Rider meetings at 4:00am are always interesting. Sometimes they are rote, with the handing out of the next leg bonus list and coordinates being the main focus, along with posting the standings from the just-completed leg. Sometimes, riders are reminded in no uncertain terms that what the staff has been seeing or what has been reported is unacceptable behavior on this rally. The rider meeting at Checkpoint 1 was one…
Your scribe got behind on writing, partially due to being summoned to help with scoring to alleviate the backlog of riders arriving near the start of the penalty point window. Only one rider was in the penalty window, which was a minor miracle, given how far out some of the riders on the east side of the country were just a few hours earlier. The scores and bonuses each rider…
Chris Comly is well known for successfully riding his FrankenSporster in the IBR, against all odds. He is back for 2023 and his prep for this rally was reportedly similar to his prior adventures. The bike was apart, scattered all over the garage, just before the start of the rally. Of course, Chris got it all back together and ready to ride on time. However, he sent the pictures you…
Herakles Boardman is the youngest rider in the rally. He has an aux fuel tank on his Yamaha 9 triple and somewhere along Leg 1, the too-thin aluminum plate it was mounted on cracked at all four mounting points. He applied JB Weld epoxy to hold it until the checkpoint. When he showed the condition of the mount to your scribe, Herakles said he was already lining up a welder…
Robert Long won a no-draw entry into the IBR by winning the Senior Butt Rally, paired with Lionel Ramos. Robert had a rough Leg 1. He was the rider we reported on earlier who went down on wet trolley tracks in Cincinnati. He told me the massive white Victory bounced back up after going down and spitting him off and it continued rolling down the street on its own. Note…
Dennis Bitner and John Ferber rode from Pittsburgh to the photo bonus at a mural in Coffeyville, KS. They were waiting on the riders to arrive and sign in by 15:00. However, riders who arrived later would not be allowed in the photo and would not collect the photo bonus. There were 68 flags in the photo bonus. It was not far from Checkpoint 1 in Tulsa, so it made…
Call-in messages during this leg, as usual, range from concise to Caleigh. “This is Bruce Edwards,a writer or nine.Outside of Green Bay, Wisconsin.I last honest, M O N.Next, honest, W I M AYou.” – Bruce Edwards “Good morning Stan top runner or 56, My Location as Paycheck Arizona. Last score was pressed to date next subheading for. Have also been Denver.” – Daniel Duvall “This is Keith, under dollars or…
As the rally staff was preparing to transfer Rally Central from the Start hotel in Pittsburgh to the Checkpoint 1 hotel in Tulsa, we received news that the power was out for over 200,000 people in the Tulsa area. A couple of days prior, a storm front packing 100 mph winds blew through Tulsa, resulting in widespread devastation. The outage area included the Checkpoint 1 hotel and without electricity, they…
One of the more disturbing auto-transcribed messages among the Leg 1 call-ins included this, from Caleigh and Jon Kerr: “And we just helped April kill.” It turns out this was NOT a mistake. At a convenience story in AL, the very friendly, sociable women working there were dealing with hornets or some other type of wasp. Jon jumped in to wield a broom against the fearsome fliers. Kerri Miller, like…