Tombstone reviewAugust 11 2006 at 7:58 PM |
Rev. Eddie James | |
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The first leg of BL IIII is over, and after all of the scoring smoke had cleared, the typical ButtLite range of responses came out. Much cheering. Much hand clapping. Much bewilderment amongst the staff, scorers and spectators who—for various reasons—were left scratching their collective heads and saying “huh?”. The good: As event followers may recall, I believed that a solid first leg score would put riders squarely into the 7000+ point range. It’s a great combination of being well placed point-wise, but having enough left in reserve to take on the next leg (when point values would surely go higher, right). No less than 25 riders either didn’t hear, didn’t care, or didn’t get the message from rally central and proceeded to absolutely blow the rally master out of competition on the first leg. When the smoke had cleared, John Tomsavitch and David Derrick stood together at the top of the scoring pile--with a total of 8958 points. In a word: jeezus! Other riders with membership in the 8,000 points club comprise an odd mixture of well-knowns and the up-and-comers that the ButtLite Rally is so well known for introducing to the LD community. Newcomer Alexander Schmidt site is tied for 2nd place (on his first multi day event) with an absolutely stellar run of 8727 points. Peter Behm is the other rider in the 2nd place position. Longtime IronButt Rally competitor Jim Winterer is addressing the eternal question (“what would Jim do if he had a real bike under him?”) and is currently in 3rd place with 8394. There is a stunning group of fierce competitors all bunched together at 8318 points: Greg Hutsal Mike Allen Eric Jewell Rick Miller Mike Hutsal Wes McCann Every TeamStrange staffer that partook in our predict-the-winners-before-the-rally pool selected at least 3 of these riders in their top 5. An overall win by any of these heroes would surprise no one. Rounding out the 8K club were 8212 points---Tom Loftus 8134 points---Gregg Burger 8053 points---Jim and Donna Phillips The list of remaining riders over 7500 points comprise a large part of our “list of best unknown riders” in the LD community. Watch these folks as the rally progresses. Ron Hanson Carrie Hanson Chris Berg Chris Whitmore Paul Sundet John Frick John Coons Fred Drogemueller Mike Phelps Dave Bordeaux Tom Skemp Expect to see many of these folks in the final top 10 standings. With every ButtLite (and most every multi-day event, we’d wager) riders step up, make huge statements with their 1st leg rides, then fade back into the pack when their elevated ride levels simply cannot be maintained. Who has it in them to come out on leg 2 swinging for the fences? I’ll not speculate on that, but can tell you this: as of the 10:45pm departure of the staff van from the hotel parking lot (a full 2 hours 45 minutes after the riders received their leg 2 routesheets) not a single one of the lead riders mentioned above had left the hotel. Were they all planning their routes? Did they need more sleep? I have no idea but it was noticeable that on the next leg of the rally (where the points were going up) no one was leaving and getting on their way. hmmmm The bad: Minnesota native Mike Senty has long been a top rider on many events (and was picked by this writer as one of my top 10 riders in the aforementioned TS staff pool). As Mike and everyone else at the riders meeting knows, one of the requirements of being scored involves turning all of your route sheet paperwork in at the scoring table to start the scoring process. It’s a simple, clearly spelled-out to the riders equation—missing paperwork = no score. Mike had everything going for him—he had the receipts. He had the photos; he had the fuel log from an absolutely incredible ride across several states. He also had the eyes of everyone around the scoring table on him as the process began. “Paperwork?” began well-known IBA Staffer, LOE Rally master and TS scorer Ira Agins. “Right here” said Mike as he began handing over the materials. Suddenly everything stopped. Something was missing. “Oh, no” Mike said “I left some of it on my bike and…..” his voice trailed off. He knew what the result would be….. Everyone watching knew it. Ouch. The Ugly Star-Traxx. It’s is TS’s opinion that this unit is one of the worst things to affect rallies in quite awhile. What started out as ostensibly a way to keep your close family and friends informed of a riders whereabouts has turned into a potentially horrific way of letting anyone who needs to see their “name up in lights” show their riding style to the entire world. The initial problem arises when the rider chooses to ride like an idiot. We had such a case in a 2005 TeamStrange event. The rider chose to make public the information that he was speeding every hour but one of the event, and not a simple 5 or 10 over. We’re talking 55+ in a 30 zone down city streets. 90+ in a 55 zone. That kind of stuff. We couldn’t allow it, and the rider was gone. If I can indulge in a few seconds of soapbox time, I’ll point out my belief that is the most potentially detrimental thing to come along in our sport in years. The first time a Star-Traxx person has a catastrophic, at fault accident that injures another person, we’ll all suffer. Does anyone believe that members of the various community mail lists won’t contact the injured party telling them how to confirm that riders speeds (not everyone on a mail list is your friend, remember). Does anyone think that the Star-Traxx folks won’t give up the information about YOU when subpoenaed? It’s all downhill after that folks. You can bet that the rider, the event rally master, and anyone else peripherally involved will likely get invited to this lawsuit. The TeamStrange solution to the scenario is straightforward: If you want to have a Star-Traxx type of unit for use by your family and friends, that’s ok If you feel that you need one to get your name up in lights to get attention from the community, that’s a no-go here. More than a few riders were surprised to hear at the Tombstone checkpoint that they had two options: make the Star-Traxx readings private, or drop out of the event. Every rider chose to disconnect their hardware until they could get it sorted out. We applaud their understanding of this scenario. That’s all for now. Tune in tomorrow for the leg 2 bonus review. Rev. Eddie |
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