BM2013: Saturday PM results and banquet

It was an interesting evening of racing, with high winds causing most of the riders in the first two heats to scratch. Those that ran included Trefor who sailed thru the traps at 74 mph with a 8 mph head/cross wind.
Note that Bluenoses’ paint job had evolved from earlier in the day, or even this morning. More costume changes than Lady Gaga.

and then it happened. One of the spooky bits of lore around this event is the fact that every once in a rare while, just as the sun touches the horizon, the winds die and the running conditions are perfect. When we heard from start that Sebastiaan had been launched, the winds were still a little above legal, but they started to decrease, and then he went screaming thru the traps, and we had to look at the printed time several times to believe it. At this point, we couldn’t announce anything until we had verified that the start conformed to the 15m rule, so despite pleading over the radio, it was all we could do to pack up timing before dark at the end of the heat.

After a quick conference at the Super 8, it was off to the Owl Club for the banquet. When it came time to announce the speeds of the final heat, the room went quiet. Polite applause for each and every time, and then at the end, when I said: Sebastiaan, 83.13 mph, the room erupted, and the Delft/Amsterdam people were besides themselves in jubilation. Three years of intense effort had finally paid off with a new world record.

They have posted this video where they saw their top speed just after the run according to instruments on the bike (we heard the cheering from timing), but they had to wait until the banquet for final verification that this was a valid record.

Georgi made a nice speech congratulating HPT, and then said that he would tell Sam about the result to see how he would respond.

A picture of all the riders.

Then the awarding of the hats. Alex collects his 65 mph hat.

Marc gets a 65 mph hat as well.
Both guys improved two hats (10 mph) over last year.

Cam gets his 70.

Todd, Trefor and Calvin all get 75 mph hats.

Not to be outdone, Oleksiy collects the innovation award for his data display on the Bluenose camera system. He is also the electronics whiz that did the e drive on Bluenose that we used for testing.

Mike Mowell got a well deserved spirit prize. He certainly had supported Florian’s ride, and had also provided much support to U of T, but he had also provided parts and tools for numerous teams from the gear he brought in Garrie Hill’s van. All this in addition to the statistics that he provides to the HPV community.

Here are the guys with their new headgear. I am immensely proud of the whole team.

Full results here:

and a final list of riders ranked by speed.

Note that this list was the one used for the new seeding system, and excludes Glowworm and Big Nose Pete, both of which were not running on the last day.

Now off to bed, and a quick flight back to the real world tomorrow.

UPDATE:
this would appear to be the record run by Delft/Amsterdam
and Tom Amick took this great picture just as Velox3 crossed the end of the traps.