.
Apparently the idea of sending air spun off the back wheel into the breathing mask does
not work so well. This was confirmed by the WhiteHawk team, who had tried the same thing
earlier. |
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Thursday evening, temps were in the lower 60s, and the
winds were once again cooperative. At the evening
races out on SR 305, Sam Whittingham comes in after a smoking 79.465MPH run. Catchers
prepare to grab him as they slow down. One catcher wore a flashing safety vest to show the
racers who to aim for.
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| Sam gasps for air after the catching crew gets the
top off the Varna Diablo II. The crew had a hard time getting the top off due to a
sticking locking pin. How many crew does it take to extricate a racer from a
streamliner? Hmm. Sam later said that he was on his
scripted marks for an 85 MPH run, but when he reached the final push he was at 79 and
couldn't push it any harder. George Georgiev later mentioned that the Varna runs much
faster in warmer weather (last year's record run was in 80 degree temps). Interestingly,
he said that Matt Weaver's Kyle Edge is better in cool air. |
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Jan Van Eijden in the Blue White Hawk slows down after a
67.480 MPH run, and prepares to be caught. |
| As dusk falls, Jan is extracted from the
streamliner. Jan has been running very consistent times in these races. |
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Tanya poses next to the Gold Rush LeTour after her SR 305
run. She felt good enough for a race today, and turned a 52.143 MPH run. This just shows
how fast a 16 year old can bounce back from being very sick. |
| Once again, today's races were not
without their share of thrills and spills. Sean Costin, who has been working hard to get
the Coslinger Special ready to race, made it 100 feet into his sprint before shutting down
the run with video problems. Sean installed a brand new video system into his vehicle
after the old one suffered a massive failure. Sean also made some very nice wheel fairings
for the bike, to clean up the area on the bottom of the bike around the wheels. Matt
Weaver in the Kyle Edge suffered a rapidly deflating rear tire at 74MPH, but was able to
safely bring the bike down to 5MPH on a rear flat before falling over. Rob English in the
Mango suffered a spectacular crash as the bike went into a wild oscillation at 70+ MPH at
the timing traps, crashed, slid through the traps, off the road, through the gravel and
finally ended up wedged under a mini van that was parked too close to the road. Rob came
out of it with a cut under his eye and on his forehead. Matt Weaver's Father, an emergency
room doctor looked him over and found him in good condition otherwise. The bike is a bit
scraped up, but should be ready to race again after a bunch of sanding and a windshield
replacement. Neither of the two camera bikes has had a good run yet this week.
Hopefully tomorrow with be a better day for them both. Hey! I went 58 MPH today in the
'Cuda! I was spinning at about 130 RPM. Yeow! I need a bigger chainring! |
