John and Sandy Lazdins' ferret, the AUSSIE SPEEDSTER is phenomenal.  Imagine
that: only 12.7 seconds to traverse 60 feet (inside a 90 mm pipe).
Man-o-man, was that ferret moving, I'll say.  Whooieee !  His little feets
must've been just a blur.
 
But, if you take that 12.7 second time over a distance of 60 feet, wellllll,
that computes to a speed of 3.2207 miles per hour, to my way of figuring.
 
If the world remembers, our announcement of the ferret Benjamin's speed was
3.856 miles per hour, a land speed record for sure, recorded in Seattle,
Washington, August 31st '97, at the biggest and best Ferret Frolics/Ferret
Olympics in the world.
 
Tsk, tsk . . . looks like the Aussies come in second place to the Amerikaner
ferret by 0.6353 miles per hour.
 
Altogether now maytes, for the Aussie ferret,  Hip, Hip . . . Hooray!  Hip,
Hip . . . Hooray! and Hip, Hip . . . Hooray! (Followed by caps thrown into
the air and wild applause.)
 
However, there is the question of endurance here that should be considered;
after all, the Aussie critter did his thing over 60 feet, whereas Benjamin's
traverse was only 12 feet.  We shall always wonder: could Benji have kept up
his pace over an additional 48 feet?  Alas, we shall never know.  But
there's next year's ferret olympics the last Sundays of June and August.
Maybe Benji will surpass his record of year 1997.
 
I have a question about that 60 feet of 90 mm (2 mm larger than the infamous
German 88 mm of WW II) drain pipe.  Was it on level ground?  How was the
ferret encouraged to run at top speed (?) through the entire length of the
60 feet?  Perhaps the length and diameter of the pipe is awsome for the
ferret, and if a squeeker is sounded at the exit end, that squeeking is
resoundingly amplified by the time it reaches the ferret's ears at the other
end, the input end.  Yes, we'd sure like to know how you got your ferret to
run all that long length of pipe, at apparently top speed.  Please tell us
in some detail, so we may  possibly duplicate the effort here in
Frettchenvergnuegen Land.
 
Since, in all likelihood, nobody else will do it, let me claim now and
forever more, Ferrets NorthWest FNW, in cooperation with owner Greg Olthoff,
has produced the WORLD'S FASTEST ferret, a WORLD CHAMPION both in the water
(1.741 mph) and on the land (3.856 mph).
 
WE ARE NUMBER ONE!  WE ARE THE BEST OF THE BEST!  NOBODY'S FERRET IS BETTER!
 
        Most humbly submitted, Sir Edward Frettchenvergnuegen Lipinski, Der
                  Ueber-Frettchenlustbarkeitsfuehrer von NordAmerika!
                  (Please note: Sir Edward has been promoted.)
[Posted in FML issue 2114]