THE VENUE
PMG Technologies owns a large facility and several
tracks. The track we used, called Alpha, is 6.86 km in length and
is very level, the difference between the highest and lowest point
being 3.8 meters. The track is roughly oval, with the corners and both
straight-aways all being about 1.7 km long. The front straightway
has two very slight S-bends. The track surface is hard and has low
rolling resistance, although it was paved about 20 years ago and has some
cracks and repaired sections. The bumps were noticeable, but
we were able to find a path that missed most of the ones that would cause
speed loss, and PMG staff did some beautiful last-minute repair of the
very worst ones.
The sprint courses were set up on the back straightaway,
which is the smoothest section of the track, and has an average downgrade
of about 0.07%, dropping about 1.2 meters in 1700 meters. (This is
close to one tenth the allowable grade - the IHPVA rules allow a 0.67%
downgrade, or a drop of 11.3 meters in 1700 meters.) When Sam made
a sprint attempt, he would take one full lap of the track to get gradually
get up to about 70 kph, then would have over 2 km to accelerate to final
speed.
Normally, the weather in Blainville at the end of
July is perfect for HPV riding - daily high temperatures around 25C - 30C,
relative humidity below 50% and calm winds. However, July 1998 was
an exception (el Niño aftermath?). Temperatures were a little
colder than expected and the humidity was higher than normal, but it was
the wind that gave us a real scare. Every day the winds averaged
between 25 and 40 kph, and varied up and down in random cycles. Several
places on the course were gusty because of the surrounding terrain, and
as a result, the track was generally not rideable at all during the day.
On most days there was a window (of calm wind conditions) in the early
morning and just before sunset. The early morning window was very
unpredictable. Sometimes we would get up before dawn, and the wind
would already be howling. Sometimes we would get up, see calm conditions
and hurry to the track only to see the wind rise before we could even warm
up. We were at the track for 15 days, and were only able to take
advantage of the morning window once, for some of Sam's required sprint
backup runs. Paul had one morning 100 km record nullified by winds
over the legal limit. We also missed a couple of morning chances
due to bad luck and/or poor planning. In the evening, the winds would
usually calm down to within legal strength about 30 to 60 minutes before
sunset. Unfortunately, the temperature would also plummet (making
for more air resistance). But, in the end, we had five evening sessions,
four of which resulted in records with legal wind conditions.
The PMG Technologies facility is actually a proving
grounds and is not suitable for public-view events. All vehicular
movement is governed by a controller, and one must ask permission by radio
to enter a track, and inform the controller when leaving a track.
A small paved area and garage are adjacent to the entrance to the Alpha
track, where we were given some space for our operation. We have
discussed the future possibility of holding a small invitational event
on the Alpha track, and the track manager has agreed in principal.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to thank all our officials for their
time, patience and proficiency. Each venue presents unique problems
for officiating. To make attempts on eight records, we had six different
course arrangements which required planning and time to set up. The
officials were busy all day, every day, and in no way could the job have
been done any better! Pierre took three months out of his life prior
to our arrival to take care of all the thousands of details that needed
to be attended to. The record attempts would not have happened at
all without his help.
We would also like thank all the staff at PMG Technologies.
They were always friendly, helpful, and frequently went far beyond the
call of duty to accommodate our unusual and unfamiliar requests.
We hope that we have made a good name for the HPV community at PMG, and
that we will be welcome guests in the future.
The following chart summarizes our results.
At the date of writing (Aug. 26, 1998), none of these are official, but
all have been submitted for approval by the IHPVA. Existing records
are shown in parentheses. L: denotes low altitude, H: denotes high
altitude, FS denotes flying start, SS denotes standing start.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Varna Cycles/Georgi Georgiev
Site 54-13 RR 2
Gabriola, BC, Canada
V0R 1X0
604-247-8379
604-247-8911 FAX
Paul Buttemer: pbr@mars.ark.com
Sam Whittingham: whittingham@ii.ca