Some of the Team Revolution members were concerned with things like bike maintenance, and nutrition. Some were there to peddle. I was there to capture the event, as best I could. Everyone had a job.
But one job, one critical job, suffered the most stress leading up to start time. The job of getting all the entry and qualification paperwork in order. That job fell to Sandi as Crew Chief.
(She’s the serious looking one with the binder)
Not surprisingly, it’s a complicated job. There are stamps involved. Lots, and lots of stamps. There are inspection stamps for almost everything: Vehicle readiness, vehicle signage, vehicle function, bikes, bike maintenance, crew, media crew, liability paperwork, contact information, paperwork about the paperwork, and stamps showing you got all the correct stamps.
Inspections went pretty smoothly. One would be tempted to say that we were home free.
One would be wrong.
Apparently, we were missing the helmet inspection forms. All of them.
Sandi had handed them to the inspector. He had inspected the helmets. We all thought she’d gotten them back. In point of fact, she HADN’T. Blame it on the rush of the day…
This all came out at the final “once over”. While rifling through the BINDER (did I mention the binder?), our final inspector couldn’t find the helmet inspection forms. He looked several times.
Nada.
So then comes the rush to find the inspector…
(Insert Yakety Sax Here)
Taylor ran to the parking lot where we had last seen the inspector. She spoke with the officials there. They didn’t know exactly where our inspector was, but they suspected he was back at the admin building she had just left. After handing off newly procured forms with the hope that she could get them to the (now mysteriously absent) inspector, back down to the pier went Taylor.
On arriving there, she inquires if anyone has seen this guy. She’s told the inspector wasn’t to be found and, “have you tried the parking lot”?
Back outside, and contemplating the climb to the street level for the second time, Taylor ran into the inspection partner of our specific inspector. He mentioned that he’d seen the guy, and that he had gone down the beach to get something to eat.
So she waits.
Waiting payed off. He showed. But NOW she had no forms.
Taylor beats feet BACK to the admin table, gets more forms, gets them SIGNED by the very apologetic and accomodating inspector, and returns.
This was the result:
Stamps.
mofro 