Friday June 11th; Bike scrutineering, Finke race track Alice Springs.

A casual morning of doing stuff around Alice
and prepping for the race.

Race start line, rider Roy and team manager Fiona

Morning coffee/brunch with the race team members at the Water Tank café and a quick browse at the nearby Desert dwellers camp shop just in case we needed more kit for the sleep out at Apatula.

We had managed to score a 1pm Acupuncture appointment for Roy’s numb hand (after practice runs). The acupuncturist turned him into a pin cushion head to toe for his numb hand, but it had a good effect. Good tip from team member Linda to see this man in Alice Springs who was giving her acupuncture for her knee.

Pre race acupuncture

At that stage we pretty much went directly to the track for Scrutineering. Arrive around 2.30 with the bike and safety gear to be at the head of the queue for a 4pm start and we had pole position, with Rich and his bike in 2nd. The queue behind us built up quickly and we took turns scouting out the activities around the track. We were hoping that the merchandise shop might open before 4pm but no, they stuck to time.

Pole position for the team bikes at scrutineering!

When scrutineering opened at 4 we were through in no time as they relied on self scrutineering and were only checking about 1 in 7 bikes. The queue moved through much more rapidly than previous years.

As soon as we were through scrutineering and had parked the bikes and attached the transponders we headed up to the merchandise area where we joined what we thought was a lengthy queue. That was ok as there was really not much else to do and the bikes had to stay in place until 9pm...another 5 hours😥

The public comes in after scrutineering and it gets very crowded!

Bikes lined up ready for racing and to impress the spectators.

The length of the queue for merchandise behind us grew very long and we inched forwards. Finally getting in to spend our money. The others took advantage of the lack of queue at the coffee cart in the meantime. We decided wisely to have an early dinner before the queues grew and we had burgers which were ok. Later on the queue (for anything) was hours long.

Killing time in the merchandise queue before it got long!

Basically we killed time 'til nearly 9pm, the rest of the team went 'home' early as there was no point in them staying on. Around quarter to 9 we took the bike and joined a line of other bikes escaping. Getting out of the car park took nearly an hour, which was frustrating, so it was well after 10pm, when we got back to the cabin, exhausted after a long day. 

A lot of bikes and cars waiting to go home to rest for tomorrow's race!

Certainly worth thinking about this part of the procedures as expecting competitors to stay for a late night when they have to race next morning is a big ask.