Drag race

The drag races were fun and exhausting. This year, we ran them in double-elimination format, meaning that everyone would race at least twice. After a first qualification round, the faster riders would be paired off for eliminations, while the slower riders would pair off against each other for their eliminations. After several elimination rounds, the fastest of the two groups met again for the title of Top Eliminator.

Placings were determined by how far the racers advanced in the eliminations. If several racers were eliminated inthe same round, the faster racers were placed higher.

Naturally this is easier to explain than to administer. People were switching vehicles, different category vehicles were racing, some riders were just plain too exhausted to make additional runs. We were hand-timing the runs, also- the HPVA timing equipment was short on the wire needed to time drag races.

Nevertheless, the action was exciting throughout. Tim Brummer made excellent starts throughout, consistently beating his competition off the line. Michael Wolfe was very fast and consistent, also, despite his complaints that his M5 lowracer wasn't set up for drag racing. His quarter-final race with Michael Havlik had to be run twice- their first run was a video-verified dead heat. Sima Traylor has a lot of guts, too- she did a couple runs facing backwards on their back-to-back tandem.

Zach Kaplan was defeated by Joe Kochanowski in the qualifications, but then made consistent, fast runs all through his eliminations, eventually meeting upright-riding Michael Havlik in the finals. Michael was justifiably tired from his extra round. When the dust had cleared, Zach had upheld the recumbent rider's honor by a little more than a second.

The only major mechanical failure of the meet happened during the drag races. William Martin's upright chopper suffered a broken fork in the first round, sending him into the pavement. He quickly got up and walked away (and drove back to Los Angeles after the meet), but required surgery to repair a torn-up elbow. His last email indicated that he's going to start on building a recumbent for next year, so he seems to be doing OK. Bill, we're pulling for you.

Here's how the trees worked out:

Here's the final accounting:

Number	Category	Name	final drag race place	final drag race place in category
318/9nw	Stock	Zach	1	1
333nw	Stock	Michael	2	2
322nw	Stock	Tim	3	3
220nw	Super-Stock	Shawn	4	1
301nw	Stock	Michael	5	4
306nw	Stock	Joe	6	5
304nw	Stock	Lonnie	7	6
106nw	Super-Street	John	8	2
201nw	Super-Stock	Todd	9	2
310nw	Stock	Rick	10	7
309nw	Stock	Tad	11	8
317nw	Stock	Michael	12	9
302nw	Stock	Keith	13	10
305nw	Stock	Tom	14	11
119Wnw	Super-Street	Edna	15	1
217Jnw	Super-Stock	Noah	16	1
219nw	Super-Stock	Terry	17	3
315Jnw	Stock	Alex	18	12
211nw	Super-Stock	David	19	4
701Tnw	Stock	Tom & Sima	20	1
501Jnw	Stock	Eli	21	1
214nw	Super-Stock	Robert	22	5
115nw	Super-Street	Gary	23	3
4nw	Streamliner	Steve	24	1
218Wnw	Super-Stock	Laura	25	1
502Jnw	Stock	Alexa	26	2
213nw	Super-Stock	William	27	6