SPANK-FJR Results

[beeroux]

Well folks, the 2005 Spank Rally is over.

FJR's did very well.

Skooter G, aka Greg "High Side" Marbach took second place, coming in a hefty 3K above third place. I was bummed out to have to deny him one big bonus as he took a pic of the wrong structure at Kitt Peak Nat'l Solar Observatory.

He would have won the rally. DOH!

Gun MD put in a great ride as well for his first rally, and only one FJR newbie DNF'd via a check point error. Bummer.

Anyways, we all had a blast, and no one was hurt. And trust me folks, they rode some pretty extreme stuff in pitch black freezing conditions.

I'm very proud of every single rider. Everyone rode hard, and I mean EVERYONE.

Average mileage was, get this, 1,357 miles. heh. Dem's my peeps fa SHO!

Thanks to all the riders and my volunteer Chuck Hickey for a very fun and satisfying weekend.

Good times.

GZ

 

[GunMD]

And here are my pictures of the finish area and the banquet.

The after-Spank

Spank participants: If you have pictures that you'd like posted feel free to email them to me and I'll post them.

Spanked AT ScottWright DOT net

 

[Ignacio]

And I didn't want to do any CSI detective work, but those butts are just so spankable at the end of the pictures here.

Congrats folks....especially to our admin. 2nd place is a whole lot more fun than wrecking I'm sure.

 

[vectervp1]

Hey now I feel just a bit left out... and I was going to do a nice write up about the rally and say how good of a job you did on it too! I finished 10th, and according the rallybastard could have finished 6th if I would have read ALL of the directions properly. :headbonk:

I'm starting to think that the first place finisher (bad with names, it was Mark or Mike) poisoned me during dinner the night before. A group of us went out to dinner the night before the rally and I was sitting next to him. Well, that night I woke up 3 times to pay homage to the porcelain goddess. If I would have gotten enough sleep, I could have bagged two more major bonuses, and been in the running for a top finish... that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

 

[GunMD]

Vectorvp1, at least you can't blame your latest electrical farkle that was completed in the middle of the night just hours before arriving at Spank. Then it would be all ScooterG's fault (he made you do it, right?).

:lol:

 

[vectervp1]

Nah, since the lights worked flawlessly, it was all my idea...

 

[wheatonFJR]

Congrats Spinny-head!!

 

[beeroux]

Sorry Art.

Your name omission was not intentional.

Yup, had you skipped Kingman, you coulda bagged 4 Corners no problem, then of course Zion would have had you on the podium for sure. As it was, you were on the Immodium Podium most of the night. <G>

Like I said, even with paperwork errors and bad route planning, EVERYBODY rode a good ride. There wasn't a single weenie there. That made me pretty happy as an RM.

Good job folks!

GZ

 

[sgoat]

Skooter,

Congrats on doings so well! We're anxiously awaiting your take on the rally. Quit bangin' your head against the wall and start typin'! Also a "well done" for all the other forum members. Way to go guys! :clap:

 

[ChrisW]

There wasn't a single weenie there.

What constitute's ([SIZE=8pt]speaking of imodium[/SIZE]) a weenie?

 

[beeroux]

What constitute's (speaking of imodium) a weenie?

Insert BMW joke here,

or

a weenie can be many things. Big talk-small miles, afraid of the dark, etc.

We had a few riders who were scared to death of the 1100 mile minimum, but they stepped up and rode much further. Thats what I meant. Overcoming fear to put on some serious mileage.

I'll say it again. I am DAMN proud of every Spank 2005 rider. Tremendous consistency and hard effort went into everybody's rides. There were no slackers in attendance.

GZ

 

[Toecutter]

Skooter,      Congrats on doings so well! We're anxiously awaiting your take on the rally. Quit bangin' your head against the wall and start typin'!

+1 on the kudo's. Now come clean with a rally report. Or are you still too saddle-sore to sit long enough? Let's hear some evaluation on the new saddle from a LD perspective as well.

Skooter G, aka Greg "High Side" Marbach took second place, coming in a hefty 3K above third place. I was bummed out to have to deny him one big bonus as he took a pic of the wrong structure at Kitt Peak Nat'l Solar Observatory.
He would have won the rally. DOH!

Everybody makes mistakes. But for one simple brain fart you did better than all the other participants. That should provide a bunch of optomism for the next outing. You gotta be like Eve's blood type, B-Positive, not mine, Oh Negative!

 

[GunMD]

Ok, here's my ride report:

The emotions of prepping for a first rally are pretty interesting…much like any competitive event, I suppose. The fact that this rally was run by someone who just competed in the IBR was a little intimidating. The fact that some of the participants are IBR vets, Cal 24 vets, and just overall LD “names” was intimidating, too. I did my best to put all of that aside and focus on proper preparation. I must have read the rally packet 15 times. I printed it, highlighted all of the items that I was required to have with me for the rally and checked it like it was a Christmas list.

Now, I’ve done a little bit of long distance riding before (SS1K, BBG, lots of 800-900 mile days) but nothing quite like a rally. There’s the pressure of thinking in addition to the pressure of “making it on time”. The difference is huge.

I didn’t plan my route the way you’re supposed to. I know, I know…mark ALL of the bonus locations on your map, step back and take it all in before you begin to plot your route. Yeah, yeah, I know. Well, I didn’t. I looked over all 22 pages of bonuses before I started plotting, and instantly ruled out a good number of them. Screw going to the L.A. area, too much traffic. Screw going four corners, I was just there and the ride didn’t appeal to me…oh, and that’s too far north for November. No electric clothing, so cold is a very bad idea. Hmmm….El Paso Texas, huh? That’s interesting. That’s a BBG even if it’s in a straight line there and back. I decided that I’d shoot for that one. I figured it would be lots of slab, and although slab is a bit boring, it’s easy. As a first time participant I was concerned about getting in over my head, and decided that “easy” was the way to ensure that I’d finish.

El Paso was a cool plan, I thought. But how boring is that? What kind of ride report would that be? Look there…some bonus stops that I’m VERY familiar with. After all, I have lived here in 29 Palms for over 12 years. I can pick off some of these bonuses while hauling ass down roads that I know and love. Piece of cake. So I plotted to make two stops in Joshua Tree National Park, then onto the Mecca Badlands (or Box Canyon Road, as I knew it), then south to Calexico for a quick stop. By then I’ll be close to I-8. I can hop on the slab, haul ass to highway 85 and hit Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, grab the bonus just east of there at the observatory between Sells and Tucson and then be well on my way to El Paso. After baggin’ the bonus in El Paso I’m all set for a total slab ride back to California where I’ll pick up highway 177 north to highway 62 (both roads I’m very confident on) and I’m right back home. Piece of cake, right?

Well let’s see where I can make a mistake…or three. First of all, remember that I admitted to not plotting all of the bonuses? Well, as I looked over the bonus pack I began to make assumptions. The assumption I was making was that if I hadn’t heard of a town in California, it must not be near where I live and ride all the time. “Niland, CA? Hmm…must be up north or something.” First mistake.

So, just after 8am and I’m off. I head into the National Park and bag the first two bonus stops. Piece of cake, but slower than I had hoped for. There was a little traffic in the park, not the least of which was a park ranger that I got stuck behind. No big deal, the day is young. And my next stop is Box Canyon Road…I LOVE that road. Very fast. I exit the JTNP on the south side at I-10, cross I-10 only to find that Box Canyon Road is closed. Blocked. Shutdown. Impassible. No way. Crap! Lost that bonus. (Had I been thinking, I would have taken a picture and explained the closure…would have likely been granted the bonus…I wasn’t thinking.) That was my second mistake.

Now I’m stuck getting onto I-10 west (that’s AWAY from El Paso, by the way) to pickup highway 86S. 86S takes me past the Salton Sea on the South/West side. It wasn’t until about 15 miles past the turnoff to the Northern / Eastern side of the Salton Sea where I realized “Hey, that sign for the North shore made reference to Niland, CA…why does that city sound so familiar to me?...Hmm…CRAP! That was a bonus! Oh well, probably only a couple hundred points anyway”. Yeah, right. Turns out that Niland was worth almost 2000 points. Mistake number three.

So I continued towards Calexico. After stopping in Brawley, CA for a gas fill and reviewing the requirements for the Calexico bonus, I was back on the road. Once in Calexico I was headed south on highway 111, per the instructions in the bonus pack. Let’s see, take a 3 mile ride on highway 98…that was to the east of 111. So I turn to the east. I’m looking for Hammers Rd. No problem. 3 miles. 3.5 miles. “WTF, George?” 4 miles. “Crap, I must have missed it.” U-turn. Back to 3.5 miles from 111. 3 miles from 111. “WTF?” So I stopped and check the bonus in the rally pack. Guess what? It was Calexico. It was highway 111. It was 3 miles on highway 98…but it wasn’t to the east…it was to the WEST! “Crap, I just screwed myself out of 20 minutes!” So I headed west and got the bonus. Finally.

Onto I-8. By this point I can’t wait to get out of California. The areas that I thought would help me do well in this rally have been the worst few hours in recent memory. Once I’m on I-8 traffic is moving well and I’m pleased with my progress…until a certain rally participant on a BMW (I know, I know…) passed me like I was standing still. “Crap, I really need to get a radar detector.”

During a gas stop in Dateland, AZ, the BMW rider pulled up. I said “Hey, I know I didn’t pass you…”

“No, I blew past this exit and then realized that I needed gas so I had to turn around and come back.”

“You going to Organ Pipe?” I asked.

“Yep.”

“Do you think we have time to make it?” (The bonus closed at 5pm MST.)

“We’ll have 10 or 15 minutes to spare if we haul ass” he told me.

I thought about it and decided what the hell…I can make it. He pulled out, and I followed. I followed, but only for a while. Twenty miles after we left the gas station in Dateland he was making some serious time on me. I just couldn’t find the confidence to push the bike must faster. I recently had a ticket and my license and my insurance just can’t afford another, so I was a little conservative. Just as I’m debating whether or not I should just whack the throttle and catch up to him, a county sheriff heads onto the interstate just ahead of me…and begins to travel at 76mph. That’s right folks; I followed this cop for twenty nine (29) miles at 76 miles per hour. The entire time I followed him, I kept replaying what the BMW rider had said to me in Dateland. “We can make it if we haul ass…” Somehow I don’t think one mile per hour over the posted speed limit is what he had in mind when he said “haul ass”.

I finally made it to Gila Bend and headed south on highway 85. There was more law enforcement on this road than I have ever seen anywhere in the world. Period. Hands down. The other riders that went to the Organ Pipe bonus can tell you…there must have been 50 law enforcement vehicles in about 100 miles of riding. Arizona Highway Patrol. County Sheriff. National Park Rangers. US Border Patrol. All of them were out in force and they were absolutely everywhere. Amazing.

Despite all of my setbacks (read, MISTAKES) I made it to the bonus at the visitor’s center of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Sweet, 2500 points, in the bag. Now it’s clearly too late in the day for the next bonus, which required a photo during daylight hours. By the time I got to the turn off it was dark. Very, very dark. And cold had begun to settle into the valleys. I headed towards Tucson already questioning whether or not I’d have time to make the El Paso bonus and still be back in 29 Palms in time to finish. After struggling to get through Tucson (lots of truck traffic) I stopped in Wilcox Arizona and checked my maps. It’s not looking good.

I called George for my required virtual checkpoint. Got that out of the way so I won’t DNF. I filled up and drank a green tea. Despite the green tea, I still couldn’t find the right math to convince myself that I could make it to El Paso and still be a finisher. “What the hell?” I thought. “I’ve got to finish this thing no matter what.” I would have rather finished dead last than done 1700 miles and DNF’d. So I made the painful decision to turn around and head west, for home.

I had plenty of time, now. So I stopped for a bite to eat which helped clear my head and helped me to focus…this was good, as I hadn’t realized how hungry I was during the time that I was so focused on El Paso. I even managed to catch about 20 minutes of sleep at a rest stop along the way and felt pretty good about my decision to stop short of El Paso.

I decided to pick up one last bonus in Hope, AZ. All I had to do was travel about 18 miles northeast of I-10 to the town of Hope, take a picture of a sign and head back to the interstate. That’s all. Nothing difficult, right? Nothing difficult IF you can find the damn sign. I did laps around this little tiny excuse for a town looking for the sign and couldn’t find it. At one point while conducting a U-turn (do you see a trend here?) I turned off my XM radio in order to focus entirely on the task at hand. Upon silencing the music in my helmet I thought I heard a siren. Sure enough, just as I completed my U-turn my mirrors filled with red and blue strobes and like a bat outta hell, an Arizona State Trooper flew past me. He came from nowhere. There was no traffic…no cars at all…on highway 60. I had traveled all the way from the interstate (18 miles, one way) and had seen not one other car the entire time. And now it would appear that I just took a leisurely stroll out in front of a State Trooper who was clearly traveling in excess of 100mph. If I had to guess, I’d say he was doing about 115mph. Scared the crap outta me.

So, after all of that you’d think I’d find the stupid sign, right? Hell, no. I drove the 18 miles back to I-10 feeling rather defeated.

And the rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. I took a very safe, very conservative pace back to highway 177, and then to highway 62, which lead me back to rally headquarters. I finished.

At around 3 am, if you would have asked me my opinion of 24 hour endurance rallies my answer just might have been “Screw rallies. Screw you for asking. I’m never doing this again.” By 8 am my answer would have been “It wasn’t bad, but I can’t see doing it again.” By Sunday evening my answer would have been “When’s the next rally? That was fun.”

It was fun. Fun, challenging, and rewarding. And you know what? I think that even if I would have DNF’d, I would have had fun. The people you meet really make a difference, too. Everyone is there for the same reason. To have fun. I got my fair share of sarcastic ridicule, but it was all in good fun. I can’t wait to do it all again.

:agent:

 

[SkooterG]

Great write-up Scott!

Hey, you did pretty good on the rally..................for a freaking jarhead!

And at least you didn't have negative points like one un-lucky participant.

To everyone, thanks for the congrats, and am working on a write-up that I will hopefully find time to finish.

And Scott......................

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's your sign..........

Kind of appropriate considering your rally. Hee hee. :haha:

(Much easier to find in the daylight!)

 

[GunMD]

Nice sign. Perhaps I was blinded by that state trooper's bright lights.

Turns out that a couple of others where there just a bit before me (in the dark) and had no problem finding it. I can't imagine why I couldn't find it...oh well. Next time.

:blink:

 

[tel]

This was my first rally. I had a great time, but screwed up big time and was a DNF. Nobody to blame but myself, I simply hadn't read the rules close enough.

It was an incredible experience that I would urge all to try. The adrenaline keeps you awake and there's so much to think about that the miles and hours just fly by. And of course you get to meet a bunch of really great people.

I set off about 12 minutes past 8 and was just pumped to be riding. I headed east on 62, my plan was to collect a bonus north-west of Blyth, then in Hope, AZ, before heading to Organ Pipe NM for a big bonus and Kitts Observatory for an even bigger one.

On my way to the first bonus I remembered there was a bonus at the General Patton museum, a few miles in the wrong direction on I10 - my first mistake, turned out to be 45+ miles, for a miserable 213 points. On the way to the 1000 point bonus north of Blyth I started to calculate time and realized I needed to move it if I was going to make the Kitts Observatory bonus (3000+ points) before dark. From Blyth to the Midland ghost town + the stop for pictures took close to an hour. Wow! time was racing by.

From there I headed to Hope, AZ, for a 400+ bonus. I even managed a digital pic for my own records, but that turned out to be a major distraction and a really major stupidity. See later.

I started to wind it up even more and reached Organ Pipe by about 3pm. My GPS said the Park was just past the border patrol and lead me up a dirt road. Another mistake, after only a quarter mile I was hitting soft sand and I just couldn't believe this was the right way. The FJR is not a great dirt bike! Nearly dropped it turning around, as I headed back to talk to the border patrol. "Twenty miles further" damn :angry: I was doing fine, time-wise, up to that point. I reckoned the sun was going to set by 5pm (that's CA time) but headed on.

I saw a couple of other riders heading back when I was about 5 miles from the visitor center and the lady at the center said there had been 4 riders already. As I was packing up to leave, 3 more riders turned up, got their stamps and left before I'd even got my helmet back on. :bleh:

Good news though, I saw two more riders heading down to the visitors center on my way out. Ha Ha!! beat you guys The sun was going down and I really had to haul ass to get to the observatory.

This is what I saw on my arrival.

Road closed!! :erm: Every one was taking pics of their "flags" on the fence. Heh! I'm the newbie, whatever. Here is where things took a really bad turn for me. My "flag" wasn't in my top box, even though I searched for it three times. :angry: It took me a while to realize that I must have left it on the fence in Hope. OMG was I mad with myself. 250 miles and I hadn't even thought about it. You have no idea how mad I was inside, what a dipwad!

One of the other guys took a picture of me by the fence, which he said should work and I headed off to Prescott for an easy fuel bonus.

Now comes my fatal error. I had to call in to HQ between 7 and 9pm and speak to the RM. Well yours truly just left a voice message thinking that will do. All the way from the gas stop south of Phoenix to Prescott I was thinking if I should call in again, but oh no, not me, I didn't want to stop, don't bother me, I'm riding. But I did call in after 9 while getting gas in Prescott and George told me about my error and I was out, sorry! no cigar, you're toast, you're out, bye bye, asta-lavista baby!

What a damn f#*k-wit I am. All I had to do was call in! for Christ-sake!

At that point it was lucky I wasn't carrying!

Anyway my goose was cooked and I headed back to Base camp, stopping at Hope to retrieve my "flag". I arrived at about 3am. I had time to reflect on my ride back and eventhough I screwed up I was happy with a number of things. Firstly I wasn't that tired and didn't think it would have been too difficult to carry on until 8am. My neck and back, which give me a lot of grief were fine, the only pain was my rear-end (gotta do something about that). I hadn't ridden like a knob (no scary moments.) No tickets! That's a plus. And of course the FJR was flawless. :clap:

I want to do it again. That says it all. George did an amazing job, the bonus locations were really well thought out. All the people I met were terrific.

I'll be back

tel

 

[GunMD]

The image of that damn sign is going to haunt me... :headbonk:

 

[SkooterG]

Good story tel. It was a pleasure seeing you there. You do get better at these things.

What totally kills me is that not only was I the first to Organ Pipe visitor's center, but I made it to Kitt Peak while the road was still open.

Sooooooooooooooo...............

I actually did the 24 miles round trip to the summit of Kitt Peak unlike allyou wusses . Almost all twisty roads - fun, but sloooow. And then, I took a photo of the highest and biggest of the several telescopes to get my points, right?

But nooooooooooooooooooooo.............

Rally-m-f'ing-bastard Georgie Peorgie tells me I took a picture of the wrong telescope, so NO points. Zero, nada, zilch!

Even though all you wusses got the points and didn't even go to the top!

But I am not bitter or anything........... :lol:

Yes, these damned rallies are quite addictive.

 

[tel]

Skoot

Good to see you again - and way-to-go on your ride. Gotta believe that you are probably even madder than I was with my achievement, on the missed bonus. Still, you proved you can win and I'll bet you will very soon. :clap:

GunMD

Wow! so interesting to read your report. I felt so many of the same feelings. You gotta get a radar detector, way too many CHP out there. Scary! Least you finished It was great to meet you and hope to see you at another event soon.

tel