Run Eight
“audentes Fortuna iuvat” – “Fortune favors the bold”
Day three, Monday, last run. The wind was 5 mph, and toward the end of the course the flags were pointing directly at the start. A 5-mph headwind is 5-mph slower speed.
I stayed far left on the course to stay out of the salt that was chewed up by the powerful cars. I didn’t feel much wheelspin until mile 4 ½. It was a good run, but we didn’t learn much. I topped out at 188.63 at mile 4.
The crew was building faith in my riding ability. I was taking the bike to the max each run and I was very consistent. I was doing my part. We weren’t short because of me and they knew that now.
When I was home weeks earlier, I had some anxiety about whether I could ride this bike so fast – what it would feel like and how scary it would be. While I did my best to not think about fear or failure, some remained through the first six runs or so. But I had stayed present, learned from each experience, and it wasn’t so scary anymore. Fear is something we manufacture – most often unnecessarily. That is to say, it doesn’t help. It just causes suffering in advance, and hurts our ability to perform. Controlling what is going on in our own head is our first challenge.
There was no line to run again, but we decided to go work on the bike for tomorrow instead. We were topped out at 188, four runs in a row.
I thought we could possibly break 200 mph early the next morning and here’s why –
1) The salt is hard and faster in the morning. The cool night air stiffens it up and there is better traction and no wheel spin.
2) Hopefully in the morning there would be no headwind. If we get lucky there will be a tailwind but we hadn’t seen that since we got here.
3) We bought C12 race gas, at $30 a gallon. The extra octane should help.
4) We put the good tire from the white bike on the red bike, and lowered the air pressure to 20 psi.
5) We put a new chain on to get the rear wheel closer in.
The salt and wind were the number one and two factors I thought. I just have to do what I have already done as a rider and I’d have it, I thought.
Tuesday morning came – Run #9. This was it. We had to leave here today to go to the Vegas to Reno off-road race, and the first run in the morning would be our best chance. I was excitedly optimistic.
The track opened for the record breakers late, about 7:45, and they took a long time. In my mind I was saying “come on, come on, hurry!” I didn’t want the sun to hit that salt and soften it up. Clouds helped block some of the rising sun. Temperature 74 degrees. A slight tailwind faded to a 6-mph quartering crosswind. Dang!
I got off the line at 9:10 am and shifted through the gears up to fifth, where I remained. The salt dissolved from a fast-moving conveyor belt to a blur under me. I watched the tach and tucked as tight as I could. I was very far right on the course. So far that at the three-mile mark I looked up and saw the “3” sign go by me, just five feet away, at nearly 200 mph. No time for adrenaline to be released. The danger of blowing through the 4’ square sign was here and over in a flash. I leaned a touch toward the center of the course and watched the digital, GPS driven speedometer.
I saw 198, 199, then 200! But it was very brief and dropped back down to 199, then 198. I tucked as tight as I could to try to get it back. My butt was all the way back to the speed hump and my helmet was in hard contact with the gas tank. It went up to 200 again, then dropped to 199. Then to 200 again, then dropped again. I had to average 200 mph over a measured mile.
I got my timing slip on the way back to the start line with great anticipation. Maybe I had done it. The slip showed 199.45 at mile 4, and 199.31 at mile 5. So close! OMG!
We immediately got back in line and decided to shift to 6th gear this time. I was optimistic. We only needed ½ a mph!
I could taste it…