WHPSC Battle Mountain 2024

[Mr Larrington]

Dear me wot a palaver eh!  Trying to get Gnomeland Security to accept:

• My former employer's former phone number¹, and
• My grate frend Al's phone number

was an exercise in novel Bad Swears.  However, I triumphed and thus it can be deduced that I have at least applied for an ESTA that I might once more visit Naughty Nevada for high-speed lying-down fun and frolics.  They'd better give me one coz I've already ponied up for the flight and car.

1 - although I think the company has ceased to exist following the Penguin/Random Shack merger, the building in which they resided turned back into a pumpkin and the phone disconnected.  Next time I'll just answer "No".

[Mr Larrington]

Clearing out some Teetering Piles of Crap™ this morning I found my notebook from the 2004 event!

[Cudzoziemiec]

That must by now be a holy relic.

[fd3]

Hands up who saw "2004" and thought that was recent?

[Mr Larrington]

In the absence this year of:

• My grate frend Arnold, and
• Any properly qualified volunteer

I appear to have enlisted myself as Chief Catherd Starter.  Prepare for chaos, terror and bikes setting off in the wrong direction.

[Kim]

At least it doesn't involve  a) anbaric string  or  b) spreadsheets  which as regular readers of Ctrl-Alt-Del will know is a whole other level of chaos and terror...

[Mr Larrington]

I think it may involve both of the aforementioned, and quite possibly a – whisper it – fondleslab APP as well.  The starter produces the start order, natch, and may have to produce actual hard copy versions thereof.  And Arnold has been spotted fondling a slab on the start line.

Eeep!

[Kim]

The one time I attempted to set bikes off in order determined by a fondleslab there was, well, chaos and terror.

[Mr Larrington]

We generally only have four per session so how hard can it be

[barakta]

Well BHPCers can't count to 4...

[Kim]

Well BHPCers can't count to 4...

Trufax.  Although we had slightly more success after I delivered a pre-race briefing from the Book of Armaments.

Anyway, these aren't regular BHPCers, they're super-organised Battle Mountain types.

[barakta]

The Battle Mountaineers tend to be the more organised end of the BHPC and others given the costs and logistics of getting selves and HPVs to ThatAmerica.

[fd3]

Well BHPCers can't count to 4...

Is that a mod3 thing?

[Kim]

Well BHPCers can't count to 4...

Is that a mod3 thing?

It's a "Organise a 4-lap race and enough of the field will be so terrible at arithmetic that they race each other for 5 laps then dispute the recorded finish order" thing.   

[Mr Larrington]

Me: Andy, how many fingers am I holding up?

A Pegg: Thursday!

[Mr Larrington]

As has been suspected for a week or two now Al'n'Alice Krause are jacking in the running of the event after this year after taking over in 2006, overseeing 16.5 events and facilitating more new records than anyone except Statto Mowett can count.  Hopefully some brave soul will take up the cause if only because I know of at least three, if not four, teams from BRITAIN alone who are scheming new machines for 2025.

Eeep!

* In 2010 Alice suffered a bizarre gardening accident shortly before the event so the actual cat-herding on the ground fell to a shadowy cabal of volunteers.

[barakta]

Impressive run for organisers of any event. I hope new lead organisers can feel able to step up and have plenty of volunteers to support them.

[Mr Larrington]

A journo from, of all publications, The Economist has just expressed an interest in covering this year’s event

[fd3]

Did you suggest they might want to check out the worlds while they're at it?

[Mr Larrington]

Oddly enough, no.

[Mr Larrington]

So I had a FB message at a hour of this morning that suggests insomnia on the part of Mr Organisator Al telling me that former Toronto Uni rider, 80 mph hat holder and all-round Good Egg Calvin Moes has volunteered for the job of Chief Starter.  This is fine by me since all I've ever done at the start is tit about with a camera and call Frank Lem rude names while Calvin has extensive experience of being one of Cats that require Herding.  Fortunately I had not yet started “designing” the start list spreadsheet

[Mr Larrington]

Emboldened by the news in the above post and by the arrival of an e-mail from the lovely folks at BRITISH Airways I started printing Stuffs today, and discovered that the Shiny Metal Birb to San Francisco does not depart at lunchtime, no, it goes at ten past bloody ten in the ack emma, meaning either an audax o'clock start or giving money to the robdogs of Heathrow Express.

Careful analysis of Mr Zuckerberg’s Walled Garden reveals that Hans and Ellen van Vugt are already in-country, as is their long-awaited new machine.  Oily bits by Hans, æro by the aforementioned Calvin Moes.  On the minus side, not only is Cobus Burger unable to compete this year because Work*, but some horrible git stole his Shelby Mustang recently 

Professor Sir Admiral Viscount Timelord Jun Nogami has doned a blog post featuring known runners and riders so I shall post a link to it rather than duplicate his efforts: https://jnyyz.wordpress.com/2024/08/26/whpsc-2024-preview/

* IIRC he’s a commercial pilot and thus prone to being rescheduled at no notice

[Mr Larrington]

Currently sitting around at LHR T5 waiting for The Man to tell me where the Shiny Metal Birb is parked.  The opening instalment of Ye 2024 Automatick Diary will be posted tonight PDT so should be available for having toast crumbs dropped on it by noble BRITONS tomorrow morning in the Realm of King Charlie.

Ah, Gate C63. Time to board the clockwork train to Over There <<<

[Beardy]

Bon voyage as the French say.

[ElyDave]

I shall follow you leftpondiawards on Saturday, bon voyageee