The wind was much more cooperative, and so all runs save one were wind legal. Several personal bests were set, and Gloworm got within a split second of the tandem record.
Here Jan-Marcel in Cygnus Beta goes through the traps at just over 75 mph.
The winds were fairly high during the first run by Todd, and unfortunately he crashed Bluenose. There were some handling problems caused by using a different front and rear tire. (One of the side notes from this year is that teams using the square cross section ultra low rolling resistance Michelin radials are not so happy with their handling, although Delft seems to be doing OK). After Todd’s run, the wind started dying, and all subsequent runs were wind legal. Both Alex and Marc earned new hats.
The U of T team in the spectator area just after the final heat.
My buddy Danny putting away things at timing under a beautiful sunset desert sky.
You will notice that there is a new column that notes whether or not a start violated the 15m rule. This has been a point of avid discussion, both here and on the internet. The starter has been keeping track of the legal starts, and the consensus here seems to be they will not matter for the awarding of “hats”, but they will matter for new world records. Stay tuned for further developments. You will note that all the starts in the last heat were not legal.
After the wrapup meeting: dinner cooked and consumed at the Civic Center.
Looking forward to tomorrow morning. There will be one heat of qualifying, and then several heats of speed runs, including Graeme Obree’s next run with revised gearing.
Update: Bluenose is damaged enough that it will not be able to run tomorrow for sure, and so Calvin and Cameron will qualify in Vortex. This means that there will be two qualifying heats on Wednesday, followed by three 5 mile speed run heats. Graeme has been put at the top of the order of the 5 mile runs to give him the best possible chance of getting legal winds, which have had a tendency to increase round about 8:45. His run should go off around 8:20 AM.
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