I'm biased to be sure, but SPANK would be..and is my choice. Zelenz's genius manifested itself in 2005 in a way that turned what normally would be a rally about time and distance and added this third...and maybe a fourth dimension that one needed a Cray supercomputer to crunch through permutations. Add on top of that the fact some were doing a lap around the permiter of 4 corner states while some were zigzagging through the middle was a fun concept too.
To run across three other riders in Animas, NM at midnight, figure out that George's tag on the back side of a road sign from weeks earlier had been painted over, but we could still make out "Set Phasers to SPANK!", then wonder how he got high enough to paint it (which he then told the story in vivid detail months later)
And then all of us do the Funky Chicken under the stars together...and present George a Polaroid because we luckily had been together..... Priceless!
Then his rally in a rally idea was just cool. I actually considered going to watch a movie while I sat for six hours in Los Alamos.
Then to have seen nooks and crannies of our country that I would never, ever seen was just icing on the cake.
I finished mid field...so nothing to right home about on personal performance, but then to see Owen actually figure out a path that exceeded the ralllymaster's own ideal route in points...more genius. As a result my game is better too.
With that I'm both excited and a bit nervous about 2007.
Finally, I think I got my best motorcycle picture so far from that particular rally. Morning after a monsoon of the WORST rain I have ever experienced. The kind of flash flood rain and lightning that actually makes you think about finding higher ground!
