Battle Mountain - Day 2

The morning session is all about Thomas' qualifying run. The weather is good and he really wants to set a decent time. He succeeds with a speed of 96.2 km/h. This means we can sleep in the rest of the week. David and Jan-Marcel put their names on the list for the evening runs.

Immediately after the riders meeting, the show-and-tell begins. The local school pupils are coming to show their drawings, look at the bikes and gather autographs. Is is always a pleasant, but also a very busy affair. David is on the list for the first evening session, Jan-Marcel will the last one in the last session. After the lunch that follows on the show-and-tell we go swiftly back to the hotel. We want to get some power naps before we have to ride again.

Thomas en David had not seen the starting list yet, and go downstairs to have a look at it. Then it turns out that the list that was passed round in the civic center is different from this one. David isn't on the list anymore. They ask Chris Broome what is happening. He answers that there are faster riders who want to participate in the evening runs; end of discussion. This shakes up our plans for the day. This means that David and Thomas will have to make a morning run to show that they really are fast enough to be able to participate in the evening runs. The planned power naps are shortened and we leave for the track in a bit of a hurry.

Jan-Marcel has a nice warm-up ride and the rest of the team gets back into their usual relaxed state. The preparations at the track are calmly and efficiently. The set-back from earlier has not been forgotten, but we all realize that spending more energy on it is useless at this moment. Jan-Marcels ride is nicely executed with a speed of 121.6 km/h. He mentions afterwards: "I did give a lot, but I did not go all the way. I'm not feeling completely fit as yet; the day was too hectic for the preparation to be as good as can be."

During the riders meeting we ask how many starting lists will be used next time. We are told that there will be only one from now on. We really hope so, because we cannot plan properly with changing starting lists. We go to the Chinese restaurant again for dinner. Rob Hitchcock is willing to aid the team tomorrow morning, so Jan-Marcel does not have to get up early with the rest of the team, when David, Thomas and Frans will go to the track again.