© 2010, Iron Butt Association, Chicago, Illinois Please respect our intellectual property rights. Do not distribute this
document, or portions therein, without the written permission of the Iron Butt Association.
2007 Iron Butt Rally, Day 4
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Two more riders are out. Don Wescott had a zero speed tip-over on his
K1200GT in Bath, Maine. It happened on one of those intersections where
a side road meets a slightly elevated highway, requiring the motorcycle
to be held at an awkward angle while waiting to enter the highway. Don
landed exactly wrong and suffered a third-degree shoulder separation.
He plans to limp home to Nova Scotia on the bike, hoping that he can
find people willing to help him remove his helmet when necessary; he can
no longer remove it himself.
Bill Wade is also out. He parked his R1200RT along the side of a
highly-crowned road and didn't pay enough attention to the road crown
when he got back on the bike and pulled away. He rode the bike right
into the ditch. The bike suffered only minor plastic damage, but Bill
was unable to get it out of the ditch by himself. He called a tow
truck. The tow truck driver was able to pull the bike out of the ditch,
but he pulled a front disk brake off the bike in the process.
Bill's plans for trailering his bike back to his home in New Jersey and
continuing from there with his other bike were vetoed by Rallymaster
Landry. When a rider switches bikes, the second bike must be ridden to
the location where the first bike died. So Bill rented a
Harley-Davidson Ultra-Glide in Manchester, New Hampshire. He called in
later to report that the Harley was running on one cylinder and would
only go 60 mph. He has decided to quit.
Jim Winterer reported that he avoided a DNF only because he wears Rocky
Eliminator boots. Jim, a trials rider, encountered high winds, dense
fog, and patches of ice while riding up and down Mount Washington in New
Hampshire. On the way down, at an estimated speed of 3 mph, he was
literally blown over by the wind. His foot was pinned under his Suzuki
DL650 and he could not get it free. He was pinned right in the middle
of the road in heavy fog, "trapped like a rat." He considered for a
moment whether he was going to have to hack his foot off with his Swiss
Army knife. Fortunately, he was able to reach the laces on his boot,
untie them, and wriggle his foot loose. He's banged up a bit but back
on the road.
The weather was beautiful yesterday on the Gaspe Peninsula, but riders
returning to St. Louis through the Chicago area were again getting beat
up by Mother Nature. David Smith was spying on riders at Buckingham
Fountain last night, a bonus he was responsible for scouting. He
observed riders Greg Marbach and Vance Keeney trying desperately to get
an acceptable photo of their rally flags in front of a dimly-illuminated
fountain. David says that Polaroid stock should be going up sharply
tomorrow.
David also reports that Chicago has been getting socked with bands of
storms producing tornadoes, intense lightning, high winds, and deluges
of rain that have knocked down trees and power lines all over town and
flooded and closed Interstate 94 for a few hours. He wrote, "If you
thought Chicago traffic was bad normally, try getting detoured off the
interstate and onto flooded side streets with no working traffic lights
as you're trying to get to bonuses with weird time restrictions while
riding in a blinding downpour. Classic Iron Butt Rally weather - how do
Mike and Lisa do it every time?"
Smith's weather report is consistent with a report received from Jeff
Earls from Chicago. Jeff said that the wind was so intense that he had
to take shelter in a car wash.
Eric Jewell called in while taking a leisurely boat ride. Some of the
riders may not realize that traveling on a ferry is equivalent to riding
down the road, except that you can sleep while riding a ferry (but you
can't claim a rest bonus because you are making progress). One of the
ferry rides available on this leg is from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia to
Portland, Maine. It's about a 200 mile ride, but the ferry is a fast
catamaran. You can bet Jim Owen knows about it.
Now that the window has closed for the first call-in bonus, it's safe to
provide a little bit more information on how the riders did. The
instructions for the bonus were simple. Here again is what was printed
in the bonus listing:
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Call-In Bonus - no specific location 2,000 points Available
August 22, 2007
Call 916-xxx-xxxx and leave the following information:
Your name, your rider number, your location (city/town and
state/province), the last bonus you scored, and the bonus you are headed
for. While it is not required for this bonus, if you have a quick story,
please leave it also!
Time: _____________ Odometer: _____________ Code: CI
Approved:____________
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * *
All the riders needed to report during the call was their name, rider
number, current location, last bonus scored, and next bonus they were
headed for. It took Kendall Anderson exactly 10 seconds to provide all
of the requested information (that was the shortest call). That's not
much time to have to spend for 2,000 points.
95 of our 97 riders did the call-in bonus. The two that didn't call in
were Tom Loftus, who quit, and Chip Hyde, who crashed on the way to
Goose Bay. Of the 95 that called in, 88 reported the information
requested. Seven riders screwed up. When they get to the scoring
table, they will learn that failing to report any one of the required
items is equivalent to leaving your flag out of a bonus photo.
Marty Leir failed to report his rider number. He doesn't get extra
credit for providing his odometer reading while rolling down the
highway.
Arlen Brunsvold, Jr. and Vance Keeney failed to report their current
location.
Joe DeRyke failed to report the last bonus he scored.
Don Wescott, Bill Wade, and Jim Winterer failed to report their next
bonus objective. One of the purposes of this bonus is to let the
Rallymaster know where to look for riders who are missing. "I don't
know where I'm going next" just didn't cut it for a description of "the
bonus you are headed for."
For Leg 2 and for future rallies, the instructions for the call-in bonus
are going to be changed slightly. There were a number of cases where
the last bonus or the next bonus was reported as "the rest bonus." We
are going to accept that for Leg 1 because it meets the letter of the
bonus instructions, but what we really wanted was location. From now
on, we are going to tell the riders to remember that what's important
for a call-in bonus is the same as what's important when it comes to
real estate: location, location, and location. We are going to ask for
the current location, the location of the last bonus, and the location
of the next bonus.
The other two things we want are name and rider number. We want both
for two reasons. First, the audio quality on some of the calls isn't
perfect and either the name or the rider number sometimes gets garbled.
Second, because this is an international competition, it's difficult to
understand some of the riders because of the language barrier,
especially those from Minnesota.
Friday is going to be a very busy day here at Rally Central. The
scorers meeting starts at 3:30 p.m., scoring starts at 4:00 p.m., the
checkpoint opens at 7:00 p.m. and closes at 9 p.m. We will try to get
the Leg 1 results tabulated as soon as possible and have results
available shortly after 9. I'm sure I will be up long after that
analyzing the routes of the top ten riders.
Tom Austin
August 23, 2007
Copyright (c) 2007, Iron Butt Rally, Inc., Chicago, IL
|
