August 27th, 2005
“You’re Stupidman!”
Today is race day at the Kona SITS 2005.
beer - and milk - cooler
Tim from Sideways has picked a prime spot by the side of the course where we can wait between laps and time our team changeovers perfectly. More importantly he’s brought the beer cooler. Our cool box just can’t compete. It takes two men to lift it into position by the side of the course. It is soon filled with a fine selection of lager, real ale, white wine for the ladies, and energy beer*.
As it’s a long day and night I keep my glasses on as long as possible. Tim’s kids have never seen me in glasses before. “How rubbish are glasses as a disguise?”, I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, Superman’s disguise is only a pair of glasses. If I put these on can you still tell it’s me?”
I swap glasses a couple times, each time saying out loud either “Clark Kent” or “Superman”.
I remove my glasses again.
“You’re stupidman!”, says Lily, aged 4. She’s got it about right.
The time to raceride comes at 2pm where I line up at the start with everyone else to do a cheeky lap. I’m wired up with a heart rate monitor to keep an eye on things and make sure I don’t push too hard. Even so I manage not to come last on lap 1. Bonkers.
cheeky lap
Tim
I have time before my lap to sneak out on course and take some photos. I catch Tim a mile from the finish.
“Zip up your shirt for your sponsor”, I shout. Tim reponds by wobbling all over the track as he does himself up before attempting a one handed wheelie and narrowly avoiding taking me out with his front wheel.
One of the RAF guys rides past just as a tractor flies overhead. A tractor with elliptical wings. It can be only one thing. A spitfire. My camera can just about zoom in enough to cath it’s unique shape. “Identify that plane,” I shout at the RAF guy. “I wish I could”, he shouts back. Mmm, if he can’t identify RAF planes maybe he should be in the USAF instead.
Spitfire
My first offical laps come just before sunset. A double lapper. As I go out on the last of these laps the 24 hour-Czechs run up offering me a beer. I turn it down. Fool!
About 3 miles before the finish someone turns the sundial to nuclear meltdown, and the ridgetop red clay field of golden stubble on my right captures mile long shadows of our suffering. It’s beautiful. I love the dusk and dawn laps when I’m soloing and I feel lucky to have caught one now. By the time I finish the lap some riders are already firing up their lights.
I work out that my next set of laps is going to be about 1 a.m. Time to enjoy some food and some beer before I set myself an alarm and doze trackside.
* except that we’re not allowed to call it an energy beer in the UK in case the ‘beer watchdog’ takes umbrage.
![[Valid RSS]](http://32sixteen.com/wp-content/themes/three_column/images/valid-rss.png "Validate my RSS feed")
del.icio.us
July 14th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
[...] Stupidman Racing the Burner [...]